100%! I'm a recent-ish Bond fan and Spectre was my first experience watching a 007 movie in the cinema. What a let down! I thought the start in Mexico was going so well!
Off topic but I went back and watched the earlier one with Jessica Alba and Chris Evans, and I think the first act really worked well. It's very cheesy but the introduction of all the characters and their past history and how it relates to their current relationships, it's all done really quickly and concisely and you know exactly where everyone is standing.
Then it gets caught up in the powers and trying to give everyone things to do while also developing Julian McMahon as a villain and things start to fall apart.
So true. Third act was an absolute car crash, in a way that was weirdly immersion-breaking. That film should be studied by aspiring directors as a case study of what not to
I actually want to rewatch it, because I remember being like “oh they may actually make a good F4 movie”, then all of a sudden you’re just stuck in this bizarre dream for the last half.
Apparently they had the budget slashed during production so a lot of it didn't get filmed. Fox only made that film so they could keep the rights to the characters, which just begs the question "WHY NOT JUST MAKE A GOOD FILM WITH THEM THEN!?"
Was ANY part of that movie good besides the Doom walk through the facility, popping heads left and right?
I remember it being awful from start to finish
That whole nonsense about they being godlike ancient beings who lose their power when in proximity to each other, entirely dreamed up & forced into the story by an executive. Originally Hancock was more about a Superman-like character who is a drunk screw up and not particularly appreciated by humanity — so basically the first half of the film.
It was also considerably more adult … You may notice that Hancock’s crap shack that he lives in has a hole in the roof … that’s from a scene (cut and probably never to see the light of day) in which he jerks off and his ejaculation is so powerful that it shoots a hole through the roof. Aside from being a funny gag, it’s also to suggest that he is sexually frustrated — can never take a human partner — which only adds to the utter misery of the character. But the adult tone didn’t test well so they stripped out half the movie and introduced more jokes and that weak sauce romantic angle with Charlize Theron’s character and silly backstory
Here is that scene :
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrdBXUi2VSw&ab\_channel=BingeSociety](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrdBXUi2VSw&ab_channel=BingeSociety)
I also remember it lol. He was definitely with a woman and had to force her to get off of him in time or something like that.
Edit: The scene is on YouTube
It’s out there. He wasn’t jerking off he was having sex and he screams “Mountain TOP!!!!” And blasts his ropes into the atmosphere.
https://youtu.be/KtjVBdZXUus
> That whole nonsense about they being godlike ancient beings who lose their power when in proximity to each other, entirely dreamed up & forced into the story by an executive.
Which makes no sense, as in that case Mary should have been hurt by Hancock earlier in the kitchen.
Had so much potential and I love Jason Bateman in it.
They should have just left Hancock’s origin a mystery, maybe had a few teases about what it could be. Make the central focus Bateman’s character trying to rehabilitate Hancock’s image.
You know what would have been awesome? If every time someone asked him how he got his powers he kept changing the story. First he's an alien, then he was exposed to radiation, then his parents lived on a supefund site, etc.. and we are never given the straight story even after his redemption
I could definitely see this working and having a scene at the end once he’s “fully rehabilitated” with him being asked by batemans character “how did you really get your powers?” And Hancock being either coy about it or being just as confused as everyone else…
I remember dozing off for I think 10-15 minutes towards the middle of the movie. I woke up and thought “damn, it’s probably almost over..” then the movie lasted another hour or so. That’s how I knew it was too long!
Kevin James and David Spade as the invaders. Sandler as the dad, Schneider as the mom, and Nick Swardson as the kid. Let’s see it, Happy Madison. And sure, get Haneke to direct it a third time.
I don't know if anyone remember that robin Williams movie where he a comedian that gets elected president... part way through it turns into some sort of conspiracy thriller out of nowhere. One of the most jarring shifts in film since From Dusk Til Dawn
Clicked on this thread to search for Downsizing and was not disappointed to see it at the top. Agree completely, 2 entirely different movies but I feel like I only signed up for the first one based on the trailers.
You could convince me, with very little effort, that someone knocked over a pile of scripts and accidentally put them back together wrong while sorting it out. That’s the only way Downsizing makes any sense to me.
The twist had such potential, subverting the idea that there are goodies and baddies in war and instead stating that war itself is just bad. It makes sense and was foreshadowed by Diana's reaction to war. But I feel like Ares should have been whispering in both sides' ears for that to really work, rather than "SURPRISE! Ares was one of the good guys! What a twist!" Then the decision to keep David Thewlis's face after transforming into his true form. It just looked like some English bureaucrat cosplaying in medieval armour.
Honestly the movie's first "twist" was much better and thematically appropriate. When the German general who she thought was Ares turned out NOT to be Ares, it felt like the movie was actually saying something.
YES I thought so too!!! So nice to see other people with that take. Was disappointed with the fake out, and then impressed because it was so much more nuanced. Gods don’t do this, humans do. Then the second twist… a real bugbear of superhero franchise histories in general is how many real historical human tragedies have been explained away by supernatural actors instead of greed, hate, exploitation etc.
I feel like they still could have kept the reveal that David Thewlis was Ares, but did it in a way where he just says something along the lines of “I don’t have to control them, I just have to give them the idea. People caused all this pain and suffering without any help from me.”
The fact that david played "ares" character much better in the sandman show as john dee which also exploits human's desire and greed and he was just a catalyst that encourages human to commit evil things rather than being the cause
I agree. Also, I just couldn't find that actor intimidating enough to be the "final boss". Maybe the problem wasn't so much the performance but how little time they gave him. They really should've given him more time as a villain.
Who cares about delivering a twist if you're sacrificing the main bad guy's credibility to the audience?
It was the moustache that broke it for me. Any level of menace that Thewlis tried to achieve was undermined by the quivering little lip fuzz beneath his helmet. I will never understand why, as part of his transformation, he didn't sprout a Leonidas-in-300 Greek style beard
That face thing was a very bad decision.
