April 21, 2004
B.O. disappointment
That's it!
I'm done getting excited about films.
Done like Danza. Tony Danza (oh, he is so(!) done. Overdone even. That turkey is dry).
My most anticipated movie in some time, Hellboy, left me rather unexhilerated. I was so excited to see that movie. From the moment I heard Guillermo Del Toro (whose job on Blade II is one of the best comic-book-feel movies ever) was directing, Mike Mignola (Hellboy's creator) was heavily participating, and that they got their dream man in the red skin, Ron Perlman, I giggled with utter glee. And I followed the on-set reports on CHUD and I read fantastic praise regarding a 45-minute, no-action rough cut, and I saw pictures and I drooled. Then the trailers hit in December and my toes wiggled like a four year old going to Disneyland. I was excited, totally and utterly overcome with anticipation. April 2nd couldn't come soon enough for me, I havn't looked so forward to a movie since Star Wars: Episode 1.. (yeah I should have learned have learned my lesson then, but I actually liked SW:E1 enough to see it 6 times in the theatre).
And then it came out. And I didn't hate it. But it did not live up to my expectations, nay, standards of what a Hellboy film should be. Despite the many many fantastic reviews it received, I was torn and conflicted (as evidenced by my choppy dirty monkey review).
And then there was the Dawn of the Dead (which I talk a little bit more about in my Ent.Etc section here), which had me itchy with delight about seeing, hoping to have the freak creeped right out of me (zombies generally give me the major wiggins) but there too I was disappointed with a completely predictable and rather uninspired film.
And even more recently (all in the span of the month of April), Kill Bill Volume 2, which I saw last night, didn't live up to the expectations I had for it (dirty monkey review here), which isn't to say that I hated it (or any of the films mentioned above), just that they aren't as great as I'd hoped they would be.
Jeremy even warned me beforehand that it was much more a Tarantino "talkie" than it was an action machine. Even with that taken into point I still wasn't prepared for how extremely the talk overrode the action.
Man, I need to learn my lesson on this anticipation thing (Matrix Revolutions should have been the lesson learned). I shall not look forward to Spiderman 2 (even though I didn't care all that much for the first one, I think the trailer for 2 looks quite exciting), I shall not look forward to Episode 3, I shall not even think that Aliens vs. Predator is going to be anything but the crapfest it most inevitably will be. The Chronicles of Riddick? No! Harry Potter with Gary Oldman? NO!
All I should do is keep thinking Matrix:Revolutions, Matrix:Revolutions, his name is Robert Paulson. Matrix:Revolutions.
When's the next Charlie Kaufman film come out. Oh wait, he also did the extremely disappointing Human Nature.
*sigh*
ent
You just have to stop going to movies expecting them to blow you away. I'm expecting Kill Bill 2 to be kickass, but I'm not expecting it to be better than the first. Nor am I expecting Spiderman 2 (I *LOVED* the original) to be better than the original, however it DOES look good. I was just hoping that Doc Oc would have an accent... :/
Posted by: Ryan Waddell at April 22, 2004 12:35 PMThey're fucking blockbuster franchises, what is there to expect?
Posted by: Carla at April 23, 2004 1:59 PMwell, considering my enjoyment level of Guillermo Del Toro's Blade II, my enjoyment of all of Quentin Tarantino's previous films, my aforementioned predisposition to being creeped out by zombies, my enjoyment of the first 2 Matrix films, and hell, the hype surrounding the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy (of which I was really only satisfied by the Two Towers)... what was there to expect? Well, more than what was delivered I guess.
I'm not one of these "turn my nose up at the hollywood machine" type people, mainly because a)I'm a sci-fi/comic book geek and those cannot be done well, for the most part, without big hollywood budget, and b) indie films are as bad:good percentage wise as Hollywood films are, with the bad definitely outweighing the good..
And really, shouldn't we expect more entertainment out of a blockbuster franchise? Not less. I don't ask for high art in my big(ger) budget movies...but Kill Bill Vol 1 (which I'd definitely hesitate to refer to as a "blockbuster franchise")was nothing if not more art than movie. Was it too much to expect something similar from the second half of what is rightfully the same movie?
With Hellboy, the expectation was that the director, working with the creator of the character would have crafted a film that delivered essentially the comic onto the screen. That's what was promised and yet, with a few exceptions, I didn't feel it. That's what disappointed me. Hellboy was a labor of love for almost all the major players, and from what I read it would seem there was little studio interference. So again, I wouldn't put this in the same category as a Terminator 3 or a Bad Boys 2.
of course after writing all that I realized you were talking about the Spiderman/AvsP/SWep3/HarryPots/Riddick thangs at which point, yeah... what's there to expect
Except that I really really enjoyed Pitch Black (which returns writer/director David Twohy and Vin Diesel to the Riddick character), the Harry Potter movies have all been solid translations of (if not better than) the novels, the die hard Star Wars fan in me is hoping for an exciting finale (though I shouldn't be at this point), and Alien vs. Predator is a fanboy's dream come true. Spiderman, i can take or leave... but if Spidey2 doesn't do well, it's going to spell bad news for future comic book films getting made, which would be a bad thing.
But I'm not getting excited over any of this. NO, no I'm not.
Posted by: graig at April 23, 2004 3:15 PM