Top 12 most disappointing films of the year

A few of these films could feature on my worst of list at the end of the year but at the moment my feeling towards them is one of disappointment. I went to the cinema, sat in anticipation was underwhelmed/turned off/crushed by these films.

The Hangover Part II

Despite laughing at this film I was also completely bored by its insistence to repeat the original beat-for-beat. Despite its success I’m still nore sure comedy sequels can work or bring anything new to the table.

Sucker Punch

Sucker Punch is a bit of a mess isn’t? A gorgeous looking one but a mess all the same. I’m still amazed that they gave Snyder the Man of Steel gig.

Green Lantern

As bad as the reviews said it was? No, but a very, very average comic book adaptation.

Arthur

At the screening I went to people laughed, I must have a miserable sense of humour because I could not wait for this film to end.

Faster

Someone needs to give Dwayne Johnson a good action film to be in and not this boring nonsense.

Battle  Los Angeles

Is it possible to suffer a concussion from the sonic bombardment that is Battle Los Angeles? Incredibly loud.

Paul

One of the biggest disappointments because I actually had expectations for it. Nowhere near as funny as it should have been.

The Mechanic

Jason Statham beats people up. Again.

The Green Hornet

Not horrible, just instantly forgettable.

Priest

Front-runner for the worst film I’ve seen this year. Hang your head in shame Paul Bettany

Red Riding Hood

Half an hour in and you should know the identity of the wolf. Indie (ish) soundtrack is also annoying.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid

Kids deserve better than this, they really do (reminisces about The Flight of the Navigator)

Green Lantern’s light is not very bright – review

No matter how bad things get, something good is out there, just over the horizon…

Hal Jordan is a test pilot chosen by a “dying, purple alien” named Abin Sur to take his place and become a member of the Green Lantern Corps, an intergalactic police force tasked with keeping peace within the universe. Chosen as he has the ability to overcome fear, Hal Jordan must rise to task of not only dispelling the doubt within himself but fending off the twin threats of Hector Hammond (Peter Sarsgaard) and Parallax to stop Earth from being destroyed.

Even for a comic book, the premise of Green Lantern is slightly out there and more than a little silly and at times director Martin Campbell (The Mask of Zorro, Casino Royale) recognises this, having a few laughs at the film’s expense. However what’s so surprising about Green Lantern is just how bog standard the narrative and direction are. It’s sorely missing a spark that enlivens proceedings and more often than not the film strings scenes together in a most obvious and predictable manner. Its by-the-numbers directing and scripting mean whole sequences lack any visible energy and characters lack the necessary chemistry in their interactions with each other. Featuring plot holes the size of asteroids, Mark Strong’s Sinestro tries to valiantly plug them with chunks of exposition, the film teetering on being distinctly pedestrian. There’s a rule in filmmaking, “show, don’t tell” and Green Lantern has to get through so much mythology that it educates the audience at every opportunity, making the drama rather inert.

Much is squandered, whether it’s through the unsatisfying relationships (Hammond, Ferris and Jordan, in a love triangle?), its disappointing villains (Hammond – hammy, Parallax – CG) or the romance which is by the book and lethargic. Even worse is the squandering of Oa and the Green Lantern corps as they’re relegated to secondary status as Jordan’s plight is given more screen time than the discovery of this new universe. Animated film Green Lantern: First Flight managed to introduce the corps in a better, more organic way, staying away from Earth and embracing the galactic possibilities, by comparison this film feels grounded.

Reynolds is fine but the rest of the cast make the smallest of impacts and despite the whole world being at stake it all feels very low key and a little humdrum. That said I didn’t find Green Lantern to be a total bore, seeing Jordan create various constructs (objects his ring can create through will) is fun and the climactic scene is good if a little obvious in how the script calls attention to it earlier on. Green Lantern is not a disaster; it’s just a disappointingly average take on a mythology that deserved better.

What they said about…Green Lantern

I haven’t done this feature as often as I would have liked (once!) but on both occassions the film in question has managed to disappoint critics. Will Green Lantern follow the same trajectory as Sucker Punch and crash and burn in cinemas? Probably not, it’s been heavily marketed and that usually means that the opening weekend will be respectable (apparently it’s on track to gross $58 million in the US). The true test will come in the following weeks, if word of mouth is as bad as critics’ take on the film then I can’t see it being one of the top grossers of the summer. Warner Bros will be expecting this one to at least make its budget back (somewhere between $150 to $200 million).