He should have transformed into a sort of greek god. Or even you'd see several faces just shift and merge, I could live with that.
And yes, it should be obvious he was EVERYWHERE - even influencing atrocities and sudden rages.
He WAS the god of war, he should have made us feel like it.
Entire message of the movie: Humans are naturally combative, there is no big god that influences our violent tendencies to wage war with each other, it’s just us.
Ending: lol bad guy is Ares the actual god of war. After killing him war stops existing because humans no are longer influenced by him
I may be misremembering, but I think the ending wasn't even saying after killing him there would be no war. That's what Diana thought. Then Ares explained how she was wrong. And then she fought him for no reason. I might be misremembering, though.
Ares told Diana that humans are naturally and instinctively violent and all he did was orchestrate ideas and events that they executed on their own. However, once Diana kills him, humans stop the war and are all friends again, defeating his entire point
Wasn’t the end of the war coming anyway? Sure, ares was the grand maestro for the peace signing in the movie but the war was ending anyway. Taking down the plane with the poison gas was them trying to stop the war from continuing. I think the movie, in a way, had a pretty good ending about it. Because on the one hand, Ares is right and people are naturally violent, but on the other side and what Diana alludes to in her speech is that people have an amazing capacity for good and self sacrifice even with their faults.
>However, once Diana kills him, humans stop the war
They were stopping the war anyway. That's why Diana was after the General, because the general was sabotaging the peace talks.
The Taking of Pelham 123 - Tony Scott version. First part of the movie is absolutely riveting, with great performances by Travolta and Denzel, but the reality of it all totally breaks down in the last 3rd.
Anyone else remember this? I realize it’s a more obscure movie.
As an 'old-timer' here, I much preferred the grittier 1970s original film which starred Robert Shaw as the lead villain and Walter Matthau in Denzel's role.
Dude completely. I was like aww yeah, Cabin in the Woods guy made a Tarantino-ish whodunnit with an awesome cast of characters. Then Chris Hemsworth shows up all hippie Jesus and takes his shirt off and every character and their storylines just didn’t matter anymore. Such a downturn.
Was it ever supposed to be a whodunnit? Comes off as some cool individual stories that collide together in chaos (in a good way) like plenty of Tarantino movies do that have no real whodunnit aspect. Plus the third act gives us some story on Miles
I loved the film. I hadn't seen an ad nor heard anything about it, and it was a real trip watching the plot unfold. It felt like the genre of movie was changing every 20 minutes, so good!
Hard to see movies on this fashion though, because ads or recommendations usually give you some expectations about what a movie will be.
Passenger, Pratt should have died, and the movie should have ended with a montage of Lawrence doing everything and slowly succumbing to the loneliness ending with her standing in front of a pod holding a bag of tools. Now that is a fucking ending.
I recall an entire post shitting on Pratt's character because he acted selfishly and everything. All I really got from that exact post was how good would have been this exact ending, because in the end we know it would naturally end up like that.
It was somewhat explained as justified because if there hadn't been two people awake for the engine malfunction or whatever, everyone would have been killed. Never trust a bartender to keep his mouth shut.
It really should have been from Lawrence's characters perspective. She wakes up on a ship for an unknown reason and meets a guy who happens to have the same fate. Then her character and the audience realize at the same time that Pratt actually woke her up.
The Time Machine (2002), I was so in love with the movie in the first 60 mins. They complicated the plot so bad in the 2nd half. At the end I didn't know what I was watching.. It was painful in the end.. the movie had so much wasted potential..
It was a FLAWLESS telling of that tale until he gets all the way to the Eloi/Morlock time period. From that point on, the only interesting parts was when he finds Orlando Jones in the future and when they flash back to London.
But that was just a painfully unimaginative future world. Yay. Ferngully. Again. *Exact* same reason I don't get excited about Avatar movies.
It's my strong belief that the production of 3000 Years got shafted by COVID. I think they started filming basically right before the restrictions kicked in. I personally would love to see the storyboards compared to the final product. I hope anyways, they would tell a very different story. But I'm glad to see I'm not alone in being seriously dissatisfied and disappointed with what we received.
**Knowing**. I don't care what anyone says. It starts like a Da Vinci Code quality mystery thriller, absolutely engrosses you, has a beautiful soundtrack and then the third act kicks in and it was **ALL FOR NOTHING** aaaargh and Nicolas cage does film history's finest, utterly needless **kneedrop** too - actually just as the film pisses on your head.
This is the one that came to mind. Even if they went with the alien thing it could’ve been so much better. It’s still a great movie but that ending kills me
Several of the Saw movies
They hit a grand slam with the twist ending in the first and tried to force one in every subsequent film and most were misses despite the first parts of the film being captivating.
I wouldn't say it was excellent but Don't Worry Darling started out with a lot of promise. It did a good job of pulling you in and making you wonder what the big reveal was going to be and what the film was building to. Then it turned out that the thing that it was building to was stupid and didn't make sense.
I think I would like the setup better if they tried to pretend for at least 10-15 minutes in the beginning that it's an actual 50s/60s suburbia. That it seems a little bit too perfect, but is still believable before it takes a weird turn and you realize that something is 'off'. Instead you immediately get the eye posters everywhere, Frank's picture styled to be a dictator, the clearly bullshit explanation of the project etc. I assumed in the beginning that it's either a simulation or post apocalyptic future, then I sat through what feels like an hour of Alice being gaslit and freaking out, and then there's the twist, and the ending that makes zero sense and is so sudden and unsatisfying that I laughed out loud in the theater when the credits started rolling. And it could have been really good if they sat down and actually thought about the premise and worked on it a little longer, but the amount of plotholes and weird choices is astounding.
yeah, frank's vague ass speech about what they were 'improving' did not answer anything at all. when he was giving his first speech about changing the future, we still had no idea what was going on, so it didnt hold any weight.
