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R. Dittmar
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
420 Posts |
 Posted - 09/20/2005 : 9:45:10 PM
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As a counterpoint to the most under-rated and over-rated movie discussions below, I wonder about the opinions of the minions as to the most badly botched movies of all time. Which movie in your estimation could have been a truly well-regarded film were it not for a host of extremely poor decisions that preceeded its appearance on screen?
The movie that lead me to ponder this question is the disastrous Will Smith outing Wild Wild West. I'm am perversely fascinated by this film because even though any rational moviegoer will agree to its badness that same moviegoer can't help but see hints that a truly entertaining movie could have been hewed from the raw timber available. The original premise of the TV series is fantastic. Kevin Kline is perfectly cast as Artemus Gordon. Kenneth Branaugh's hambone antics would have worked well in a stronger script. Heck, even Monk's boss Stottlemeyer a.k.a Ted Devine is a fantastic choice for the drawling ex-Confederate general.
So one is left with the question as to how such a good idea backed by some good actors could have been so badly bungled. Will Smith is horribly miscast as James West. Is that bad choice enough to ruin the flick? Why is the potentially charismatic Selma Hayek diverting all her thesping talent into a Speedy Gonzalez impersonation? Who thought 10 minutes of Smith and Branaugh trading ethnic slurs and handicapped jokes would have been entertaining? How about stretching the plot of one of the original episodes out a bit instead of asking a nine-year old to come up with a plot after reading "The Civil War" and "Spiderman" back-to-back? And what about the tone of the film that sees goofy "don't press the knockout gas button" alternated with Smith nearly getting lynched and his family getting massacred? Movies like this should be featured in textbooks about the ill-effects of a large number of cooks on the quality of a broth. |
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Triviachamp
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
254 Posts |
Posted - 09/20/2005 : 9:52:03 PM
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Well getting Jon "I want a giant mechanical spider!" Peters off the project would have been an improvement. And I agree they should have found a consistent tone for the race issue as they seemed to try and combine Blazing Saddles-style racial humour with A Serious Treatise on Slavery and Racism.
Oh and clearing up Lovelace's motivation would have been better. He wants to avenge the South by...selling it and the North back to its original owners! And he kills McGrath and his men because the Confederates surrendered nevermind that it doesn't look as if those Confederates he killed ever surrendered! Of course this could Subtle Irony on the writers' part but I wouldn't think so. I guess they felt they needed a massacre scene and needed to prove he was really evil! |
Edited by - Triviachamp on 09/20/2005 10:05:33 PM |
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hbrennan
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Philippines
1455 Posts |
Posted - 09/20/2005 : 10:04:47 PM
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I, for one, truly wanted to enjoy "Bram Stoker's Dracula". However the casting of Keanu and Winona just killed it for me. Not to mention a dozen other missteps. It was a potentially great film that was thrust into mediocrity.
"...yet it hadn't destroyed his brain."
re: Charles "The Butcher" Benton (1956)
http://henrybrennan.blogspot.com/ |
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Pip
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
333 Posts |
Posted - 09/20/2005 : 10:06:50 PM
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Bill Murray can be really funny, but I caught a network showing of Scrooged one recent Christmas and, wow, did that movie come off the rails. At the end of that unfunny, occasionally nasty and vaguely creepy movie, we were like, "what was THAT?"
I mean, Bill Murray, of Groundhog's Day fame, portraying Dicken's Scrooge! What could possible go wrong?
Well, watch Scrooged and find out.
Pip
Buy the book. You won't be (too) sorry. http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/11/11457.phtml |
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Triviachamp
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
254 Posts |
Posted - 09/20/2005 : 10:12:22 PM
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| Casino Royale: Could have been a great Bond spoof as they actually had the rights to James Bond! But alas Peter Sellers and the Producer went nuts and the film is a horrid mess; really long, makes no sense, very self indulgent at its own wackiness. |
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BradH812
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1294 Posts |
Posted - 09/20/2005 : 10:45:10 PM
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| Hmmmmm. They wouldn't have made GREAT movies, but House of the Dead and Alone in the Dark were pretty good starter ideas. And behind Door Number Two, Uwe Boll!! (I suspect I'll be adding Bloodrayne to that list in a few months.) |
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zombiewhacker
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1475 Posts |
Posted - 09/21/2005 : 01:40:59 AM
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| Godzilla (Roland & Dean) |
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Bobby-G
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
904 Posts |
Posted - 09/21/2005 : 02:56:38 AM
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Mentioned in another thread, MODESTY BLAISE sure fell way short of what it should have been -- there seemed to be all the elements there for great fun movie, but the thing just sits there doing almost nothing. Maybe if someone took all the raw footage, it could be edited into a good movie.
I've haven't seen these, but from what I hear, they'd make the list: THE AVENGERS, LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTELMEN and VAN HELSING.
Rob |
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Neville
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Spain
1590 Posts |
Posted - 09/21/2005 : 03:53:33 AM
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From the outline, even that The Avengers film seemed a good idea. Ralph Fieenes and Uma Thurman? They've been konwn to act well in a number of films. Sean Connery as the villain? Wow, I'm impressed.
But then they had to write an awful mess of a script and hire the worst director available for the job. I can't believe they shot the villain's meeting, all dressed in teddy bears customes, as dead serious.
As for Wild Wild West, the "10 minutes of Smith and Brannagh trading ethnic slurs and handicapped jokes" were the only minutes I enjoyed of the whole movie, for some reason. |
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dconner
Preeminent Apostolic Prelate of the Discipleship of Jabootu
USA
104 Posts |
Posted - 09/21/2005 : 12:21:03 PM
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"Well getting Jon "I want a giant mechanical spider!" Peters off the project would have been an improvement."