I’ve mentioned Green Lantern a few times and was hoping the Martin Campbell who directed Casino Royale and The Mask of Zorro would turn up. I guess he didn’t. I’ll be going to see it (my friend seems to be excited by it), so I’ll be able to give my own opinion on it soon enough.

Here’s a few quotes from a sample of reviews:

Martin Campbell made Zorro and Bond work as contemporary heroes, but doesn’t quite have the feel for poor old Hal Jordan. Green Lantern is dazzling in pieces, but we’ve seen too many sharper versions of the superhero origin story in the last few years. It’s not Jonah Hex, but the battery runs low too quickly.

Read more at Empire

Muscular, well-cast launch of a proposed new franchise can’t help but replay a lot of familiar notes.

Read more at THR

At this point the best I can hope for is that the movie makes enough to warrant a sequel and somebody else can come in and make a good Green Lantern film using the excellent existing elements.

Read more at BadAss Digest

In a summer stuffed with superheroes, this underwhelming offering will likely leave you jaded. How it could have used some of Thor’s charm and The Green Hornet’s chutzpah.

Read more: Green Lantern review | TotalFilm.com

It’s not entirely Green Lantern’s fault that it’s the third superhero film to hit theaters in the last two months, or the 30th or so in the last decade, but at this point in the genre the same old origin story simply isn’t enough. Instead of being bold with Green Lantern’s out-there source material, Campbell and company have reverted to the tiresome, too-familiar mean.

Read more at Cinema Blend

Campbell’s successful re-booting of the James Bond franchise in Casino Royale may just have been the thing that helped greenlight Hal Jordan and his inter-galactic friends. He brings the same ‘less frills, more thrills’ approach to bear here.

Read more at Den of Geek

There are movies willed to life by the passion of their creators, and there are movies like Green Lantern, which are willed to life strictly by market forces.

Read more at The AV Club

I have no idea how Green Lantern purists will react, but the film as it is remains a weird combination of ghee-whiz kid-friendly superhero antics and truly disturbing horror elements.  That the film is not quite the triumph we wanted may be tragic.  That the film as it stands works at all may qualify as a miracle.

Read more at Mendelson’s Memo’s

Not quite the mammoth disaster that some are labelling it, nevertheless, Green Lantern is a big disappointment and has to rely constantly on its star to make things work and compensate for a weak script and a director who is clearly ill at ease with CGI. Reynolds should use that magic ring of his to summon up a new agent who is capable of finding him a big-screen role (and potential franchise) worthy of his talents

Read more at HeyUGuys

And I thought the film had a singular identity in a genre flooded with derivation, which is no small feat.

For me, it’s great summer fun.

Read more at InContention

Poster Roundup – Green Lantern,Transformers,Melancholia, Sleeping Beauty & At Stranger Tides

Quite a few posters have been released this week and all of them are pertaining to films arriving in the next few months or so.

Starting with Green Lantern, it’s a film that’s come under some criticism whether its for its visuals, tone or the general quality of the marketing materials that have been put out. Personally I’m intrigued as I have been since the film was announced although I am put of by the mythology of it. It definitely is something that we haven’t seen in the superhero realm and as I’ve said in previous posts on the Green Lantern I’m hoping that Goldeneye/Zorro Martin Campbell turns up. If not then the marriage between the more comedy elements and what looks like being huge sci-fi elements may not fit. Still as the film comes ever closer I’m willing to give it a chance especially as I’m reading some Green Lantern comics and trying to get a sense of this universe. The first poster is from Yahoo Movies.

And here is the banner released by MTV movies featuring the Green Lantern Corp. I bet you can’t guess them all (I certainly can’t). Click to enlarge or view separately.

With this poster we have Lars Von Trier’s Melancholia and like the trailer I’m struggling to find the words to describe it. Its clean and sparse but it gives me even less information than the trailer did. It certainly looks striking enough and there’s a simplicity to it even if the poster doesn’t scream ‘end of the world’. It looks more like an invitation.

From one film with arthouse aspirations to another. Sleeping Beauty, by first time director Julia Leigh (who wrote the screenplay) and backed up with Jane Campion Presents (I’m not sure how much weight her name will give the film beyond the arthouse crowd) it looks like the rarest of things in cinema at the moment – a film with female talent both in front of and behind the camera. I posted the first trailer a few weeks ago and its followed up by this poster which is both revealing and suggestive. Its not often you see films put sexuality front and centre, especially when its about a woman who enters the world of prostitution.