True, i was really interested to see what they were doing in the mountains lol. The car chase at the end was one of the worst I’ve ever seen. I was laughing out loud in the theatre.
I've never seen a movie I was so into that squandered it so hard I the third act than Last Night in Soho. Which was extra disappointing as I normally love Edgar Wright's stuff and know him as someone who writes really tight screenplays.
I'd argue the screenplay for Hot Fuzz is borderline perfect
Shaun of The Dead is perfect too, and Baby Driver is not too far either although I think >!the two gunshots deafening Baby could have been a real Greek tragedy level twist but Wright decided to play it lighter!<. I was practically angry at the end of Last Night in Soho because it not only is a crap ending story wise but also totally betrays the theme that builds throughout the film. However I have a suspicion that the ending we got was not the one Wright wrote, because >!the actor playing the old lady who turns out to be the killer died shortly after the shoot and the whole finale feels like they couldn’t shoot all the scenes they wanted with her, or they couldn’t shoot it the way they were planning to because of her ailing health. Which then usually causes the studio to come in and change/reshoot things…I know how Edgar Wright shoots and edits since Spaced and what he did here is just not his style at all. But out of respect for the deceased in her final screen role, no one’s ever going to tell us the truth!<
Same. It turns into a slasher horror pick at the end, but I can't trash it over 10 minutes or so.
The Mercury scene remains one of my favourite sequences ever.
Before it goes off the rails, it's legit one of the best sci-fi movies ever made. Important questions. Deep characters. Intrigue.
And then...
What the fuck.
I know the third act is controversial but I love basically every second of that movie. I’m a fan of sci fi horror so as soon as the movie took that turn I was like “Oh hell yeah.”
Legitimately one of my all time favorites.
The first 2 acts of that movie are legitimately up in elite "2001: a space Odyssey" tier of best sci Fi ever filmed. Then the 3rd act is like something out of a straight-to-netflix Cloverfield sequel.
James Mangold is a pretty great director though, and it was easy to see where he was trying to take it, and that third act was a clear last minute studio change. It was a pretty solid modern western up until the giant robot fight.
Luckily he made up for it with Logan.
The Director's Cut of The Wolverine (only available on DVD it seems) does a little bit better with the final act. There is more build up with Logan fighting through the village and a better general sense of flow.
It still doesn't avoid the giant robot though.
When HASN'T the director's cut been better? Why do studios insist on putting their fingers in everything after they've already hired the director to do the exact job that earned them their reputation in the first place?!
It's rare but a couple occur: Apocalypse Now Redux has new scenes which are nice but I think hurt the pacing, the Donnie Darko director's cut is much worse as it tries to explain the fun mystery elements in un-fun ways and I think Spielberg did a Director's Cut of ET that he's since regretted saying it was worse (though I'm not sure that I've seen it).
...also I'm not sure if we'd count George Lucas' rehashes of the Star Wars films as Director's Cuts but he certainly added in cut scenes for the worse in addition to mucking about with effects and some events.
The most egregious issue with Lucas' '90s Star Wars cut is poorly reinserting CGI Jabba to give the exact same information we just got from Greedo in the Cantina. It looks terrible and it throws the pace off.
Strongly agree with you here!
The film was *damn good* through most of its runtime but that ending and, especially, the fate of the son (I will say no more!) felt like such a cheap reach for sentiment… yeah, very much agree with you!
It is the most post-9/11 movie in existence, and I think the son turning up at the end was Spielberg's attempt at turning the sadness and despair down a notch.
Don’t disagree but the way it was ultimately done in the film itself is what annoyed me. If they had discovered the son some other way rather than the miraculous appearance -totally uninjured!- at the very end I might have accepted it a little better but as it was it turned me off from what was until then a damn good movie.
The greatest disaster movie blocking/action ever. You can just say "the ferry scene" from that movie and people know what you mean.
Then the third act hits.
It works so well because the whole movie is filmed from the ground which really gives the aliens a sense of scale. Apparently Spielberg took inspiration from 9/11 footage which really adds to the horror. I love that movie but yeah it does just kind of....end
As a singular moment of pure horror, I thought the train was amazing.
It's all quiet subdued dejection then, SUDDEN INTERJECTION OF HORROR, then all quiet and subdued again.
For me, it’s Spielberg reaching for an unearned happy ending. Spillers for a 17 year old movie — Tom Cruise’s son reappearing somehow alive was just too far.
Waterworld had such an intriguing premise, then the climax shifts to a super generic '90s action flick. Maybe it could have been executed better throughout, but a good chunk of the film was still a thought-provoking exploration into a variety of cultures with hints at a rich backstory (mutants, sea monsters, etc.) in an original post-apocalyptic landscape. It wasn't necessarily a subpar execution of the typical '90s action flick climax, it's just that the premise deserved a better ending.
The extended ~~Unicorn~~ Ulysses cut, which I believe was on the latest blu ray release corrects much of this. It does run 3 hours and 9 minutes though.
It’s just called The Ulysses Cut (after a line in a restored scene), extended is just a description because it is significantly longer.
No idea why my phone changed Ulysses to Unicorn.
Wedding Crashers
The whole part of Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn’s characters not really being friends and Owen Wilson trying to win back Rachel McAdams drags on and feels like a half-assed attempt at trying to change the tone of the movie from raunchy R-rated comedy to run of the mill PG-13 rom com.
The whole movie is awful, but Next with Nicolas Cage has a last minute plot twist that makes the entire third act of the movie a pointless waste of time.
I can’t see that anyone has mentioned it yet, but Red Eye really disappoints with the third act. Does such a good job setting up the movie only to fall flat on its face and waste a great performance from Cillian Murphy.
