Movies That Should Have Been Better Than They Were

karajanhra · 12-03-2008, 08:37 PM

This thread is about movies that you feel, one way or another, should have been better than they were. Maybe they had great scripts and terrible actors; maybe they had a great basic plot but bad scriptwriting which didn't get across all that the story should have been; maybe they had lousy special effects or film editing. Discuss movies that you KNOW could have - should have - been better than they were, and why.

The movie which inspired this thread is Cube Zero. For those of you (most of you) who don't know, Cube is a Canadian psychological film series; it's a bit like Saw if you took almost all of the gore out of Saw and made the plot ten times as complicated. The basic situation in the films is a group of strangers waking up in a series of interconnected cube-shaped rooms (all part of a larger cube structure); the goal is to cross the rooms to make it to the edge of the cube to find a possibly nonexistent exit. The problem is that only some of these rooms are safe to enter; the majority are rigged with traps such as flamethrowers, metal spikes, etc. that kill you as soon as you enter. The strangers are given absolutely no information, and it's up to them to figure out the "rules" of the Cube (which are different in each movie) and get out. As said in the first movie by one of the strangers, they've "got 3 days before we're too weak to move."

The first two films, Cube and Cube 2: Hypercube, were absolutely brilliant. The rule of the Cube are incredibly complex; the original Cube requires a series of incredibly difficult mathematical solutions (solved inside two of the strangers' heads) to traverse, and the Hypercube (2nd movie) deals in four dimensions. My problem comes with Cube Zero. Cube Zero, although it came out as the 3rd movie, was intended to be a prequel to the original Cube. It dealt with the original (3-dimensional) Cube structure, so although the "rules" of the Cube and the coordinates scattered through it were slightly different than those of the 1st, the basic premise was the same. Where the plot complexities and twists of the 1st and 2nd movies were all very well thought out and connected, the writers of Cube Zero seemed to throw them in at random and with no connection to one another. The ending plot twist linked vaguely back to a character in the original movie, but its connection (although neat) was illogical and left unexplained. My main problem is that my favorite plot point/twist of the movie was put into the middle of it and then never touched upon again. This plot twist was definetely worth of the Cube series; it wasn't as intellectual as those of the other movies, but it was intriguing. (spoiler) In the original Cube, when a "player" in the Cube reached one of the two exits on the edges, he/she stepped into a white light. Cube Zero revealed that upon stepping into the light, he/she is knocked out by the administrators of the Cube, chained up, and asked one question: "Do you believe in God?" The administrator technicians have two buttons: a Yes button and a No button. The No button gets the player burned up in a pyre of flame.

"What happens if you press the Yes button?"
"I don't know. No one's ever said 'Yes' before."

An intriguing, unsettling plot point. A plot point which is from then on never referred to or acknowledged again. So while the ending of Cube Zero was playing (which had no connection to Do You Believe In God and only a tenuous connection to the series), all I was thinking about was, "What happens if you answer Yes?" There will be no 4th movie, so I will never know - but unfortunately, Do You Believe In God was only one of a host of plot points in Cube Zero that had the potential to be brilliant, but were never expanded upon. It really infuriated me that the film had so much potential but instead came off as lackadaisical and shizophrenic because the writers/producers couldn't just pick one or two plot twists and go with them.

What's your Cube Zero?

hookem168 · 12-03-2008, 08:39 PM

Although I'm too lazy to explain why, I have a few:

Quantum of Solace
Body of Lies
The Matrix: Reloaded

Invoyable · 12-03-2008, 09:23 PM

There's way too many, so I'm going to start off with one I remember the most recently: Madagascar 2. (Yes, I know. A couple friends and I decided to hang out and one loser kept begging for this one, and it was so horrible that I think the others beat the crap out of him after).

Honestly...um, I don't know what to say. I'm only somewhat okay because I got a refund for the ticket../when the guy who checks tickets was luckily going somewhere else really quick and looking somewhere else, we all snuck in and our tickets were intact so we could demand a refund.

Nick017 · 12-03-2008, 11:46 PM

Troy. It blew, but the Iliad is probably the best war story of all time, with so much potential for epicness in the stead of cheesy Pittness.

danceluvur26 · 12-04-2008, 12:02 AM

um Twilight lol

hookem168 · 12-04-2008, 12:41 AM

^ Reported.

sidenote: I agree with Nick about Troy.

Comment about Madagascar 2: my approach to this thread was to pick movies that I EXPECTED to be good, and just weren't. If you walked into Madagscar 2 expecting anything at all, you were probably high lol.

kevdo · 12-04-2008, 12:49 AM

tropic thunder

oceans 13

hookem168 · 12-04-2008, 12:52 AM

I heartily agree with both of kevdo's

Ocean's 11 was by far the best

bluexrhapsody281 · 12-04-2008, 05:50 AM

No Country for Old Men

Matrix 2 +3

AT9 · 12-04-2008, 10:45 AM

No Country for Old men
Madagascar 2(It would have been good if the whole thing was about the penguins)
Matrix 2 and 3
Transformers
Fantastic Four 2
Almost any Will Farrell movie
Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and 3
Chronicles of Narnia 1 and 2

Invoyable · 12-04-2008, 10:06 PM

I actually agree with most on the list.

Quote:

Comment about Madagascar 2: my approach to this thread was to pick movies that I EXPECTED to be good, and just weren't. If you walked into Madagscar 2 expecting anything at all, you were probably high lol.

I wasn't, but I didn't know much about Madagascar 2, since I haven't watched the first one and some of my friends said it was good. I thought it'd be at least halfway decent.

Oh well.

strangequark · 12-04-2008, 11:24 PM

madagascar 2...it just didn't have the "charm" of one

swiss.miss.13 · 12-05-2008, 02:01 PM

Harry Potters--> i was expecting more considering i love the books, but still hot horrendous

Mamma Mia--> okay i know everyone probably disagrees haha but i was soo excited to see it last weekend FINALLY and when i did i was like tfeh thats it? there was no climax....the play i saw in London and was amazing but the movie was disappointing

Oceanstate43 · 12-05-2008, 02:50 PM

I am legend

I thought they had a good idea and I like Will Smith, but somehow it didn't really work

asfh09 · 12-05-2008, 05:14 PM

HARRY POTTER. Mad-Eye's "eye" in the fourth movie? Katie Leung as Cho Chang? Come onnnn. That book series is one of my favorite things in the world, and the movies were disappointing. One of the only good things was Rupert Grint. Actually, none of the other actors/actresses were terrible, it was just that the actual movies themselves and the interpretation and all the changing from book to movie was not something I liked or appreciated. The Lord of the Rings, however, is on the opposite end of the spectrum - AMAZING book series, fabulous movies.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2031/...8b33a8.jpg?v=0
^ This is Daniel Radcliffe's "intense" acting face.