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 OldMate wrote:
Jurassic World. The plot did not make any sense, the characters were unlikeable, and they were obsessed with(and seemed to have doubled down this opinion for the next movie) of using dinosaurs in war(which to my mind is a comically bad idea(unless you're expecting a nuclear holoclast and want to use the dinosaurs*after* humanity is reduced to the stone age)), the big bad genetcially modified and mislabeled dino was just a gigantasurus with a skin condition and camouflage abilities. And AT rocket proof plot armour apparently as it shrugs off a direct hit from what seems to be an AT4. Maybe its quill things are ERA?
*Dino nerd rant*
Indomitus Rex? I was expecting something more than an ugly carcharodontosaur that has been mislabeled as a cross between Tyrannosaurus and Velociraptor. I mean both animals are at very different ends of the therapod spectrum. They're both specialist hunters in their own way, it's like crossing an A10 warthog with an F16. It's going to make an abomination.

Did they hit it with the AT4? I thought they didn't. I was supremely disappointed with the "ambush" they used on it, not using their firepower efficiently at all.

The idea of combat dinos isn't a *bad* one. IMHO the Raptor and the Raptor Mk2 whatever it was is too big, you're needing something the size of a dog to do a dog's work. But something as lethal as Deinonychus could work.

Personally i think something more closer to *actual* velocoraptor sized could be handy, (about turkey sized(might be better to scale it up to large dog size? For that bit more mass and stopping power?), but you know, armed to the 9s with tooth and claw). Its feathery coat would also make the creature more suitable for deployment in cooler climates.
And yeah use them like working/attack dogs.

I’ve always found the various “bio weapon” concepts used in films rather strange; there are plenty of deadly animals already on Earth and you don’t see armies roaming around with packs of lions or similar.

Yeah, dogs work, and have worked perfectly fine for millenia.

Really any film that is either a remake or based on a book/book series tends to disapoint. there are some exceptions but...

examples:

The last 3 star wars retconning the extended universe along with bad acting etc.

The Hobbit trilogy

Mulan/Aladdin live action remakes

Mortal Engines (I really enjoyed this series when it was first released)

the latest Ghostbusters reboot

etc.


Also now that I have seen the Snyder cut Justice League, the original cut looks reallly bad.

 Easy E wrote:
Jupiter Acending

In theory, it has all the parts it needs to be good. Yet, somehow.... it fails. Worse, it fails in a boring way.

My favorite review of this movie is that the only interesting thing about it is that Sean Bean is still alive at the end.

It's a really bad movie. It plays itself like it's a epic, but it feels like really bad YA fiction complete with a cringy romance plot and a very stale main character running on miraculous contrivance.

How would you rate it compared to Chronicles of Riddick?

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
How would you rate it compared to Chronicles of Riddick?

gak that's a hard one...I'd rate Riddick as better but I find the character of Riddick interesting and have a level of investment in it that makes the comparison very biased for me so I don't think I can fairly compare them. In my bias though, Chronicles of Riddick is a 5/10 movie and Jupiter Ascending is maybe a 3/10. Jupiter Ascending suffers a lot from trying to tell a very complicated story in a very small amount of time and largely failing to actually get anything across but confusion and 'what now?'

Chronicles of Riddick is a movie I enjoy for the weirdness and for the production values. I’m not sure the plot makes sense or I like the characters, but I find myself really drawn into the experience of it. It’s ...different, and that makes it fun.

From the ads and reviews I’m hoping Jupiter Ascending might also be enjoyable for being different. But I’m also worried it might just really be bad.

The Losers

I hated that movie after watching, having been hyped for it for no reason at all.

 Jadenim wrote:
I’ve always found the various “bio weapon” concepts used in films rather strange; there are plenty of deadly animals already on Earth and you don’t see armies roaming around with packs of lions or similar.

Mostly because those animals don't respond to training as well as dogs. Dogs love to do what their handlers and training have taught them to do. Cats don't give a frag. Even big ones.

There has been some success training dolphins, birds can be taught very specific tasks.

Another small-medium sized game animal with the intelligence of dogs/dolphins and the ability to be trained but with the lethality of a movie Raptor? It would make a decent weapon. Maybe not the Tora Bora but the tunnels in Vietnam? Even doing things that dogs can't. It isn't that far fetched as a plot device.

Kayback wrote:

 Jadenim wrote:
I’ve always found the various “bio weapon” concepts used in films rather strange; there are plenty of deadly animals already on Earth and you don’t see armies roaming around with packs of lions or similar.

Mostly because those animals don't respond to training as well as dogs. Dogs love to do what their handlers and training have taught them to do. Cats don't give a frag. Even big ones.

There has been some success training dolphins, birds can be taught very specific tasks.

Another small-medium sized game animal with the intelligence of dogs/dolphins and the ability to be trained but with the lethality of a movie Raptor? It would make a decent weapon. Maybe not the Tora Bora but the tunnels in Vietnam? Even doing things that dogs can't. It isn't that far fetched as a plot device.

It also feeds into that "man fiddled where he aught naught" trope, combined with some old fashioned For Science!

