The Gunslinger45's top 12 Biggest Film Disappointments

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I was really sharpening my pitchfork when I saw Fight Club
Fight Club is overrated, I honestly believe. It is another Meryl Streep. I like it, it's great, I understand the appeal, I was surprised I even liked it when I saw it, but I think the movie could have been better.



4. Shaun of the Dead

Now here is a controversial pick. I had heard about this flick when I was in college and I heard it was supposed to be really funny. And on paper it looked like something I would really enjoy. Zombies are in it? I was sold. I was HUGE into zombies in college and was and still am a raging fan of the George A Romero Of the Dead movies. British humor? Hell yes! I love me some Monty Python and Black Adder. So mixing the two should be a match made in heaven right? Not really.

The biggest problem I had with the film is very simple so I will say it bluntly. I did not laugh. I might have chuckled once or twice. But I didn't laugh. And for a movie billed as a comedy that is going to kill the movie for me. I just didn’t find it funny and I love a lot of horror comedies. Tremors, Troma flicks, Evil Dead 2 and Army of Darkness; these movies blend horror and comedy together extremely well. And in those movies I laughed. Now I expected Shaun of the Dead to be more comedy then horror with nods to zombie movies. Like how Young Frankenstein did to old Universal horror movies. That movie was hilarious! So why did this fall short? Now I rewatched it to try and see if it would get better with a second viewing. And it didn’t. I just did not laugh.

I thought for a while that the biggest issue was that zombies could not be funny. But that was proved not true when I saw Zombieland in the theaters. Not only was Zombieland one of the funniest movies I ever saw it is one of my all time favorite movies. So maybe I just don’t think Edgar Wright is funny? That theory went down the crapper too when I saw Hot Fuzz. I think Hot Fuzz is funny as hell! I laughed and laughed hard! It was funny, witty, with clever gags and word play! So why did Shaun of the Dead fall flat? It is not exactly bad and there was some thought to the joke set ups, but ultimately the jokes seemed weak.

Now with the other films on this list I can really articulate why I can’t connect or they were disappointing. From unable to connecting with themes and concepts like with 8 ½, massive spoilers with Fight Club and Oldboy, to over blown hype like with other flicks. This one I just don’t have an explanation other then I did not laugh. And why I did not laugh remains the biggest mystery to me for the reasons stated above. So other than that MoFo’s I got nothing.



Not a favorite or anything but I do like Shaun of the Dead. I need to still get to Hot Fuzz.
Dude! You haven't seen Hot Fuzz?!?!?



I thought Shaun of the Dead was okay. Probably not something I'll revisit, but I didn't really have any expectations of it going in.



Welcome to the human race...
You won't get any argument from me over the Pirates sequels.

Machete...also kind of the same, but I feel like I could go into detail. Rodriguez used to be one of my favourite filmmakers but I outgrew his stuff hard right around the time that Machete came out. I kind of think of him as the action movie equivalent of Kevin Smith - started off strong with some surprisingly competent early work and was willing to broaden his horizons for better (Dogma/Sin City) or worse (Spy Kids/Jersey Girl, though I can't totally hate them given their light 'n' fluffy nature) but they eventually settled into these ruts of sorts where they're not putting out good stuff (though I can concede that Smith is at least trying something different with his recent forays into horror instead of Rodriguez recycling Sin City or Machete).

As for your remarks about the political aspect of it all, I think it at least makes some sense considering how much it's supposed to be a homage to grindhouse exploitation fare trying (and failing) to get a semblance of depth going as a sort of excuse for the action. A film like Coffy is an excuse to see Pam Grier kick ass for 90 minutes but it's still based off the sort of real-world drug problems that plagued the black community at the time (and it's significant enough that Black Dynamite was willing to reference it). Machete is sort of the same since it's those issues that do actually inform the plot to a degree and I'd argue that the goofy handling is at least somewhat intentional (or at least not that big a concern). I'm not expecting the movie where a guy uses guts as a rappel cord to be especially capable of delivering nuanced political commentary, but Rodriguez doesn't do nuance. I just accept as part of his fundamentally flawed approach to action movies.

Shaun of the Dead, on the other hand...yeah, fair enough. I can't tell you to laugh at it any more than you can tell me to laugh at Zombieland (which would make my biggest disappointments list).
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Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0



Common ground of Pirates sequels. Not unexpected.

On Machete: I agree old exploitation movies could get political, but this was way more high handed. And lets just leave Alba out of... well everything.

Zombieland: Okay now you are just being a contrarian.



3. Prometheus

The summer of 2012 for me was defined by hype. This was the year The Avengers was making its way to theaters and that was amazing. It was also the same year Ridley Scott was returning to the world of science fiction in a pseudo prequel to Alien. Now I have been a fan of the series since I was a kid. Alien is a fantastic sci-fi horror flick and I rank Aliens as one of the best and damn near perfect action movies ever made. And Ridley’s return made me all the more hyped up to see the flick. A ticket in hand, a drink and popcorn from the concession stand, and a cushioned seat beneath my Irish American ass, I was ready for another return to Ridley Scott sci-fi. But what I got instead was among the more painfully disappointing theater experiences I ever had. This movie you could most certainly put in the bad movie column for me. Now I did not hate the movie by any stretch of the imagination. I did not think this was complete betrayal, sell out pandering, or even complete crap that made me furious; but the movie was just so piss poor and lack luster the word disappointment is the only way I can describe it.