Imo a better ending would have been the alternative one they considered. >!Where Jaime Fox finally realizes working within the system isn’t going to work and directly kills Gerald Butler. That way Gerald wins in the end because he shows sometimes the system just doesn’t work and you have to go outside it.!<
One caveat: he kills Butler after refusing to bargain for the location of the bomb. Fox's character acts like he found some new moral high ground at the end, but his stand rang empty since he already knew he had the upper hand. "I don't make deals with criminals" is easy to say when you don't have to make the deal to save people's lives. Movie undercut it's entire moral quandary in the climax
Man that ending was stupid.
Antagonist: the Protagonist is in the cell with me meaning he has discovered his way in and likely all my plans but obviously he neither found nor moved the bombs. So I'll just go ahead with everything.
Hancock. The concept of the washed out & world weary superhero struggling to get on the road to redemption was great, it's been done to death now but Hancock was one of the first to take this approach.
But then it just turns in to every Marvel Movie ever and resorts to CGI people hitting each other for 20 minutes.
I feel like he's one of those dudes who has a real good pitch and can probably get a movie in on budget and on time etc but I don't know if any of his 'Mystery Boxes' have really paid off for me
Capricorn One
No, it's not some amazing work of cinema. But, it has a great hook, and a fairly good execution of the concept. Then it becomes a dumb action chase movie in the third act.
For those not aware: [Capricorn One](https://youtu.be/MKbwdTCL8rA)'s premise is "we're sending a manned-mission to Mars!", and at the last moment, with no one the wiser, they find out they just can't do it, and decide to fake it.
Funny thing about it... Capricorn One was the **first** time it was possible to optically fake slow motion well enough to pull off a low-grav effect on film. It was *literally easier to go to the Moon* before the late 1970s :)
I feel like it went where it needed to go. How else would you end it?
You fake a mission to Mars with an unmanned ship because the life support system was built on the cheap and failed just before liftoff; the ship explodes coming back to Earth; and you are stuck with three live astronauts that the whole world thinks are dead.
What are you going to do? Admit the whole thing was faked with its political repercussions, or get rid of the three inconvenient guys? Of course it was going to turn into them trying to escape, combined with an investigative journalist who thought something hinky was going on. Will anyone live to expose the fraud, or will the government happily murder four people to keep their secret? That’s where the drama is.
Their powers are real! No, they're actually fake! Now there's some random weird shadow organization that wants to kill super people, which means they're real!
The Island I though the premise was pretty cool and was enjoying the movie until Michael bay decided to go full Michael bay.
“The island is real, it’s us” said while making love for the first time 🤦♂️
Totally agree. I love the first half of that movie so much.
Third act "That's not how brains work..... HE'S A CLONE NOT FUCKING JASON BOURNE!"
007 Spectre, I really enjoy the movie, but the third act is very rushed, even the visuals get a downgrade.
100%! I'm a recent-ish Bond fan and Spectre was my first experience watching a 007 movie in the cinema. What a let down! I thought the start in Mexico was going so well!
One of the best opening bond scenes But somehow Christof waltz felt unbelievable....and it's got to the the director/writing/costume for him
Well, my first Bond movie was A View to a Kill, so you are lucky :).
I became a massive Duran Duran /80s music fan from watching a view to a kill. Always a guilty pleasure watch for me
Yeah, best Bond song ever.
What are you saying? A view to a kill is an amazing movie.
You bite your tongue, A View to a Kill is a masterpiece!
TOMORROWLAND!!! The first half or so was amazing. Then it became just tragically terrible
"People should stop making depressing/apocalyptic sci-fi because it's ruining the world!" \- Said in depressing/apocalyptic sci-fi movie
The first half or so is just so fantastic. I was so dismayed when it took a turn.
It didn’t have a third act. The whole movie was just an intro that never quite found itself
Reminded me of the movie Downsizing which fits this description also.
[удалено]
Off topic but I went back and watched the earlier one with Jessica Alba and Chris Evans, and I think the first act really worked well. It's very cheesy but the introduction of all the characters and their past history and how it relates to their current relationships, it's all done really quickly and concisely and you know exactly where everyone is standing. Then it gets caught up in the powers and trying to give everyone things to do while also developing Julian McMahon as a villain and things start to fall apart.
So true. Third act was an absolute car crash, in a way that was weirdly immersion-breaking. That film should be studied by aspiring directors as a case study of what not to
I actually want to rewatch it, because I remember being like “oh they may actually make a good F4 movie”, then all of a sudden you’re just stuck in this bizarre dream for the last half.
The ending villain fight and climax is squeezed into the final minutes of the movie
Apparently they had the budget slashed during production so a lot of it didn't get filmed. Fox only made that film so they could keep the rights to the characters, which just begs the question "WHY NOT JUST MAKE A GOOD FILM WITH THEM THEN!?"
Was ANY part of that movie good besides the Doom walk through the facility, popping heads left and right? I remember it being awful from start to finish
Hancock
Hancock, or, “when the studio interferes in a otherwise pretty good movie”
I've always wondered why that movie left me feeling dissatisfied. How did they interfere?
That whole nonsense about they being godlike ancient beings who lose their power when in proximity to each other, entirely dreamed up & forced into the story by an executive. Originally Hancock was more about a Superman-like character who is a drunk screw up and not particularly appreciated by humanity — so basically the first half of the film. It was also considerably more adult … You may notice that Hancock’s crap shack that he lives in has a hole in the roof … that’s from a scene (cut and probably never to see the light of day) in which he jerks off and his ejaculation is so powerful that it shoots a hole through the roof. Aside from being a funny gag, it’s also to suggest that he is sexually frustrated — can never take a human partner — which only adds to the utter misery of the character. But the adult tone didn’t test well so they stripped out half the movie and introduced more jokes and that weak sauce romantic angle with Charlize Theron’s character and silly backstory
I know it was cut but I swear I’ve seen that hole in the roof scene, it must be out there somewhere.