Back to the blockbusters we have Transformers and Pirates of the Carribean: On Stranger Tides (x2). Rather standard posters these ones although Shia does look a little confused and dishevelled (not to mention dirty). Pirates also showcases the “attributes” of double barrelled actress Astrid Berges-Frisbey (who has both Spanish and French heritage). I can’t say I’m too interested in these films but I’m always willing to give them a chance although they both really have to redeem themselves after their rather wasteful efforts last time.

Green Lantern Wonder-Con trailer

Although I’m loathe to put extended trailers on the site, especially ones that give a fair chunk of the film away, its bright outside and the sun has affected my brain.

I for one liked the first trailer and since then I’ve read Green Lantern: Rebirth. Didn’t understand a single thing about it since I’m relatively new to the Green Lantern corps mythology and the only thing I had encountered involving the Green Lantern was the animated film First Flight (which I thought was decent).

Anyhoo, in this soon to be post-Potter world Warner Bros needs to strike big with its properties outside of Potter and Nolan’s Bat-verse. With Martin Campbell at the helm I’m hoping for something more  likeGoldeneye/Casino Royale/Zorro type of form and less like Legend of Zorro/Edge of Darkness/Vertical Limit.

Click, watch, read

I’ve been meaning to add a sort of summary post rather than post any film news or items of interest separately so here it is, the Click, watch, read column (rubbish name, I’ll try to think of something better).

First up are a series of pictures from anticpated blockbusters for this and next year.

I must admit I think the costume looks good but I’m still not interested in the film. Whether the series needed a reboot or not and I’m sure that would depend on what you thought of Spider-Man 3 (I enjoyed it) I can’t muster any enjoyment for it. I’m still completely non-plussed to Peter going back to high school especially since the first film is barely ten years old. Why revisit this material? It smells (to me) as if Sony Pictures want a part of that Twilight money by appealing to a younger audience as I see no reason why they couldn’t have just put Garfield as Peter Parker who has left high school.

Retreading the same material whether it’s done differently or not it just seems a little redundant to go back to material we’ve already seen. The Incredible Hulk reboot managed to continue the story of Banner without having to completely reset the storyline, why not this?

I’m probably making more out of it that I should and I’m sure i’ll be a complete hyprocrite when in a year and a half line up at my nearest cinema, cash in hand, ready to give it to the cashier. And less I forget, it’ll be in $D, sorry i meant 3D as well.

Some other pics from two other fantasy films that are coming out this year, on the left we have Captain America and on the right we have Sinestro, the yellow looking David Niven wannabe.

Captain America just happens to be another film I’m not too interested in, not because of the film itself or the talent working on the film but the character itself. I find Cap to be a bit of a monumental bore. I’m not quite sure why he’s as popular as he is (I assume it may have something to do with the word America) and I’m not as well versed with the character as I am with others. It’s interesting the tone they’re taking and with Joe Johnston I’m hoping for something by the way of the Rocketeer but there’s something about this picture that makes it look rather…quaint, old fashioned. I understand totally that that’s the vibe they’re going for and if in fact they can make half as good as say…Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, they’ll have a hit but again the character of Cap bores me a little. Maybe this will be the chance to make him more interesting than I perceive him to be.

I’ve watched Green Lantern: First Flight and was rather impressed by the Green Lantern mythos. I barely knew of the character before watching that animated film last year. I’ve also recently read Green Lantern: Rebirth which was slightly confusing considering that I know very little about the character and what happened previous to the events of Rebirth. Regardless, the scope and nature of the Green lanterns sounds interesting to me, basically intergalactic police. Yellow being their weakness is rather silly though but unlike most people I’m looking foward to Green Lantern mainly because it won’t take place on Earth. Hopefully the comic book genre can stretch its wings a little bit with these upcoming features.

Interesting video huh? Seeing how Hollywood takes something based in reality and changes it to suit the moment, make it more dramatic and involving. I haven’t seen The Fighter, it doesn’t open in the UK until February and I’ve heard its formulaic but well done and you can tell just a little by Wahlberg getting knocked down that it is utterly compliant to the sports movie tropes.

Some other links for you to check out

The Art of the Title interview/feature on the opening titles of Scott Pilgrim Vs the World

http://www.artofthetitle.com/2011/01/03/scott-pilgrim-vs-the-world/

Oswald Patton on Geek Culture

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/12/ff_angrynerd_geekculture/