Dr. DVD

I think the thread title says it all. This doesn't just mean movies from your childhood, but anything where you viewed it, thought it was good, but later started to realize, man, this isn't that great. Could have been the hype, could have been denial, but bottomline is the movie isn't that great.

My cases:

Phantom Menace
Independence Day

Crocker Jarmen

A couple I've reccently noticed:

Clockers - something about the tone is way off, and what I remember as being gritty and intense is actually rather amateurish and sloppy.

Return of the Jedi - The opening twenty minutes in Jabba's palace is great, and the final light sabre dual between Luke and Vadar may be my favorite scene in the whole trilogy... but man does the middle section of this movie sag like a leaky paper bag. Slow, boring, zero excitment. And once he's rescued, Han Solo has nothing else to do in the movie. What a waste.

Solid Snake

G.I. Joe

I actually enjoyed the film, obvious flaws and all. Saw it again later on DVD or BD...fucking got annoyed w/ it quick.

GoldenJCJ

Burn After Reading - saw it in theaters and laughed hysterically throughout. Recently bought it on Blu-ray and hardly chuckled.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - I still enjoy this movie more than most people and don't think it deserves all the hate it gets but I definitely saw all the flaws on the second and third viewings. I realize now that the filmmakers phoned it in to some extent.

PopcornTreeCt

Donnie Darko

Maxflier

Van Helsing

filmerp

Event Horizon

Dr. DVD

More examples:

Van Helsing- really thought it was good aside from the third act , but recently tried to watch the BR and the rest of the movie isn't that great as well.

A lot of movies from the 80s fall into this category as well, and many were hits at the time, they just don't hold up well beyond nostalgia. Rambo II and Top Gun are prime examples. Doubt they would get much notice today.

Terminal

Dawn of the Dead 2004
Independence Day
Mallrats
Dogma
Spawn

mike7162

The Hunger (1983)

Shannon Nutt

Just realized this one over the weekend, going through my Bond Collection:

GoldenEye

Was "great" in 1995 (to me), but it seems really cheesy and campy today. Maybe not to "suck" levels, but it's not as watchable as it used to be...it just seems silly now.

Solid Snake

Yeah. Goldeneye hasn't aged well. Good movie but it is very much a product of the time for the worst.

PenguinJoe

I gotta disagree that movie sucked the first time I saw it. There was a monkey that looked like Shia LeBeouf, the whole crashing down a waterfall three times, and the ridiculous ending that the crystal skull gives you knowledge but then kills you made me cringe.

Artman

Had the same reaction. Watched Tomorrow Never Dies also, which does hold up a bit better...but in the wake of the Craig films, they play more like comedies it seems. I'll probably end up trading them in..

Mike86

Agreed with Goldeneye. It's aged pretty badly. It still has some cool moments but overall I don't enjoy it as much as I used to.

Batman Returns is another. I enjoyed it a lot more when I was younger but can't stand it now.

Why So Blu?

Goldeneye is still the best of the Brosnan Bond films. Tomorrow Never Dies doe NOT hold better than Goldeneye.

Hiro11

Give the Brosnan Bonds a few more years. As the years went by, some of the Moore Bonds went past their original intent of being absurd satires of themselves and came back to being watchable and actually cool as the years went by. Their retro charms are powerful. "Moonraker" fits this pattern, so does "The Man with the Golden Gun".

Indy Jones Fan

This was a big one for me. I remembered really liking this when I saw it in the theater so I recently picked up the Blu-Ray from the WalMart bargin bin, watched it, and it was horrible.

Mike86

I personally disagree. I actually enjoy Tomorrow Never Dies and The World is Not Enough the best of the Brosnan Bond films. Goldeneye has a good story but the style of the film ages it terribly.

Mondo Kane

Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!
Worshipped it the first time I saw it (Under the influence of substances)
Re-watched it later (Sober) and just thought it was ok. I still absolutely love the first 20 minutes, but it all slowly disentegrates once the old man and his sons show up. In the end, I just wish Russ would've come up with a better storyline involving that memorable trio of girls.


There's only 2 reasons for me to re-watch this. The entire Throne Room sequence (Luke,Vader,Palp) and.....The slave-girl outfits.

Dr. DVD

The Brosnan Bonds have become quite a joke. I remember being so pleased with Goldeneye when I saw it opening night, but that probably had to do with me being a Freshman in college catching a Bond movie for the first time in over six years with my dorm friends. On the up side, the video game did help create modern day shooter style..

I'm kind of torn on Bram Stoker's Dracula from 1992. It is a true visual treat, and a rather faithful adaptation. However, the abundance of Gen-X actors make it seem like a huge college stage production with Anthony Hopkins as the special professional actor guest star. Also, Keanu Reeves was just bad when I first saw it, but now his performance seems god-awful.

Crocker Jarmen

I almost mentioned this movie too. It's such a shame it isn't better. The visuals are wonderful, Coppola must have had a blast using all kind of old film effects. The score is outstanding. Plus this came out just as I was starting high school, so it holds a very special nostalgic place in my heart.

But so much of the acting is atrocious. As well as Keanu, I always wince at the way Winnona says, "I am not hungry!" Anthony Hopkins is a big ham. Richard Grant is pretty good though, and Tom Waits is perfect.

Also the romance story between Mina and Dracula doesn't move me. I never feel at all that she falls in love with him, which makes the last part of the movie drag since I don't care about anything that is going on.

PenguinJoe

Goldeneye was a better video game than a movie. There I said it.

lamphorn

Yeah, this. The movie is gorgeous in so many ways, but they fell for the ol' Hollywood claptrap about Dracula and Mina being in love. That nonsense was not in the novel.

The novel is written as a series of letters, newspaper clippings, and diary/journal entries by the characters of the story. Coppola worked his way around that by showing Mina tearing out the pages of her diary dealing with her affair with Dracula and throwing them in the river (so they don't make it into the novel). Whatever, blah.

The book is a fabulous horror story about a group of young modern yuppies (think "Friends" circa 1890 London) dealing with an old monster from the "uncivilized" still-in-touch-with-the-baser-animal-parts-of-human-nature Eastern Europe. Yes, there is repressed sexuality that the vampire attacks bring out in the victim. But Mina doesn't friggin' date Dracula in the novel. That's a modern take on her character that makes no sense for the time and place and who she was.

Hazel Motes

The Avengers
Prometheus