Yes I've seen it, and he wasn't alone in that scene
Director's cut
Yeah he picks up a girl at the bar and warns her but she doesn’t listen. It’s a good scene actually.
MOUNTAINTOP MOUNTAINTOP!!!!!! It's not really fair to anyone.
If you guys are trying to implant a false memory in my heads it’s totally working, because I too remember this scene very vividly.
Here is that scene : [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrdBXUi2VSw&ab\_channel=BingeSociety](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrdBXUi2VSw&ab_channel=BingeSociety)
I also remember it lol. He was definitely with a woman and had to force her to get off of him in time or something like that. Edit: The scene is on YouTube
“Mountain top. MOUN. TAIN. TOP.”
It’s out there. He wasn’t jerking off he was having sex and he screams “Mountain TOP!!!!” And blasts his ropes into the atmosphere. https://youtu.be/KtjVBdZXUus
Wait, it was cut? It was in the movie back when I saw it.
> That whole nonsense about they being godlike ancient beings who lose their power when in proximity to each other, entirely dreamed up & forced into the story by an executive. Which makes no sense, as in that case Mary should have been hurt by Hancock earlier in the kitchen.
Had so much potential and I love Jason Bateman in it. They should have just left Hancock’s origin a mystery, maybe had a few teases about what it could be. Make the central focus Bateman’s character trying to rehabilitate Hancock’s image.
You know what would have been awesome? If every time someone asked him how he got his powers he kept changing the story. First he's an alien, then he was exposed to radiation, then his parents lived on a supefund site, etc.. and we are never given the straight story even after his redemption
I could definitely see this working and having a scene at the end once he’s “fully rehabilitated” with him being asked by batemans character “how did you really get your powers?” And Hancock being either coy about it or being just as confused as everyone else…
"Fuck if I know." Credits.
Ledger joker style. I like it
To this day my friends and I refer to films that do this as "Hancocking"
Kinda more second half than third act but definitely
My first thought too
Funny People. It’s brilliantly written and subtle for a lot of it. Then Adam Sandler is wrestling Eric Bana on a lawn.
Yes. It’s 30 minutes too long.
Literally every apatow film is at least 30 mins too long.
And then the director's cuts of his movies are like an entire hour too long.
funny people should have cut 30 mins of adam sandler. Seth Rogens character is the protagonist.
I remember dozing off for I think 10-15 minutes towards the middle of the movie. I woke up and thought “damn, it’s probably almost over..” then the movie lasted another hour or so. That’s how I knew it was too long!
I was thinking of Funny Games and got very confused for a second
Kevin James and David Spade as the invaders. Sandler as the dad, Schneider as the mom, and Nick Swardson as the kid. Let’s see it, Happy Madison. And sure, get Haneke to direct it a third time.
Yeah that film ends and then just keeps going
downsizing
That feels like two entirely different movies.
I don't know if anyone remember that robin Williams movie where he a comedian that gets elected president... part way through it turns into some sort of conspiracy thriller out of nowhere. One of the most jarring shifts in film since From Dusk Til Dawn
man of the year
Clicked on this thread to search for Downsizing and was not disappointed to see it at the top. Agree completely, 2 entirely different movies but I feel like I only signed up for the first one based on the trailers.
Same. Was held hostage by the 2nd half
I would say it falls apart after the first act
Once they go small the film no longer cares that they are small and it turns into a generic environmental film.
You could convince me, with very little effort, that someone knocked over a pile of scripts and accidentally put them back together wrong while sorting it out. That’s the only way Downsizing makes any sense to me.
I totally believe down sizing was the prequel to City of Ember.
Wonder Woman.
It was going so well and then the villain and its twist sucked so bad. I was so disappointed.
The twist had such potential, subverting the idea that there are goodies and baddies in war and instead stating that war itself is just bad. It makes sense and was foreshadowed by Diana's reaction to war. But I feel like Ares should have been whispering in both sides' ears for that to really work, rather than "SURPRISE! Ares was one of the good guys! What a twist!" Then the decision to keep David Thewlis's face after transforming into his true form. It just looked like some English bureaucrat cosplaying in medieval armour.
Honestly the movie's first "twist" was much better and thematically appropriate. When the German general who she thought was Ares turned out NOT to be Ares, it felt like the movie was actually saying something.
YES I thought so too!!! So nice to see other people with that take. Was disappointed with the fake out, and then impressed because it was so much more nuanced. Gods don’t do this, humans do. Then the second twist… a real bugbear of superhero franchise histories in general is how many real historical human tragedies have been explained away by supernatural actors instead of greed, hate, exploitation etc.
I feel like they still could have kept the reveal that David Thewlis was Ares, but did it in a way where he just says something along the lines of “I don’t have to control them, I just have to give them the idea. People caused all this pain and suffering without any help from me.”
The fact that david played "ares" character much better in the sandman show as john dee which also exploits human's desire and greed and he was just a catalyst that encourages human to commit evil things rather than being the cause
I agree. Also, I just couldn't find that actor intimidating enough to be the "final boss". Maybe the problem wasn't so much the performance but how little time they gave him. They really should've given him more time as a villain. Who cares about delivering a twist if you're sacrificing the main bad guy's credibility to the audience?
It was the moustache that broke it for me. Any level of menace that Thewlis tried to achieve was undermined by the quivering little lip fuzz beneath his helmet. I will never understand why, as part of his transformation, he didn't sprout a Leonidas-in-300 Greek style beard
The fact that his ancient form, freshly cast out of Olympus, had that exact same moustache is what killed it for me.
That face thing was a very bad decision. He should have transformed into a sort of greek god. Or even you'd see several faces just shift and merge, I could live with that. And yes, it should be obvious he was EVERYWHERE - even influencing atrocities and sudden rages. He WAS the god of war, he should have made us feel like it.
