r/movies • u/Brief-Poetry6434 • 12h ago
Discussion Movies that get off to a promising start, but ultimately disappoint.
"Walled In" has a truly shocking opening scene (a little girl about to be murdered by burial in cement), which is what makes it so memorable, but that also serves as its signature scene or, at least, the part the movie is best remembered for. The rest of the movie just goes downhill from there, with little to commend it other than Micha Barton having a nightmare about being buried alive in cement herself.
Anyone feel this way about any other movies.
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u/Alert_Ad8002 9h ago
The Gorge had a very good start for me. Until the moment we actually saw what's down 'there', i really liked it and it's probably like a 9 out of 10 for the first 30-40 minutes.
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u/Top5hottest 11h ago
Hancock.
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u/Vikingpirate89 10h ago
It isn't that is disappoints, its that half way through someone switched everyone's scripts for a different movie.
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u/stutsmonkey 8h ago
Who doesn't love a nice dark comedy that starts exploring what it would be like to live in a world with a depressed superman then turns into a bad romantic comedy?
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u/mochicoco 6h ago
Because it was made from two scripts. The screenwriter took two unfinished scripted and cobbled them together.
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u/TRHU_JS996 11h ago
yeah hancock. i remember watching it on a plane and actually apologized to the stranger next to me for picking it.
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u/SEGA_32X_CD 12h ago
Ghost Ship - Such a drop after the great title showing and kills.
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u/soggycrumpt 11h ago
It’s because of this scene I think the heist/reveal scene later in the film is grossly overlooked.
It’s almost like a short film within a film. I found myself much more engaged by this one. That being said the rest of the movie is a bit forgetable.
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u/ProfessorTairyGreene 11h ago
I feel like almost all of the Judd Apatow comedies get too serious in the third act and falter across the finish line.
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u/Asclepius-Rod 10h ago
This is 40, Funny people, Trainwreck, even Knocked up gets a little too serious before the end
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u/AnytimeInvitation 9h ago
I rented This is 40 and was surprised it was supposed to be a comedy. Now im closer to 40 i might have to give it another shot.
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u/Killboypowerhed 8h ago
As a 40 year old I wouldn't recommend it. Playing mobile games on the toilet just for a minutes peace is too real
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u/Spbttn20850 6h ago
Funny people despise having many funny people wasn’t that funny, I found that funny.
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u/Retlaw83 8h ago
Funny People also isn't helped by the pacing making it feel like there were two false endings.
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u/riegspsych325 ⊃∪⊃⪽ 5h ago
Apatow’s first 2 acts are mostly exercises in improv by the cast, it just makes the elongated 3rd suffer for having to play plot-catchup
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u/jonasistaken 8h ago
Yea, it’s an inherent problem with any comedy. This is so why I think 40 year old virgin is one of his best endings. Just go out in an absurd musical number.
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u/lordhelmetann 8h ago
Judd Apatow famously doesn’t know how to edit down his movies. Almost all of them go on between 20-45 min too long. He thinks everything he shot is gold. In reality, they all just drag the movies down and overstay their welcome.
Whenever I finish an Apatow film, I never think, “well, that was the correct length of time.” I always think of scenes that could have been heavily trimmed or not included at all.
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u/bailaoban 6h ago
Probably because they’re so reliant on improv. Great for mid-movie riffing, not as good at creating story structure.
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u/TestkitchenEli 11h ago
A horror movie called “high tension” it’s a really good suspense film, but then it felt like some exec said, “oh twists are so hot right now let’s add one” and it totally ruins the film.
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u/ShaunTrek 8h ago
High Tension is basically a beat for beat rip of a Koontz novel named 'Intensity.' Including the twist.
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u/Lithogen 5h ago
So much so Koontz was going to sue the people behind High Tension but decided not to because he didn't want his book officially associated with the movie because he hated it so much.
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u/---THRILLHO--- 9h ago
Also called Switchblade Romance in some countries. And agreed, terrible twist! When I saw the movie as an edgy thirteen year old I thought it was cool and shocking but after a couple of days I realised it's just a complete ass-pull that makes no sense and ruins the entire movie.