I've seen alot of bad movies, but what always springs to mind when the topic comes up is Anchorman 2.

I loved the first one and my wife and I still quote it often. However, has any sequel ever tried so hard to improve on every gag from the first film and failed every freakin' time?

Ugh.

 Eilif wrote:
I've seen alot of bad movies, but what always springs to mind when the topic comes up is Anchorman 2.

I loved the first one and my wife and I still quote it often. However, has any sequel ever tried so hard to improve on every gag from the first film and failed every freakin' time?

Ugh.

Kick-ass 2? The first one is deliberately edgy/provocative, but does it with charm and humour. The second one is just nasty and uncomfortable.

Scott Pilgrim vs The World.

Heard nothing but good things about it. Watched it and hated it. It somehow felt incredibly smug about itself.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Scott Pilgrim vs The World.

Heard nothing but good things about it. Watched it and hated it. It somehow felt incredibly smug about itself.

This one is one of my favorites but I completely understand how you came away with that opinion. It's literally a movie about a bunch of gakky people learning to be slightly less gakky. In the graphic novels, they become real function human adults, in the movie... Less so.

Mostly sequels I think..

Terminator 3. Terminator 2 was one of my favourite films of all time and it came at a formative time of my life. My friends and I literally wore out VCR tapes where we had watched it so many times. Honestly think as I left the cinema I was so utterly depressed, and actually found the film so bad that it had damaged my enjoyment of the second one.

Matrix 2 & 3 - They have their moments, but again saw the first film 6 times in the cinema, got my expectations up way to high and nothing was ever going to match the original.

Aliens Vs. Predator - to be fair probably disappointment is the wrong term as I think most people had a fairly good idea this was going to be gak and had read the 1-star reviews, but still impressive that it essentially sank two franchises in a single film.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:Scott Pilgrim vs The World.

Heard nothing but good things about it. Watched it and hated it. It somehow felt incredibly smug about itself.

I watched it quite recently. Thought it was quite good fun, and wished I had seen it when I was a teenager as I'm sure it would have been my favourite film ever at that age.

LordofHats wrote:

 Easy E wrote:
Jupiter Acending

In theory, it has all the parts it needs to be good. Yet, somehow.... it fails. Worse, it fails in a boring way.

My favorite review of this movie is that the only interesting thing about it is that Sean Bean is still alive at the end.

It's a really bad movie. It plays itself like it's a epic, but it feels like really bad YA fiction complete with a cringy romance plot and a very stale main character running on miraculous contrivance.

Haha that's a good one about Sean Bean.. Yes I agree, think it was more the disappointment that it could have been something really special and was not.

Yeah. Like a lot of overstuffed movies, it might have been good as a TV series or something. There were ideas there, they just didn't have any time to develop any of them.

I just watched Breach last night, with Bruce Willis, and what I saw before I literally fell asleep was one of the crappier movies I have seen in a while. Jesus, it actually had badly animated grey muzzle flashes on the guns, for God's sake.

I couldn't make it through that one. It's just cliche and bland.

I woke up as the big monster was chasing them, but then just gave up and turned it off. If I want a good (modern-made) "chase on a spaceship", I'll watch Pandorum again.

Discounting some straight-to-video stuff - like Ecks versus Sever (although some is a guilty pleasure) the most disappointing I saw at the cinema was Avatar. Risible plot and the much exalted special effects were of no consequence.

Avatar sure seems to divide people (they either love it or hate it).. I'm in the other camp and will say that was was possibly one of my favourite film 'experiences' ever. The 3D effects were spectacular - certainly the most effective use of 3D in a film; I saw it in full IMAX and it absolutely blew me away - combined with the orchestral score when they were soaring through the floating mountains, it puts the hairs up on my arms thinking about it even now. I think probably Gravity was the only thing I have seen which comes close, in terms of its ability to make an audience laugh or groan as the perspective shifts to you looking down from a great height.
Any film where people stumble out of the cinema afterwards, grinning like idiots, I think has done something right and so as a producer of entertainment James Cameron absolutely knocked it out of the park in that regard.

I agree the plot was quite cliched (and I think, for a lot of people that were sensitive and against it's message it's a good enough reason to dislike it) but in my own simple way it tugged at the heart strings and its just a wonderful piece of entertainment.
I love also that James Cameron was powerful and influential enough in Hollywood to say "OK I need a couple of hundred million $, this film is going to be on the drawing board for 10 years, it will need technology that hasn't been developed yet, and its about giant blue aliens" and 20th Century Fox just handed him the money and left him to it.

I'm actually as excited about Avatar 2 to see what the new technology/underwater scenes will bring, as I am about the film itself (as these kinds of sequels usually can only tread the path of the original and invariably disappoint).