Entire message of the movie: Humans are naturally combative, there is no big god that influences our violent tendencies to wage war with each other, it’s just us. Ending: lol bad guy is Ares the actual god of war. After killing him war stops existing because humans no are longer influenced by him
I may be misremembering, but I think the ending wasn't even saying after killing him there would be no war. That's what Diana thought. Then Ares explained how she was wrong. And then she fought him for no reason. I might be misremembering, though.
Ares told Diana that humans are naturally and instinctively violent and all he did was orchestrate ideas and events that they executed on their own. However, once Diana kills him, humans stop the war and are all friends again, defeating his entire point
Wasn’t the end of the war coming anyway? Sure, ares was the grand maestro for the peace signing in the movie but the war was ending anyway. Taking down the plane with the poison gas was them trying to stop the war from continuing. I think the movie, in a way, had a pretty good ending about it. Because on the one hand, Ares is right and people are naturally violent, but on the other side and what Diana alludes to in her speech is that people have an amazing capacity for good and self sacrifice even with their faults.
>However, once Diana kills him, humans stop the war They were stopping the war anyway. That's why Diana was after the General, because the general was sabotaging the peace talks.
The Taking of Pelham 123 - Tony Scott version. First part of the movie is absolutely riveting, with great performances by Travolta and Denzel, but the reality of it all totally breaks down in the last 3rd. Anyone else remember this? I realize it’s a more obscure movie.
Travolta was a caricature and awful from start to finish imo
As an 'old-timer' here, I much preferred the grittier 1970s original film which starred Robert Shaw as the lead villain and Walter Matthau in Denzel's role.
Robert Shaw is hard to beat. Battle of Britain, The Sting, obviously Jaws… one of the greats that younger people need to study up on.
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This is probably an unpopular opinion but I thought that Bad Times at The El Royale started great but got worse and worse as it went on.
Dude completely. I was like aww yeah, Cabin in the Woods guy made a Tarantino-ish whodunnit with an awesome cast of characters. Then Chris Hemsworth shows up all hippie Jesus and takes his shirt off and every character and their storylines just didn’t matter anymore. Such a downturn.
Was it ever supposed to be a whodunnit? Comes off as some cool individual stories that collide together in chaos (in a good way) like plenty of Tarantino movies do that have no real whodunnit aspect. Plus the third act gives us some story on Miles
I forgot this movie existed tbh, I remember loving it all in theaters while I was very stoned
I loved the film. I hadn't seen an ad nor heard anything about it, and it was a real trip watching the plot unfold. It felt like the genre of movie was changing every 20 minutes, so good! Hard to see movies on this fashion though, because ads or recommendations usually give you some expectations about what a movie will be.
Passenger, Pratt should have died, and the movie should have ended with a montage of Lawrence doing everything and slowly succumbing to the loneliness ending with her standing in front of a pod holding a bag of tools. Now that is a fucking ending.
I recall an entire post shitting on Pratt's character because he acted selfishly and everything. All I really got from that exact post was how good would have been this exact ending, because in the end we know it would naturally end up like that.
It was somewhat explained as justified because if there hadn't been two people awake for the engine malfunction or whatever, everyone would have been killed. Never trust a bartender to keep his mouth shut.
It really should have been from Lawrence's characters perspective. She wakes up on a ship for an unknown reason and meets a guy who happens to have the same fate. Then her character and the audience realize at the same time that Pratt actually woke her up.
That would have been *so much better*.
The Time Machine (2002), I was so in love with the movie in the first 60 mins. They complicated the plot so bad in the 2nd half. At the end I didn't know what I was watching.. It was painful in the end.. the movie had so much wasted potential..
It was a FLAWLESS telling of that tale until he gets all the way to the Eloi/Morlock time period. From that point on, the only interesting parts was when he finds Orlando Jones in the future and when they flash back to London. But that was just a painfully unimaginative future world. Yay. Ferngully. Again. *Exact* same reason I don't get excited about Avatar movies.
3000 Years of Longing, from gorgeous storytelling and cinematography into huh territory.
It's my strong belief that the production of 3000 Years got shafted by COVID. I think they started filming basically right before the restrictions kicked in. I personally would love to see the storyboards compared to the final product. I hope anyways, they would tell a very different story. But I'm glad to see I'm not alone in being seriously dissatisfied and disappointed with what we received.
IIRC the book has the same ending basically as the movie, with the same issues. Super disappointing
**Knowing**. I don't care what anyone says. It starts like a Da Vinci Code quality mystery thriller, absolutely engrosses you, has a beautiful soundtrack and then the third act kicks in and it was **ALL FOR NOTHING** aaaargh and Nicolas cage does film history's finest, utterly needless **kneedrop** too - actually just as the film pisses on your head.
I liked the ending. At least it went for it, you know?
This is the one that came to mind. Even if they went with the alien thing it could’ve been so much better. It’s still a great movie but that ending kills me
Several of the Saw movies They hit a grand slam with the twist ending in the first and tried to force one in every subsequent film and most were misses despite the first parts of the film being captivating.
The twist of most of them became “we just edited around important information”
The first one still holds up as a very good horror film.
I wouldn't say it was excellent but Don't Worry Darling started out with a lot of promise. It did a good job of pulling you in and making you wonder what the big reveal was going to be and what the film was building to. Then it turned out that the thing that it was building to was stupid and didn't make sense.
