It’s always crushing when a movie you’re looking forward to disappoints. High expectations can arise due to a film’s subject matter, cast, trailer or other reasons, sometimes unexplainable. You can’t pinpoint why you want to see a film, but you do. It’s an emotional reaction, anticipation that gets into your head and drives you to the theater on opening night. But life is filled with dashed expectations and so are movies. If nothing else, they make our successes (in life and on the screen) that much sweeter. So before we get back to acting awards (Best Actor and Best Actress forthcoming), let’s take a moment to consider the most disappointing movies of 2009. Movies I was really looking forward to that let me down.
Here are the 5 Most Disappointing Movies I Saw In 2009:
Whip It - Ellen Page as a girl trying to find her way in life who stumbles upon the Roller Derby. Drew Barrymore’s directorial debut had a great trailer, the promise of a fun ride with Juno’s star and female empowerment to boot, but the film fell flat like a skater stumbling on the track.
The Time Traveler’s Wife - The book made me want to see the film (always problematic), and Rachel McAdams upped my interest, but the movie rushed through life and time without offering emotional connection to individual events.
Extract - Mike Judge wrote/directed Office Space (1999), an instant classic, one of the best movies of the 1990′s. His new movie pomised to do for factory workers what Office Space did for corporate office types. It was a tough act to follow and though Extract had its moments, it failed the test.
Ghosts Of Girlfriends Past - outstanding trailer promised a fresh and funny retelling of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, with Matthew McConaughey as a likeable cad visited by three ghosts concerned with his relationships, not his Christmas spirit. But Emma Stone was the only ghost who shined and the story was predictable and flat.
X Men Origins: Wolverine - Breaking out Hugh Jackman’s character from the X Men franchise seemed like a good idea, and the trailer offered sizzling action, but the movie faltered with its brotherly theme (Liev Schreiber as Jackman’s brother, also a mutant) and left me uninvolved.
And the Jabby™ for Most Disappointing Movie I Saw In 2009 (high expectations meet low performance) goes to:
Whip It
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
While Extract is definitely not be the scathing commentary that typifies Office Space and Idiocracy, I thought it still provided enough laughs (i.e. David Koechner as the pesky neighbor) to qualify as enjoyable. Justin Bateman is great as the straight man.
I agree with dleighmiad. Justin Bateman is great as the straight man – pathetic, yet lovable. I didn’t expect to like this movie, but thoroughly enjoyed it. There were a lot of good laughs. Also, I think Mila Kunis is great and has a lot of potential to make it big.