Your biggest disappointments in the theater...

[Raven]

The biggest dissappointment for me was Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.   There wasn't a single thing I liked about this movie and that's saying something since I was really curious about it from watching the preview.  

The next riff up would be considered a dissapointment to me.  I was worried before I went in but I somehow convinced myself that not even Michael Bay could mess up transformers.   I don't hate the movie but I wouldn't say I like it either.

And I don't think sequels should even be considered for this topic.  They almost always serve as a let down.  (Especially if a new director takes over.)

[Crazy_88s]

The biggest dissappointment for me was Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.   There wasn't a single thing I liked about this movie and that's saying something since I was really curious about it from watching the preview.   

Yeah I don't think sky captain was nearly as good as everyone says it was.

[Crazy_88s]

De gustibus, I guess. I really enjoyed Sky Captain.

To each his own. 

[gbeenie]

I never saw Sky Captain, but I've always wanted to. Everything I've ever seen from it reminds me of Things To Come.

[Petey Wheatstraw]

Things to Come had good visuals, but I didn't like the fact that there are no non-white actors cast in the film. Either it was because of the casting limitations at the time, or the filmmakers were intentionally suggesting that there are only white people in the future. It just bothered me too much for me to respect the film that much.

[gbeenie]

It was 1936. Unfortunately, the routine presence of non-white actors in sci-films didn't occur until the 60s. If you judge the film for it, you open up a Pandora's box: if you believe the movies, all decent and moral people have stunning good looks, and those who don't look like that are either funny, stupid or evil, or any combination of those three.

[Petey Wheatstraw]

It was 1936. Unfortunately, the routine presence of non-white actors in sci-films didn't occur until the 60s.

I noted that ("casting limitations").

If you judge the film for it, you open up a Pandora's box: if you believe the movies, all decent and moral people have stunning good looks, and those who don't look like that are either funny, stupid or evil, or any combination of those three.

It's not about "believing the movies". It's about not liking what the filmmakers are unintentionally, or intentionally implying. It's about my perception of what the filmmakers are trying to say.

[Petey Wheatstraw]

Personally, I found Sky Captain to be really, really boring. I think I fell asleep in the theater. And there are very few films to use the "actors on greenscreen with sets added later" mode of filmmaking and be really good. Sin City stands out as a great film to be made this way, while the remake of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is pretty good. Sky Captain isn't all that memorable. I'd like to see a modern revisit to the film serial, but an actual modern story told in serial form, not an imitatation of the stories of those films.

[Plastic Self-Cleaning Duck]

I never saw Sky Captain, but I've always wanted to. Everything I've ever seen from it reminds me of Things To Come.

I haven't seen Things to Come, but Sky Captain is just an "updated" version of the old 30s serials, which is largely why I like it so much.  This and Indiana Jones and the '99 Mummy all have that great swashbuckling "adventure" feel to them which makes movies fun. 

I almost never want to see "films."  I don't want my entertainment to be brooding or depressing. I want it to be fun.  Same reason I don't read "literature".  This is the movie equivalent of Edgar Rice Burroughs or E.E. "Doc" Smith.  Same reason I enjoyed the Flash Gordon movie, for that matter.

The robots and the theft was stolen straight out of the Max and Dave Fleisher Superman cartoon, "Mechanical Monsters".....

And then.... you've got your movie Bad Guy being "played" by a dead actor.  So, when they find him finally turns out he's been dead for years - what a shock...NOT!   

I was so happy when that film was finally over.

[gbeenie]

It was 1936. Unfortunately, the routine presence of non-white actors in sci-films didn't occur until the 60s.

I noted that ("casting limitations").

If you judge the film for it, you open up a Pandora's box: if you believe the movies, all decent and moral people have stunning good looks, and those who don't look like that are either funny, stupid or evil, or any combination of those three.

It's not about "believing the movies". It's about not liking what the filmmakers are unintentionally, or intentionally implying. It's about my perception of what the filmmakers are trying to say.

Understood. What I'm saying is that perception could be applied to the majority of movies made before 1960 or so. Are you asserting that, because these films do not contain a racial makeup that is in keeping with realities of modern society, nor our contemporary attitudes toward race, that they lose their worth to film history?

Hell, forget about older films; I don't recall a preponderance of non-white people in Brazil (a film I think you and I would both agree is relentlessly brilliant).

[Plastic Self-Cleaning Duck]

I'm sorry you didn't enjoy it. Maybe you should've left.

If I had, I'd be accused on "not giving it a chance".

[Petey Wheatstraw]

Understood. What I'm saying is that perception could be applied to the majority of movies made before 1960 or so. Are you asserting that, because these films do not contain a racial makeup that is in keeping with realities of modern society, nor our contemporary attitudes toward race, that they lose their worth to film history?

But you don't really notice it in a lot of older films. You really notice it in Things to Come.

Hell, forget about older films; I don't recall a preponderance of non-white people in Brazil (a film I think you and I would both agree is relentlessly brilliant).

Well, that's a film that focuses on a singular character. You don't really see a whole lot from the future society of that film. 2001: A Space Odyssey also doesn't really show a whole lot of people. You assume that people who are not white still exist in the future of these films, it's just that they have to have the audience think about a couple of people. In Things to Come, you're showing what life is supposed to be like in the future, and either they're intentionally avoiding showing non-white people or they didn't even think of it. I'm not saying it's not a good film. It is, but it's far from a great film.

[mrbasehart]

Most of Robert Rodriguez's films have disappointed me.  His mexican trilogy, Sin City, Planet Terror, the last two Spy Kids movies.  I think it's because they're ideas or genres that I really dig, and yet when I watch them, they completely underwhelm me.  Especially Sin City, who knew a direct adaptation of a graphic novel I really enjoyed would turn out to be so empty onscreen? It even damaged the source it was adapted from. 

Captain Corelli's Mandolin really annoyed me too, I loved the book, and yet the highlight of the movie is Nicolas Cages' ridiculous accent.