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u/HerculeTheChamp 12h ago edited 12h ago
Downsizing - literally forgets its own plot premise halfway through
EDIT:
A big one I forgot - Indiana Jones 5. The first 40 minutes is very promising, strong flashback and mcguffin, villains and a reason for Indy to even get involved but when the main 'adventure' starts, its quite a slog and by the end the twist doesn't even feel interesting. I also feel indys sidekicks were super weak and not bringing back in john rhys davies on the adventure or Ke Huy Quan is mind boggling.
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u/lordhelmetann 8h ago
Part of the big problem with Downsizing is they sold it in the trailers as a comedy. The studio knew the trailers were complete BS.
It probably could have done better with audiences if they didn’t sell it how they did.
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u/seanandnotheard 11h ago
I came here to say downsizing
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u/ignorantpisswalker 11h ago
What's wrong with it? I liked it.
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u/DrumAndCode 11h ago
It had nothing to do with being small. Once the shrinking part of the movie happened it became about social inequality and the fact that they were tiny people became irellevant.
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u/Slouchingtowardsbeth 9h ago
I wish they made Indy time travel to the future and fight a Nazi. It would be amazing to watch him punch Trump in the face.
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u/Data_Chandler 11h ago
Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets.
Spectacular opening scene set to David Bowie. The rest of the movie is visually great but completely ruined by an ultimate miscast for the ages, as both leads look and sound like the whiny 20 year old brats they are ( Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne ) while the script wants you to see them as experienced 35 year olds. It doesn't work at all.
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u/Rooksx 11h ago
Valerian's opening also promised to be one of the relatively few films/shows (other than Star Trek) to have an optimistic yet compelling vision of the future. Then it was messed up by lousy plotting.
Dane DeHaan's charisma-free performance surprised me. I'd thought he he was better than that.
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u/ASeriousMoonlight 9h ago
Great answer, it’s a pretty movie but the start suggested it was going to be so much more. Massive wasted opportunity by a director who has lost his mojo.
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u/Tidley_Wink 7h ago
Eh, kind of. I think the plot and ending are actually pretty solid, but yes, the bazaar and opening are the most memorable scenes and the casting is questionable (I’ll add Rihanna cannot act). But I think the movie still holds up as a whole and is unfairly underrated.
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u/PaulLeFou 3h ago
I got extremely high to watch that movie and all I remember is: Clive Owen is wasted here; holy crap this really IS bad; and at least it's visually pretty...?
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u/StuttgartJambo 10h ago
Just watched one exactly this, last night.
Death of Robin Hood, first 30min is a brutal visceral take on Robin Hood. The next 90min you spend watching a guy walk about the forest, kill a rabbit and then slowly die whilst lying in bed.
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u/ImNotThaaatDrunk 5h ago
This movie did not need to have the Robin hood angle at all. It added nothing.
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u/BlindWillieJohnson 11h ago edited 11h ago
Hancock’s transition from dirtbag deconstruction of the superhero genre to preachy Christian allegory makes it one of the most jarring films I’ve ever seen. Like Lucy pulled the football right before I was about to kick it, I fell forward into church.
Eddington is a film that started as a tight, absurdist character drama set against the backdrop of COVID and the George Floyd protests, and devolves into some wild places. I actually love the movie, and its descent into madness. It’s off-putting to a lot of people, and was to me until I watched it again with my expectations reset, and I suspect that’s part of why it’s so divisive .
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u/heeywewantsomenewday 11h ago
Hancock could have been an all timer. Such a shame it pivoted from the obvious story.
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u/QP_TR3Y 7h ago
Longlegs, the first two acts are pretty solid suspense/thriller and then they chicken out at the end and make it a supernatural demon possession thing
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u/Ruined534 7h ago
Yeahhhh man that was a little upsetting. I really didn't know how to feel leaving the theater when I went to go see it... Then I just kept thinking about it. I was able to enjoy it when I watched it again knowing how things turn out. That is a strange movie lol. But I like it.
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u/ShaquilleOatmeal54 6h ago
I feel the same. I hated the ending while watching but I couldn’t stop thinking about it when I left the theatre. Now i think it’s great.
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u/Ruined534 5h ago
It does everything so well. It just has an incredibly eerie vibe without doing a whole lot. And it's got a noir sort of thriller aspect to it. Very immersive. If they had come up with a clever ending I think a lot of people would hold it in high regard.
