A-List
Event Movies That Disappoint
By Josh Spiegel
June 25, 2009
BoxOfficeProphets.com
As I thought about some of the big event movies during my lifetime - as I figured it'd be more interesting to stick to that period when I could recount my experience at the theater as opposed to looking back (for me, it's looking back) to 1977's Star Wars: A New Hope or 1981's Raiders of the Lost Ark - I realized that most of the big movies had kind of let me down...much like 2007's Transformers. Okay, in many ways, Transformers was a big jump in quality over director Michael Bay's previous films: I fell asleep during Pearl Harbor and walked out of Bad Boys II. That I stayed awake, stayed in my seat, and was able to somewhat enjoy myself is a win in my book.
Still, I didn't really like Transformers that much, and some of the more recent event movies would land under the same category. These are all movies that I and everyone else in the theater wanted to love; some did, but others, like me, did not. Some of these movies on the A-List are incredibly obvious; when it comes to event movies that disappoint, you have probably already figured out at least one of the films on this list, if not more. And yet, part of this A-List is about the experience of watching a movie with a major crowd. One of the reasons, for example, that I didn't fully appreciate how little I liked Transformers for a few days was thanks to the packed theater I saw it in, the high energy of the crowd, and the fun everyone else seemed to have. It was infectious, but the kind of infectious that I lost after some time.
Again, this A-List is confined to films that are either widely considered to be disappointments or are considered that way by me, and all have been released in the past 25 years (though, since the list discusses experiences, most are from the past 10 to 15 years). I'm sure there are some defenders of each of these movies, but I doubt there will be a dearth of people who can't believe they were ever hyped to see these movies. So, on with the list.
Star Wars, Episode I: The Phantom Menace
Here's the obvious choice, the choice that somewhat inspired the disappointment part of this A-List. Since I wasn't alive when the original Star Wars trilogy came out, I've never been as strident about its creator, George Lucas, destroying my childhood outright. Granted, I watched the original trilogy on VHS countless times as a kid and eagerly went to the theaters in the early months of 1997, when the films were released with digitally remastered footage in theaters everywhere. When it came to this 1999 debacle, I didn't wait in line for hours before seeing the film. I did, however, anxiously stand in line a week before the movie was released to buy tickets in advance. And so, on May 19, 1999, only hours after my day at school had ended, I sat in a theater with hundreds of other fans, young and old, to watch the newest Star Wars movie.
What I remember vividly is loving the scene when young Anakin (Jake Lloyd, in a performance that's just...well, it's slightly better than Hayden Christensen's, but that's not saying much) takes part in the pod race, and the lightsaber battle between Darth Maul, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Qui-Gon Jinn. The rest of the time I spent wondering when the Asian aliens would stop talking about taxes, why Jar Jar Binks existed, and why Lucas chose to hide the fact that the evil Emperor was obviously meant to be one of the "good guys." I've seen the film on VHS and I have bad news: it's the best of the new trilogy, by which I mean that it's the least terrible of them. The movie was bad, and though I walked out kind of pumped, mostly by that lightsaber fight, I knew it wasn't the same as the older and better stuff. The two follow-ups were...well, I wasn't nearly as pumped to see them, and the less said about them, the better. Let's just say, though, that disappointing event movies have, at the core, only one man and one movie to blame: George Lucas and Episode I.
The Lost World: Jurassic Park
But let's jump back two years to the summer of 1997, when the highly anticipated sequel to 1993's colossal hit "Jurassic Park" came out. I still remember the crushing bitterness I felt when my parents told me in June of 1993 that I could only see Jurassic Park if it was PG (hey, I was just about to turn nine and my parents were...well, a bit strict). Of course, that film was PG-13, as was its sequel, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, but as I was a few years older, I got to see it. And I was so psyched to see this sequel, directed by Steven Spielberg, starring Jeff Goldblum and a boatload of dinosaurs (and how quickly they get off said vessel at the end).