Gone were the confined and claustrophobic settings of the Nostromo and we get a bunch of wide open spaces outside of the crashed alien space craft, there is no tension to the film, way too many characters of whom I just don’t give a damn about, and poorer writing. I can’t even enjoy it as an action movie because nothing in this film will ever hold a candle to Aliens. And worst of all we have some parts of the flick that were just never explained. The biggest of which was the main character Elizabeth Shaw who apparently was supposed to have an arc about her faith. She is a Christian in the film, and the presence of the alien Engineers suggests that their existence would contradict the concept of the Earth being created by God and man in the image of God. Set up for a very controversial but compelling character arc. Problem is after this set up they skip over showing any character growth or even plot points concerning faith vs science and at the end of the movie Shaw just confirms that she believes in God more than ever. WHY?!?!? Look I’m a good Catholic churchgoer; I want to know why she keeps the faith, but the flick never explains it. She just goes through out the movie and then at the end just says that she is still a Christian. EXPLAIN MOVIE! It is not a show don’t tell issue, they skipped showing and told telling to go f**k itself! Another jarring and perplexing part of the flick was when she confronts an Engineer and asks it something to the effect of why it hated or was angry at man. A question that came right the f**k out of left field. It was like the film cut out parts of the flick that might have explained a few things. It felt like it was pieced together is a sloppy editing job. It just did not make any sense.

Finally why did this have to be a pseudo sequel? They say it takes place in the Alien universe, but why did they have to change so many details about the universe? Namely the aliens! Outside of a few pseudo face huggers and one pseudo xenomorph at the very end of the movie there was a distinct lack of aliens in the movie. Why set it in the world of Alien without the bloody aliens? You had the kinda sort of facehuggers on the same kind of ship that the Nostromo encountered on LV 426. Why did they need to redesign the facehugger? Why did the kinda xenomorph need to look different? Why change their looks when the engineers ship and look was the same as in Alien? It felt like they had mixed feelings about it being an Alien movie. Combine that with the missing explanations I spoke of and I left the theater confused and very disappointed.



Fight Club is overrated, I honestly believe. It is another Meryl Streep. I like it, it's great, I understand the appeal, I was surprised I even liked it when I saw it, but I think the movie could have been better.
I really have no idea how it could be better. Even the author of the original novel Chuck Palahniuk said that the movie was better than his own book. I also read the book and agree, the book is great of course but the movie is just that good.



Welcome to the human race...
I really have no idea how it could be better. Even the author of the original novel Chuck Palahniuk said that the movie was better than his own book. I also read the book and agree, the book is great of course but the movie is just that good.
The main flaw I observe with the movie these days is that it does too good a job of making Tyler Durden and his anti-consumerist rhetoric sound appealing, which does make it too easy to take the character at face value even when he starts forming fascistic terrorist cells, thus undermining the story's greater point.



2. Alien vs Predator

As much of a disappointment Prometheus was, nothing Alien related compares to the let down that was Alien vs Predator. Everything on this list was a letdown, but this one took years in the making.

Now I have been a fan of the Alien and Predator franchises since I was a kid. Me and my brother have seen the movies. I loved Alien and Aliens, I adored Predator, I loved Predator 2, me and my brother had action figures for both movies, we had the Alien vs Predator video game for Super Nintendo, and most importantly we had a stack of Alien vs Predator novels and an even bigger stack of Dark Horse Comic AvP trade paperbacks. Hell we even had the complete trades for Batman vs Predator and parts of Superman vs Aliens. Me and my brother were fans. And even in the earliest days of the internet there was a rumor of a movie for Alien vs Predator. Between this movie and Freddy vs Jason, these two cross over flicks had been in pre-production hell since I remember being in elementary school. So it had to have been damn near a decade between me and my brother first hearing about this movie and actually seeing it on screen. Needless to say the cards were already stacked against them. They would have to pull off a miracle to get a good movie to even live up to half the flick me and my brother expected to receive. And what we got was disappointment.

Now of the chief criticisms of the flick by many was that that it was PG-13. Long gone were the days of yore when rated R movies were advertised to kids by toy companies. Now movie have to be PG-13 to market to pre-teens. But that was actually not a big concern for me. Now I would be pissed at a PG-13 Alien or Predator solo movie since said extraterrestrials would be hunting down and killing scores of humans. That means seeing people killed in mass on screen. But when the main draw to the movie is seeing aliens and predators fight the PG-13 rating is not really a death sentence. These are non humans with none red blood. You can get away with a lot more sci-fi violence then you can in say a slasher flick so long as the body count is not human. And I can’t say a rated R Alien vs Predator movie would have made it good, since I saw the AVP sequel Requiem and that movie was downright abysmal.