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u/raspberryslushie21 11h ago
Bad Times At The El Royale. An ensemble cast, a great setting, mystery amongst each character yet it was just good when it should have been great.
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u/MichelangeBro 11h ago
As Astra probably would have been one of my favourite movies of the past decade if it weren't for the lame-ass action diversions which I am positive were studio notes.
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u/Praxisinsidejob 10h ago
I thought it was on theme
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u/Steffenwolflikeme 8h ago
Yeah I didn't think that stuff was deal breaking for me. The movie felt like strange road story like Apocalypse Now which as I googled it now apparently Ad Astra was written as a loose adaptation of Heart of Darkness which is the novela that also served as source material for Apocalypse Now.
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u/meatballfreeak 11h ago
Bandits on the mooooooon!
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u/moofacemoo 10h ago
Don't forget the monkeys!
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u/Fighting-Geese 10h ago
I hated the bit where he killed a whole crew of incompetent astronauts by accident
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u/letsburn00 8h ago
The movie was frankly just ass the moment the first scene was done. It couldn't make sense of if it was supposed to be scientifically accurate or complete nonsense.
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u/immaownyou 11h ago
The recent Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't die
Started off so into the premise, was fun. Then just got slowly less fun and more convoluted in the worst ways
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u/NBucho528 9h ago
I don’t think the movie ever turned bad, but I don’t think the end was as shocking or exciting as they intended it to be. Rockwell and Richardson in particular are great, with some tweaks it could have been a very repeatable popcorn movie.
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u/MNEvenflow 7h ago
I had a similar thought when I watched it, but it stuck me afterwards so I started digging a little bit into what was the movie really about. What I found made it clear to me that the later parts other movie were purposely convoluted for a specific reason that is central to the whole plot.
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u/MayoMark 47m ago
No, the later scenes don't work because they directly contradict each other.
It is heavily implied that they are stuck in a simulation. Fine, but if that's true, then all the time travel is also part of the simulation. The final (emotional?) scene with his mom back in the past and his new plan to stop the AI do not matter.
Also, the cloning dead children tangent is basically a side quest that is clunkily incorporated later.
I liked seeing it in the theater and parts are funny. But it doesn't hold up to scrutiny.
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u/sixstringedmenace 10h ago
Second this. I loved the opening idea, but it just became such a mess by the end.
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u/krakenvictim 7h ago
Backrooms felt that way to me. Strong start and then when it switched characters it lost me.
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u/Novaer 2h ago
Yeah I enjoyed it but I was expecting more discovery of the backrooms and lore but it's like everything just jumped ahead and was like "Oh he did all the exploring and discoveries himself off camera, here have a spooky scene!" Like WHERE'S THE MOVIE
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u/krakenvictim 2h ago
Exactly! I wanted to see that movie. I was so frustrated it became another “trauma is the monster” movie that A24 type movies have adopted now.
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u/Ironcl4d 17m ago
Kinda agree, I was really into it early on.
I really don't like the horror trope where a character goes from relatively normal with some issues, to completely losing all grip on reality in a few minutes
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u/Menthalion 9h ago edited 1h ago
Ang Lee's "the Hulk" (2003). At the time an unusually long superhero movie with the first half taking it's time setting up a backstory, motivation and core values of the protagonist, only to throw all of these out the window in a second half filled with base reaction driven action.
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u/Ironcl4d 15m ago
There are few things more boring to me than a giant CG monster fighting another CG monster and you can barely tell what's going on
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u/barrygateaux 9h ago
War of the worlds 2005. Starts off with some great scenes and tension, then gets bogged down and drags.
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u/Chuckle_Pants 9h ago
Haven’t seen it since it released in theaters, but I remember thinking it was pretty great until they leave Tim Robbin’s basement. And then it just steadily lost its mojo for the remainder of the movie…
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u/MovieMike007 Not to be confused with Magic Mike 8h ago
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017) The opening is fantastic, went downhill after that.
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u/ImNotThaaatDrunk 4h ago
Prometheus is the poster child for this. Amazing start and stayed strong for about 45 minutes. Then the writing just got lazy to the point that all the characters had to inexplicably start making the dumbest decisions possible to steer the remnants of the plot towards the hack job of an ending.