MarkNorfolk wrote:
Discounting some straight-to-video stuff - like Ecks versus Sever (although some is a guilty pleasure) the most disappointing I saw at the cinema was Avatar. Risible plot and the much exalted special effects were of no consequence.

and it kicked off that whole 3d being jammed into everything despite it having likely the best 3d which only managed to be not terrible ( Toy Story 3 and Tron got close too but i dimly recall it being reliant on contrast so animation is easier)

 Pacific wrote:
Avatar sure seems to divide people (they either love it or hate it).. I'm in the other camp and will say that was was possibly one of my favourite film 'experiences' ever. The 3D effects were spectacular - certainly the most effective use of 3D in a film; I saw it in full IMAX and it absolutely blew me away - combined with the orchestral score when they were soaring through the floating mountains, it puts the hairs up on my arms thinking about it even now. I think probably Gravity was the only thing I have seen which comes close, in terms of its ability to make an audience laugh or groan as the perspective shifts to you looking down from a great height.
Any film where people stumble out of the cinema afterwards, grinning like idiots, I think has done something right and so as a producer of entertainment James Cameron absolutely knocked it out of the park in that regard.

I agree the plot was quite cliched (and I think, for a lot of people that were sensitive and against it's message it's a good enough reason to dislike it) but in my own simple way it tugged at the heart strings and its just a wonderful piece of entertainment.
I love also that James Cameron was powerful and influential enough in Hollywood to say "OK I need a couple of hundred million $, this film is going to be on the drawing board for 10 years, it will need technology that hasn't been developed yet, and its about giant blue aliens" and 20th Century Fox just handed him the money and left him to it.

I'm actually as excited about Avatar 2 to see what the new technology/underwater scenes will bring, as I am about the film itself (as these kinds of sequels usually can only tread the path of the original and invariably disappoint).

I have a completely difference experience with Avatar, as I don't know any people who actually hate it. Guys that consider it mediocre sure, but I won't say it's something that really divide people, like a Tarantino's movie. Gravity is another movie that I've always thought it's widely considered good at least.

I liked it a lot, but I can't stand wearing 3D glasses and after my first watch at the theatre I wasn't impressed, I was too unconfortable to properly enjoy it. I've watched it on TV another 5-6 times and absolutely loved it, I'll definitely watch it again.

To me of the worst movies I've ever seen was Tenet. I love Nolan, watched all of his works, and that was the first and only movie that I watched in 2020 thanks to covid, so expectations were pretty high. But it was really terrible, on any possible level: plot, acting, visual effects... it's still the last movie I watched at the theatre, almost an year ago now.

 Blackie wrote:
I have a completely difference experience with Avatar, as I don't know any people who actually hate it. Guys that consider it mediocre sure, but I won't say it's something that really divide people, like a Tarantino's movie.

Agree. It was an excellent movie experience for me in spite of it being live action Fern Gully. A movie can be trite and still be enjoyable. I've seen lots of reviews dismissing Avatar as not being great but I don't think I've seen many (outside of the usual rage-bait nonsense) where people are saying it is actively bad.

 Blackie wrote:
To me of the worst movies I've ever seen was Tenet

I found Tenet to be just on the acceptable side of the good/bad divide, but it was a close thing. I don't think it's a bad movie but I have no idea why anyone would love it for the reasons you mention as well as it has some horrendous crimes to cinema (mumble mumble mumble, quick back and forth cuts between shots for no reason, mumble mumble, for the love of god fix the audio!).

I don't mean the reviews of Avatar saying it was actively bad (I don't think there were many - it's showing 82% both for critics and fans on Rotten Tomatoes) - just that the film seemed to provoke either massive fanboyism or almost seething hatred.
I remember people deliberately having blue-faced profile pictures on Facebook of themselves, who were in turn then dubbed 'Avatards' by people mocking them

Tenet was one of those films that was wonderfully filmed, amazing effects, soundtrack etc. but it gave me nosebleeds for about two weeks afterwards. I think I would need to watch it a few more times to try and see if it's understandable or if it was just me.. found the sound balance appalling too, you could barely hear the dialogue and I was constantly turning the volume up and down to hear people talking then getting my ears popped in the next action sequence.

Us, by Jordan Peele.

I'd heard a lot of good things, the acting was really excellent, and the first half (?) was intriguing ...... then as it progessed, and more was revealed, the whole thing descended into a downward spiral of improbable nonsense. Nothing wrong with a film with an underlying message, but this was all MESSAGE with the barest veneer of a story.

At least I didn't experienced the sound issue with Tenet, as in theatres here foreign movies are dubbed, and all dialogues were pretty clear. I prefer to watch movies in their original languages though and I've been actually tempted to give Tenet a second chance but now to discover that it suffers even from another (major) issue is simply too much .


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 harlokin wrote:
Us, by Jordan Peele.

I'd heard a lot of good things, the acting was really excellent, and the first half (?) was intriguing ...... then as it progessed, and more was revealed, the whole thing descended into a downward spiral of improbable nonsense. Nothing wrong with a film with an underlying message, but this was all MESSAGE with the barest veneer of a story.

That was also another really bad one, indeed.

MarkNorfolk wrote:
Discounting some straight-to-video stuff - like Ecks versus Sever (although some is a guilty pleasure) the most disappointing I saw at the cinema was Avatar. Risible plot and the much exalted special effects were of no consequence.

Sadly, Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever was not straight to video. It had a theatrical release..... I saw it.