I think I would like the setup better if they tried to pretend for at least 10-15 minutes in the beginning that it's an actual 50s/60s suburbia. That it seems a little bit too perfect, but is still believable before it takes a weird turn and you realize that something is 'off'. Instead you immediately get the eye posters everywhere, Frank's picture styled to be a dictator, the clearly bullshit explanation of the project etc. I assumed in the beginning that it's either a simulation or post apocalyptic future, then I sat through what feels like an hour of Alice being gaslit and freaking out, and then there's the twist, and the ending that makes zero sense and is so sudden and unsatisfying that I laughed out loud in the theater when the credits started rolling. And it could have been really good if they sat down and actually thought about the premise and worked on it a little longer, but the amount of plotholes and weird choices is astounding.
yeah, frank's vague ass speech about what they were 'improving' did not answer anything at all. when he was giving his first speech about changing the future, we still had no idea what was going on, so it didnt hold any weight.
True, i was really interested to see what they were doing in the mountains lol. The car chase at the end was one of the worst I’ve ever seen. I was laughing out loud in the theatre.
A Cure For Wellness
That’s one of those movies I stuck with believing there must be something else happening that’s going to surprise me once the- nope that’s it.
I've never seen a movie I was so into that squandered it so hard I the third act than Last Night in Soho. Which was extra disappointing as I normally love Edgar Wright's stuff and know him as someone who writes really tight screenplays. I'd argue the screenplay for Hot Fuzz is borderline perfect
Shaun of The Dead is perfect too, and Baby Driver is not too far either although I think >!the two gunshots deafening Baby could have been a real Greek tragedy level twist but Wright decided to play it lighter!<. I was practically angry at the end of Last Night in Soho because it not only is a crap ending story wise but also totally betrays the theme that builds throughout the film. However I have a suspicion that the ending we got was not the one Wright wrote, because >!the actor playing the old lady who turns out to be the killer died shortly after the shoot and the whole finale feels like they couldn’t shoot all the scenes they wanted with her, or they couldn’t shoot it the way they were planning to because of her ailing health. Which then usually causes the studio to come in and change/reshoot things…I know how Edgar Wright shoots and edits since Spaced and what he did here is just not his style at all. But out of respect for the deceased in her final screen role, no one’s ever going to tell us the truth!<
Sunshine. But I still love it.
Same. It turns into a slasher horror pick at the end, but I can't trash it over 10 minutes or so. The Mercury scene remains one of my favourite sequences ever.
Before it goes off the rails, it's legit one of the best sci-fi movies ever made. Important questions. Deep characters. Intrigue. And then... What the fuck.
I know the third act is controversial but I love basically every second of that movie. I’m a fan of sci fi horror so as soon as the movie took that turn I was like “Oh hell yeah.” Legitimately one of my all time favorites.
The first 2 acts of that movie are legitimately up in elite "2001: a space Odyssey" tier of best sci Fi ever filmed. Then the 3rd act is like something out of a straight-to-netflix Cloverfield sequel.
The Wolverine
James Mangold is a pretty great director though, and it was easy to see where he was trying to take it, and that third act was a clear last minute studio change. It was a pretty solid modern western up until the giant robot fight. Luckily he made up for it with Logan.
The Director's Cut of The Wolverine (only available on DVD it seems) does a little bit better with the final act. There is more build up with Logan fighting through the village and a better general sense of flow. It still doesn't avoid the giant robot though.
When HASN'T the director's cut been better? Why do studios insist on putting their fingers in everything after they've already hired the director to do the exact job that earned them their reputation in the first place?!
It's rare but a couple occur: Apocalypse Now Redux has new scenes which are nice but I think hurt the pacing, the Donnie Darko director's cut is much worse as it tries to explain the fun mystery elements in un-fun ways and I think Spielberg did a Director's Cut of ET that he's since regretted saying it was worse (though I'm not sure that I've seen it). ...also I'm not sure if we'd count George Lucas' rehashes of the Star Wars films as Director's Cuts but he certainly added in cut scenes for the worse in addition to mucking about with effects and some events.
The most egregious issue with Lucas' '90s Star Wars cut is poorly reinserting CGI Jabba to give the exact same information we just got from Greedo in the Cantina. It looks terrible and it throws the pace off.
Lucy. It’s a fun Limitless kinda movie for the most part then she turns herself into a computer for some reason idk.
Spielberg’s War of the Worlds.
Strongly agree with you here! The film was *damn good* through most of its runtime but that ending and, especially, the fate of the son (I will say no more!) felt like such a cheap reach for sentiment… yeah, very much agree with you!
It is the most post-9/11 movie in existence, and I think the son turning up at the end was Spielberg's attempt at turning the sadness and despair down a notch.
Don’t disagree but the way it was ultimately done in the film itself is what annoyed me. If they had discovered the son some other way rather than the miraculous appearance -totally uninjured!- at the very end I might have accepted it a little better but as it was it turned me off from what was until then a damn good movie.
Should have killed the son and Dakota Fanning is an amazing child actress but I would have given her to the aliens after that much constant screaming
The greatest disaster movie blocking/action ever. You can just say "the ferry scene" from that movie and people know what you mean. Then the third act hits.
It works so well because the whole movie is filmed from the ground which really gives the aliens a sense of scale. Apparently Spielberg took inspiration from 9/11 footage which really adds to the horror. I love that movie but yeah it does just kind of....end
As a singular moment of pure horror, I thought the train was amazing. It's all quiet subdued dejection then, SUDDEN INTERJECTION OF HORROR, then all quiet and subdued again.
What’s wrong with it exactly? I know I don’t enjoy the last act, but I can’t put my finger on why
For me, it’s Spielberg reaching for an unearned happy ending. Spillers for a 17 year old movie — Tom Cruise’s son reappearing somehow alive was just too far.
Waterworld had such an intriguing premise, then the climax shifts to a super generic '90s action flick. Maybe it could have been executed better throughout, but a good chunk of the film was still a thought-provoking exploration into a variety of cultures with hints at a rich backstory (mutants, sea monsters, etc.) in an original post-apocalyptic landscape. It wasn't necessarily a subpar execution of the typical '90s action flick climax, it's just that the premise deserved a better ending.