Unlike with Star Wars: Episode I, I was more immediately aware of how bad the movie was. I loved the original, but there was a little less hype going into this second dino action movie that it became much clearer much sooner how little I was enjoying the movie. Though I admit to kind of liking the truly ridiculous sequence in San Diego, most of the build-up was slow, mean-spirited, and gruesome. Spielberg's talents are on display in the scene where Ian Malcolm and friends struggle to get out of a trailer that's hanging on a precipice, but that's also the scene where one of the genuinely nice people in the movie is brutally murdered while trying to save the good guys. It's hard to like a movie like that. Spielberg may yet find another of his films pop up here (one that's far more disappointing), but the first strike on his list came with The Lost World.
Godzilla
Yes, Godzilla. Yes, the 1998 disaster movie about the lizard gone nuclear starring Matthew Broderick. Yes, this is on the list. And why wouldn't it be? I still remember clearly sitting in the theater on July 4th, 1996, watching Independence Day, a movie that I loved...when I was 12. Now, it's a bloated and corny movie with some charm provided by Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum. Still, as a kid, it was all I could ask for.
So, when director Roland Emmerich came back with Godzilla in 1998, I was ready to see the movie as soon as possible. Though it certainly rips off Jurassic Park way too much (see the entire sequence at Madison Square Garden), I can tell you that I liked it more than The Lost World: Jurassic Park. True, my expectations weren't exactly the same as with an established franchise, but the disappointment I had about this movie being a little more corny, a little more one-dimensional, a little more bloated was still there. And, also: why was it raining so much?
On the big screen, at age 14, I can't say that I thought the special effects of Godzilla were so bad that we needed to have something obscuring it at all times. What disappointed me most was that the flaws of Godzilla were so pronounced that I went back and realized how apparent they were in Independence Day, which makes this entry doubly disappointing.
Austin Powers in Goldmember
If we're being completely fair, I should only include all but five minutes of this third Austin Powers movie. The opening sequence, partly thanks to its initial shock value and cameo appearances, provided some big laughs to me as I watched the movie the night before its release. Yet, even as I saw Gwyneth Paltrow, Tom Cruise, Danny DeVito, and Kevin Spacey appear as characters from Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, I had a nasty feeling in the pit of my stomach that the rest of the movie couldn't possibly be as funny as the pre-credits sequence. Was it possible for a movie to be that good? Well, maybe, but not this time. There were good parts to Goldmember, such as Fred Savage as the Mole and Dr. Evil's reactions to the title villain, but there were far more bad parts such as...well, such as the title villain. Obviously, making such fun of one of the most recognizable villains in the James Bond franchise makes sense in a series of comedies making fun of the James Bond franchise. However, making Goldmember so weird, making Fat Bastard just disgusting, and having far too many flatulence jokes made Goldmember an overall disappointment, and a mere hint of the terror that would come in Mike Myers' most recent comedy, The Love Guru. Still, when it comes to those five minutes, in that theater with tons of other teenagers and twentysomethings, I can honestly admit it took me a long time to laugh that hard at a movie.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
And here's the movie that made me laugh that hard! No, that's not true; if anything, I cried on the inside more than I did anything on the outside with the fourth Indiana Jones film, and the second film on this list to come from Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. I don't want to be completely unfair and blame Lucas for the movie, which pits Indy against...aliens, features cheesy special effects, and has Shia LaBeouf actually positioned as the next Indiana Jones (listen, I like LaBeouf, but you have got to be kidding me). Harrison Ford, as the title hero, isn't bad in any way, but it's hard to be cool with a character when he decides to jump in a refrigerator to avoid getting caught in a nuclear blast. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is a movie that soured as time went along. Consider this: I went into the fourth Indy movie having just been offered a full-time job, my first; I say this to remind you that I was on Cloud Nine as I walked into this movie, not just because I was seeing Indiana Jones again, but because I had a job lined up. I walked out as grumpy as I could possibly be, watching one of my favorite film franchises completely ruined. Some of the audience enjoyed it, and those with me said they liked it, but I think we all knew that it was a pretty big failure. Of course, any movie that has Shia LaBeouf swinging on vines in a jungle without wanting any derisive laughter is asking to be despised.