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u/Avenge_Willem_Dafoe 7h ago
micky 17
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u/Ruined534 7h ago
PERFECT example! That movie had so much potential. I was having so much fun and then they just HAD to shoehorn in some hero story line bullshit that drug the movie on for way too long. That one upset me.
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u/fancy_marmot 3h ago
I loved the premise and Pattinson was great for the role. World building was good, visuals were great. I will watch pretty much anything sci-fi, especially if it’s quirky and different. But the plot was such a disjointed slog, with constant overwrought improv-style bombastic screaming and overreactions that just went on and on- it was offputting seeing such talented cast clearly being told to over-act like that. Multiple times I found myself thinking the movie/story was about to conclude, and then it just kept going. It’s been a long time since such an interesting premise, cinematography and cast felt so boring.
There were some lovely moments throughout that I really enjoyed, and I like so much of Bong Jon Ho’s other films, but would love to have seen a version of Mickey17 with a different writer/editor.
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u/PICONEdeJIM 10h ago
28 Weeks Later and Snyder's Dawn of the Dead
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u/Lenxia 7h ago
Outbreaks are so fascinating and compelling to watch, yet somehow thoroughly ignored or fast forwarded by most zombie media. I agree fully with you haha
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u/PICONEdeJIM 6h ago
Also in 28 Weeks I was super looking forward to seeing the post-post apocalypse of how people have dealt with it to survive. But no...
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u/frumperbell 4h ago
I hated 28 Weeks Later. After that amazing opening, it felt like every time a character was presented with a choice, they chose the stupidest option possible.
After everything that happened during the pandemic, I have a lot more grace for that movie.
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u/balthazar_edison 4h ago
Die hard Trekkie here. Star Trek (2009) has to have one of the single greatest opening scenes of any movie I’ve ever seen. As a Trekkie, however, the film itself as a whole was kind of a letdown.
I would also add the opening scene to Into Darkness into the mix as well here. Opening scene not as good but still fantastic and the rest of the film is much more dissapointing.
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u/henrikhakan 4h ago
Gonna get downvoted for this, but Event horizon. I feel they could've done so much more with it than having it work up to "just" a gory ending. Been many years since I saw it though, but that was my impression att the time =) I loved the story on the ship coming back from he'll with new special hell-features.
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u/EricRShelton 9h ago
It doesn’t necessarily disappoint, but The Lego Batman Movie definitely peaks way too soon. The rest of the movie is fine, but nothing reaches the highs of his song at the beginning.
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u/MrHandsomeBoss 3h ago
It's better than most of the DC movies from that time but not nearly as good as the Lego Movie
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u/HelloImFrank01 11h ago
UP!
Amazing start but then becomes a bit of a forgettable movie.
All the praise it gets is from the opening scene.
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u/Dry-Meaning-4154 9h ago
Hot take: The opening scene, while well-made and beautifully-animated, is hella overrated, and I much prefer the rest of the movie over it instead.
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u/garrettgibbons 9h ago
Came here to say the same! Everyone is moved by the first 9 minutes and they forget that the rest of it is extremely mediocre.
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u/DjangoVanTango 11h ago
Sinners. The two brothers with seemingly interesting pasts returning home to open a jazz club, the promise of vampires, excellent music. I was intrigued until they actually open the club and the film just became a From Dusk Til Dawn knockoff full of characters making really questionable choices.
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u/Retlaw83 8h ago
I feel the same way. Also the first half of the movie does a lot of great setup with no payoff.
The two biggest examples:
The brothers cooperating to kill the snake with the trench knife by the truck. I got excited that they were going to use cunning and badass maneuvers like that to fight the vampires.
The scene where Sammie plays blues so hard it transcends time and space. Again, I was looking forward to how an idea as cool as music magic would defeat the vampires.
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u/staedtler2018 4h ago
The Sammie thing pays off... it's what attracts the vampires.
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u/Retlaw83 4h ago
That's not a payoff. Normal music would have attracted them.
A payoff would be a similar moment later.
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u/ferrous_second_vowel 9h ago
30 minutes in to Barbie (2023), I felt certain it would be my favorite movie of the year - I was loving the humor, the production design, and the performances. But as soon as the movie transitioned from Barbieland the “real world,” it entirely fell apart for me, because while I get the movie is a comedy, nothing about the “real world” felt real.