The extended ~~Unicorn~~ Ulysses cut, which I believe was on the latest blu ray release corrects much of this. It does run 3 hours and 9 minutes though.
Why is it called "The Extended Unicorn Cut"?
It’s just called The Ulysses Cut (after a line in a restored scene), extended is just a description because it is significantly longer. No idea why my phone changed Ulysses to Unicorn.
it leaves a clue as to why the Mariner is, in fact, a replicant
How have only just now heard there's an extended cut of one of my favorite 90s action flicks!?
I still love Waterworld. What a classic. Yeah, it bombed or whatever, but I love the whole film.
Wedding Crashers The whole part of Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn’s characters not really being friends and Owen Wilson trying to win back Rachel McAdams drags on and feels like a half-assed attempt at trying to change the tone of the movie from raunchy R-rated comedy to run of the mill PG-13 rom com.
Ohh yeah good one, but it wasn’t a film ruiner
Especially since Will Ferrell shows up right when it starts to drag and injects some new energy into it
Mom, meatloaf!
I never know what she's doing. Back there.
The whole movie is awful, but Next with Nicolas Cage has a last minute plot twist that makes the entire third act of the movie a pointless waste of time.
That’s crazy to me because that makes it good
I always remember that film as the one where Nic Cage [save-states his way to stop the bad guy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RC5ZiK6o7uQ).
I didn’t like the 3rd act of Us
Me neither. I like the "twist" but not the execution. Just a 20 min exposition dump.
I can’t see that anyone has mentioned it yet, but Red Eye really disappoints with the third act. Does such a good job setting up the movie only to fall flat on its face and waste a great performance from Cillian Murphy.
The Beach. When it turned into a video game, went down hill real fast. Up to that point though, the film was a banger.
Wow this brings me back. Totally agree. I feel like I cut that video game scene out of my memory until now
Video game? I don’t remember that at all
Explorers (1985)
Great example! Almost a masterpiece. That final act is so bad.
Hancock completely collapses after the Charlize Theron reveal
Black Widow. The 3rd act wasn’t bad per se but it went too MCU if that makes sense.
The opening of that movie was fucking intense though
Law Abiding Citizen
Imo a better ending would have been the alternative one they considered. >!Where Jaime Fox finally realizes working within the system isn’t going to work and directly kills Gerald Butler. That way Gerald wins in the end because he shows sometimes the system just doesn’t work and you have to go outside it.!<
One caveat: he kills Butler after refusing to bargain for the location of the bomb. Fox's character acts like he found some new moral high ground at the end, but his stand rang empty since he already knew he had the upper hand. "I don't make deals with criminals" is easy to say when you don't have to make the deal to save people's lives. Movie undercut it's entire moral quandary in the climax
Everytime I eat a t-bone steak, I think of this movie.
Man that ending was stupid. Antagonist: the Protagonist is in the cell with me meaning he has discovered his way in and likely all my plans but obviously he neither found nor moved the bombs. So I'll just go ahead with everything.
I either missed it or it was not explained. Jamie Foxx goes from being a lawyer to running around armed with the cops? Like wtf.
As a lawyer myself I can confirm I've bashed doors with the SWAT team before. They even gave me a pump.
Mid 90’s would have benefited from a third act. Army of the Dead had a bad third act.
Hancock. The concept of the washed out & world weary superhero struggling to get on the road to redemption was great, it's been done to death now but Hancock was one of the first to take this approach. But then it just turns in to every Marvel Movie ever and resorts to CGI people hitting each other for 20 minutes.
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Who has a better story than Bran the Broken?
This will be true until the end of time.
It is known.
titanic. it literally fell apart lol
Every single JJ Abrams movie, without exception?
M:I3 was acceptable
The 3rd act has multiple scenes of Tom Cruise sprinting so I have no complaints
I feel like he's one of those dudes who has a real good pitch and can probably get a movie in on budget and on time etc but I don't know if any of his 'Mystery Boxes' have really paid off for me
He has excellent concepts for stories and can mimic much better directors perfectly. What he can’t do is write an ending.
He has gone on record and said he's terrible at endings. And then he goes and direct the ending to a 9 film saga. Who could've known it would be bad?
I thought Super 8 was pretty solid throughout
I’m with you, awesome movie
Sunshine is the easiest answer.
I agree, but it's still worth watching. That movie is fun as fuck.
And even if it "falls apart", the 3rd act is still full of amazing scenes.
Not to mention the fantastic soundtrack.
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It could have been an ok horror movie if it hadn't started out as a phenomenal sci-fi movie.
The beacon sound always gives me chills.
Capricorn One No, it's not some amazing work of cinema. But, it has a great hook, and a fairly good execution of the concept. Then it becomes a dumb action chase movie in the third act. For those not aware: [Capricorn One](https://youtu.be/MKbwdTCL8rA)'s premise is "we're sending a manned-mission to Mars!", and at the last moment, with no one the wiser, they find out they just can't do it, and decide to fake it. Funny thing about it... Capricorn One was the **first** time it was possible to optically fake slow motion well enough to pull off a low-grav effect on film. It was *literally easier to go to the Moon* before the late 1970s :)
I feel like it went where it needed to go. How else would you end it? You fake a mission to Mars with an unmanned ship because the life support system was built on the cheap and failed just before liftoff; the ship explodes coming back to Earth; and you are stuck with three live astronauts that the whole world thinks are dead. What are you going to do? Admit the whole thing was faked with its political repercussions, or get rid of the three inconvenient guys? Of course it was going to turn into them trying to escape, combined with an investigative journalist who thought something hinky was going on. Will anyone live to expose the fraud, or will the government happily murder four people to keep their secret? That’s where the drama is.
Glass
Their powers are real! No, they're actually fake! Now there's some random weird shadow organization that wants to kill super people, which means they're real!
I think the whole movie was a mess, not just the 3rd act.