But what I can be pissed at was the botching or ignoring of many good Alien vs Predator stories that I had already read in the comics; namely Machiko Noguchi. Her story was how she fought aliens alongside predators during a botched hunt and earns the respect of “Broken Tusk." So much so Broken Tusk snaps off an alien finger and uses the alien's acid blood to form the mark of his clan on her forehead. Allowing her to go off and join the predator race as a hunter. That was such a great story and led to another great one in Alien vs Predator: War. Now they kinda use some of the plot for this movie and even nod the marking scene at the end of the flick. But why set it in Antarctica? Why did they need the unneeded human drama? Why could they not stick closer to an already awesome story? Why get Paul WS Anderson to direct?

Needless to say I was bummed. The comics were just so much better and the flick could never live up to what I had read so many years prior. It was just not worth the 10 year wait.



Yeah that one sucked, though AVP:R was a bigger disappointment for me. At the time, wee lad me was like "it's rated R this time! Gonna be so cool!" and then it turned out to be crap.



1. Quentin Tarantino


Now you can get your pitchforks ready people!

Quentin Tarantino. What am I going to do with you beside not watch your movies? To me Quentin Tarantino is the cinematic equivalent of Communism. On paper, sounds like a great idea but in practice leads to broken hopes and dreams and piles of dead bodies. But at least in QT’s flicks they just die in the movie world.

Okay ham fisted metaphor aside, I am just not a fan. Tarantino himself tops my list of film disappointments because in all honesty, he should be one of my favorite directors. He makes violent movies, many of them with themes of crime or revenge, has a similar love for exploitation flicks, likes to use modern music to create memorable scenes like Scorsese has done, has been known to incorporate dark humor, and has an unquestionable passion for film and filmmaking that I really like. Hell his list of favorite movies includes multiple films in my top 25 or flicks I just really like! And yet his films and me just have this giant disconnect.

It is not like Tarantino just made one movie to make me not like his style. I have tried to like his flicks. My first introduction to him as a filmmaker was when I was about 13 years old. Which you would think would a great age to see one of his movies. And Lord knows I grew up watching tons of violent movies. It was around this time he released Reservoir Dogs. Easily one of his most famous and popular works… and at 13 years old I fell asleep during the movie. Bored me to tears.

So I did not like Reservoir Dogs. That is fine. After all it was just one movie. The biggest disappointment came when me and my brother tried to rent Pulp Fiction. Remember when I said in my The Crow segment there was a 4th movie I was forbidden to rent? Pulp Fiction was that final movie. So for about 3 years or so I waited thinking this flick was going to blow me away. I mean it had to right? There had to be SOME reason that I was not allowed to see it. And I had heard so many other people say how great the movie was. And finally me and my brother rented it when he turned 18. He really liked it. I was very disappointed. It was just… average. I liked the part in the Pawn Shop, but everything else was just not appealing.

My biggest issue after seeing 6 of his films is that I feel I just can’t connect with his trademark hyper stylized dialogue. And that is one of the biggest things his rabid fan base claim to be best about his movies. They love his dialogue. I just don’t care for it. And as a teenager I was getting into dialogue heavy films in a big bad way. Clerks was among my favorite movies and I was learning to really dig older less action oriented movies. And despite all of this, Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs were just flat.

Now I continued to try and find something Tarantino did that I would like. Or at least be good. I tried Kill Bill, Kill Bill 2, and Death Proof (part of the Grindhouse double feature in cinemas). But outside of a few scenes here or there I was just not impressed. His films were just one meh after another. Because for me, Tarantino writes certain scenes very well; but just not the whole of the film. Now when I do find myself liking something Tarantino is attached to is when he acts as producer to a Robert Rodriguez movie. Then again I think Rodriguez is the better director. The final Tarantino directed film I saw was Inglorious Bastards. And I flat out HATED the movie. Over long, draw out, over inflated, and in desperate need of an editor. Not to mention the title characters The Bastards are barely in the film, but are the center piece for the advertisements. What is he paying homage this time? Michael Bay’s Transformer movies?

But the final nail in the coffin for me was years later. Even after Inglorious Bastards, I wanted to give Tarantino one last try. And I did so by trying to rewatch Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. Maybe a rewatch would help. There have been plenty of movies I have rewatched that I ended up really liking. It worked for Blade Runner and Apocalypse Now. Hell it worked for Taxi Driver! So just a few years ago when I was still in the Army I sat down and watched both movies over again. And each time it was the same thing. Average. Meh. I just do not connect to these movies at all. It was then I finally just gave up on Tarantino. The guy is just not for me. Lord Knows I gave him more than his share of chances.



Are you angry at some of my picks? I bet people are. Why do I do it? To be a troll? To poke the bear? No. I do it because these films are the true biggest disappointments I have ever experienced.

But I am not cruel. I offer you hope. I offer you something to look forward to. I offer you revenge.



Tune in soon. Because what comes next within the next few weeks will be:

My Top 12 Movies I like, YOU will Probably Hate!


See ya then!