Moves that are great... until they're not

[Gaith]

Seeing the very funny (both in the clips and the review itself) Siskel and Ebert review of Love Potion #9, in which they agree that the movie is quite charming until it devolves into a cliched caper flick, got me thinking... what movies start out strong, then nosedive? To establish a baseline rule, let's say that the first thirty minutes at least should be pretty good; good enough (say) to warrant a Netflixing for those good bits, starting from the beginning and continuing without interruption, but not good enough to justify watching the whole film.

- This reminds me of another Bullock movie: The Proposal. The first hour, with Reynolds and her sniping at each other, is pretty funny. But when they started bonding an hour or so in, with the tone veering into super-maudlin territory, I hit the eject button as fast as I could.

- I'm no big fan of Spider-Man, but while the first half was decent, what with Peter getting and learning about his powers, the Goblin-heavy and finale-containing second half really dragged it down.

- I love Weird Science, but don't care for the second Lisa creation attempt and hate the Chett-turned-monster time-filling extended epilogue.

- The first half-hour of The Matrix Revolutions is pretty cool, or at least as cool as Reloaded, until the neverending Zion battle starts.

- According to Siskel and Ebert again, White Man's Burden is a fascinating movie showing blacks as the dominant American ethnicity, but jumps the shark when Travolta kidnaps his boss, or something.

- There's no raptor-punching in the first half-hour of PJ's Kong, right?

- Well, that's all I've got for now, but I'm curious to hear everyone else's!

 

[FPAlpha]

Zack and Miri make a Porno

The movie is awesome from the beginning through trying to get the movie made up until they begin to fall for each other.. then it becomes standard romance stuff which is really boring.

 

[Ensign_Redshirt]

SUNSHINE

 

[Rii]

SUNSHINE

Heh, that didn't take long.

Die Another Day.

 

[Mr. Sin]

Yeah, a lot of Bond movies could end up on this list.


Moonraker's a good example as well. Apart from the Jaws comedy moments, it's a pretty decent Moore-era Bond flick until they go into space.

 

[Caliburn24]

I love Star Trek III right up until they get to Vulcan. It was just such a lackluster ending.

 

[CorporalClegg]

Die Another Day.

Totally agree. The first act was excellent. It was better than any of the other Brosnan films and probably better than anything in the Craig films. Then Berry comes on the screen and the whole thing goes strait to the crapper.

 

[trekkiebaggio]

Hancock

 

[Kirks_Flying_Wig]

Hancock

Definitely. The first half where Hancock gets back on his feet and has a rebrand is brilliant. Then he foils the bank robbery and along comes all the origins crap. That whole film was like two 45-minute television episodes glued together.

 

[Snaploud]

Hancock

Definitely. The first half where Hancock gets back on his feet and has a rebrand is brilliant. Then he foils the bank robbery and along comes all the origins crap. That whole film was like two 45-minute television episodes glued together.

Yeah, it felt like a completely different movie.

 

[Kelthaz]

Shrek.

 

[OdoWanKenobi]

The Island was great until it turned into a generic action movie in the second half.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

What a timely topic. I just suffered thru The Bader-Meinhof Complex. For the first half hour to an hour, it was a competent action movie but then they made the mistake of focusing far too much on the characters, who are a pack of uninteresting, childish dipshits who spout Marxist slogans and bicker with each other. Half the movie seemed to be taken up by their trial, which I fast-forwarded thru on the vain hopes it would end by their gruesome deaths by machete, perhaps. No such luck, not even a firing squad. Two thumbs down.

But the comments here about Hancock have inspired me to rent that movie. Half a good movie is still an hour's worth of entertainment and ten minutes of fast-forwarding.

 

[D Man]

Oh, definitely Hancock. It just fell apart after having started out so strong. I'd put Deja Vu on this list too. I thought it was a great movie with cool action scenes (and Denzel Washington always rules) but the ending really bugs me and doesn't seem to play by the rules the movie had set up.

 

[The Boy Who Cried Worf]

28 Days Later - Starts out as a decent twist on the whole zombie genre than the last third degenerates into some barely disguised anti-military film where the lead character becomes Rambo.

Ditto Hancock - It really seems like they made that last 30-40 minutes up as they went along. I am not sure because I don't want to see it again, but I think there might have been some serious contradictions in the explanation as well.

 

[Showdown]

Star Wars Episode VI : Return of the Jedi

All is good, until the Ewoks show up.

 

[Starbreaker]

Hancock is a great example.

I actually also liked about the first 30 minutes of Knowing.

 

[Gaith]

Star Wars Episode VI : Return of the Jedi

All is good, until the Ewoks show up.

Er, no. The Tatooine sequence is tortuously long (fifty minutes), contains no character development, barely moves the story forward, and is all-around ridiculous. (What's with the one-at-a-time infiltration?) Jedi actually saves itself in its second half, with the rather satisfying Emperor-showdown climax.

 

[Goji]

I personally feel that "Alien" is far more interesting before the adult creature shows up and starts knocking off the crew one by one.

 

[The Boy Who Cried Worf]

Star Wars Episode VI : Return of the Jedi

All is good, until the Ewoks show up.

Er, no. The Tatooine sequence is tortuously long (fifty minutes), contains no character development, barely moves the story forward, and is all-around ridiculous. (What's with the one-at-a-time infiltration?) Jedi actually saves itself in its second half, with the rather satisfying Emperor-showdown climax.

I think by the third film though we were already familiar with the characters. People just wanted to see those characters in an exciting adventure and I think Jedi delivered on that level. The Emperor scenes were really cool though. The Ewoks? Um...