Dang, I didn't even know he was involved, but that seems to explain much. Rule number one of making a good Hollywood movie appears to be not allowing this subliterate (from what I've read, this is quite literally true - he basically cannot read, at least not at the level of a movie script) whose entreé into Hollywood circles was being Barbra Streisand's hairdresser.
I actually liked a few of the movies mentioned here quite a bit - Scrooged and Bram Stoker's Dracula.
Van Helsing is the best recent example of a movie that *should* have worked pretty well, but didn't.
I think if there's a common thread here, it'd be too-large budgets fueling a "too many cooks" syndrome. I.e., "this studio has too much riding on this picture to allow it to fail!" Which thinking paradoxically has the result of *ensuring* its failure, as it's micro-managed, bean-counted, and focus-grouped to death. |
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dconner
Preeminent Apostolic Prelate of the Discipleship of Jabootu
USA
104 Posts |
Posted - 09/21/2005 : 12:23:07 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by dconner
"Well getting Jon "I want a giant mechanical spider!" Peters off the project would have been an improvement."
Dang, I didn't even know he was involved, but that seems to explain much. Rule number one of making a good Hollywood movie appears to be not allowing this subliterate anywhere near it. (From what I've read, this is quite literally true - he basically cannot read, at least not at the level of a movie script) whose entreé into Hollywood circles was being Barbra Streisand's hairdresser.
I actually liked a few of the movies mentioned here quite a bit - Scrooged and Bram Stoker's Dracula.
Van Helsing is the best recent example of a movie that *should* have worked pretty well, but didn't.
I think if there's a common thread here, it'd be too-large budgets fueling a "too many cooks" syndrome. I.e., "this studio has too much riding on this picture to allow it to fail!" Which thinking paradoxically has the result of *ensuring* its failure, as it's micro-managed, bean-counted, and focus-grouped to death.
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tam1MI
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
558 Posts |
Posted - 09/21/2005 : 12:29:00 PM
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Well, I will boldly rush in where angels fear to tread and nominate Dungeons & Dragons for this honor. I mean, think about it: here's a movie with a built-in, enthusiastic fanbase just itching to fill up theatres night after night, and what the movie studio serves up a gawdawful mess that even manages to make the esteemed Jeremy Irons look bad.
And I could name numerous films based on comic books and television shows that will little more than slaps in the face to their devoted fanbases, but I'd give myself writers' cramp. |
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hbrennan
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Philippines
1455 Posts |
Posted - 09/21/2005 : 1:42:41 PM
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quote:
dconner wrote: actually liked a few of the movies mentioned here quite a bit - Scrooged and Bram Stoker's Dracula.
I liked it, too. But the point I was making was that it should have been a great movie - not just a good one. The obvious missteps of casting, etc. kept it at the "OK" level.
"...yet it hadn't destroyed his brain."
re: Charles "The Butcher" Benton (1956)
http://henrybrennan.blogspot.com/ |
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twitterpate
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Canada
1026 Posts |
Posted - 09/21/2005 : 4:14:54 PM
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Dare I mention The Phantom Menace?
Now, I did enjoy it when I saw it - mildly. Parts of it worked quite nicely. But afterwards, I kept thinking of all the things that didn't work, when they so easily could have.
Leaving aside the far too easy target of Jar Jar, let's just mention:
- There was no real development of the relationship between Qui Gonn and Obiwan
- Anakin was the least pathetic orphan slave boy ever shown on film, written about, or drawn on a cave wall
- Anakin's departure from his mother should have been soul-shattering; instead, he looked like he was off to camp for the week
- Darth Maul: he LOOKED absolutely terrifying, but didn't get a chance to DO much
- The Pod Race outcome was a forgone conclusion
- Too many things (like the two-headed race announcer) worked to pull the viewer out of the "reality" of the world Lucas was creating
I think that's why so many people have attacked TPM. It's not that it's actually TOO bad; it's just that, with a little tweaking, it could have been so GOOD. |
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dconner
Preeminent Apostolic Prelate of the Discipleship of Jabootu
USA
104 Posts |
Posted - 09/21/2005 : 4:31:23 PM
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I think one thing people tend to overlook about the prequels (and especially Episode I) is that they're the most expensive "experimental films" ever made. Nobody other than George Lucas could spend over 100 million dollars (of his own money, incidentally) on a movie, largely as a test bed for new film technologies, *and* be assured of making a huge return on the investment.
Now, this isn't grounds to excuse flaws in a movie (or, IMO, to condemn them per se), but I think it sheds light on a lot of issues with the movies. Setting aside purely technical issues, what about the craft of actors who are working not only sometimes, but *most* of the time, against a green screen and reacting to stuff that isn't physically there? Are some actors better or worse at this? How do you figure that out, or help ones who aren't naturals at it?
And that's just one aspect. There were a host of other things that hadn't been done before too.
Just on a more basic level, Episode I works a lot better, IMO, once you see Episode III, and how the prequels all flow together rather well for telling the story Lucas wanted to tell. (IMO, a lot of his critics are upset, at least in part, because he was telling a different story from the one *they* would have told, which often boils down to wanting two movies full of the armored Darth Vader kicking ass.) |
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Greenhornet
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
1791 Posts |
Posted - 09/21/2005 : 4:38:23 PM
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Since Triviachamp beat me to the punch with Casino Royal, I will add: The Sahdow.
This one had some good, even very good, moments but lacked the feel of either the pulp storys or the radio show and the writer's grasp of history is pathetic to say the least.
"The Queen is testing poisons." CLEOPATRA, 1935 |
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