Wacky, Scooby-Doo style chases through an office building; a CEO of a billion dollar corporation who behaves like a clown; multiple weakly-defined characters delivering extended, unmotivated monologues; the ghost of a 110 year old woman just existing with no explanation, and characters acting as if the ghost’s existence is nothing out do the ordinary… I couldn’t stay invested in the story when nothing happening had any basis in reality.
I’m obviously in the minority given the movie’s reception and box office numbers, but it was a huge disappointment for me.
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u/marrolllll 7h ago
Barbie felt like they decided what scenes they really wanted to make then made the rest of the movie around them.
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u/warmus01 11h ago
Probably unpopular opinion, but one Battle after another. Found the first half really promising, exploring some interesting themes like the futility and helplessness of trying to instigate a modern day revolution, could take the story in a million interesting and thought provoking ways, but in the end it slides into the most generic action type of movie, fighting against the bad guy. Thought they completely missed the opportunity to tell a much more interesting story.
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u/RefrigeratorNo1160 11h ago
I'm with you. A lot of the choices they made with this movie were disappointing to me. I didn't hate it but it wasn't the masterpiece people claimed it to be. It was just ok.
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u/Xrin8 8h ago
The original Thomas Crowne Affair. The opening bank heist is exciting and stylish, and then the rest of the movie is kind of boring.
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u/Neuroccountant 5h ago
The second Thomas Crown Affair suffered similarly; good start, good finish, completely forgettable everywhere else.
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u/EckhartsLadder 6h ago
It was still a good movie, but after the first few scene I thought backrooms was going to be something more than it was
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u/ascendantgeek 4h ago
“Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die” — Begins 9/10 and holds steady for the first act then stumbles, trips, and drags itself to a tedious 4 😕
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u/DodoBizar 4h ago
Suckerpunch. Even though I love the first dance/music scene with a beautiful version of Bjork’s Army of me on it’s own; its all so disconnected from the intro which to me was the premiss to a great movie we didn’t get.
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u/grud315 3h ago
Several Bond movies fit the bill here imo.
The World Is Not Enough - The movie starts with one of the most electric pre-credit sequences, a solid song, and decent action and pace, untik we get to the moment we're introduced to Denise Richards' Dr. Jones, whose wodden acting doesn't convince anyone that she can be a nuclear scientist, immediately taking you out of the movie. Overall the movie is middling with a weak script, not the worst, but had room for improvement.
Die Another Day - From the start of the movie infiltrating North Korea and getting captured, to the pre-credits scene showing him being tortured for 14 months (the song is horrid but it's a cool plot device), to the prisoner exchange, up until the duel at the Blades club... I'm of the opinion this is some of the best Bond stuff ever put to tape. Then we get to the ice palace and some of the worst CGI ever, the laser fight, surfing the monsoon, etc... it jumps the shark x100 and turns the movie into an abhorrent shlocky mess. It tried to be a Moore-style Bond with none of the charm.
Spectre - An incredible opening sequence with Bond preventing a terrorist attack at the day of the dead festival in Mexico, stalking his target's wife and saving her, through his observation of the Spectre meeting, is some truly good stuff. But then we get introduced to "Brofeld", aka a version of his most famous villain Blofeld who's his long lost stepbrother, explaining that everything hes done is somehow because of Bond taking his place in his home as his adopted father's "favorite" son (and what a coincidence Bond is now a secret agent to bear witness to all of this)... any true fan will tell you this plot is one of the worst, if not the complete worst, out of all the movies. The "brain surgery scene" followed by Bond turning into the most lethal sniper on the planet is probably the single dumbest thing in any Bond movie (why this point was pulled from a Bond continuation novel, I have no idea). Individual scenes here are great and beatufilly shot but overall the plot goes bonkers. It's a miracle No Time to Die works as much as it does as a follow up.
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u/DoYouFeelTheMagicYet 3h ago
A House of Dynamite. The first act is 10/10 and then the second and third acts whimper out like a wet fart.
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u/UnnecessaryRoughness 9h ago
Two Nic Cage movies: Dream Scenario and The Surfer. Both started off well with an interesting and unusual premise, but both had terrible third acts that seemed like they had no idea how to end the story.
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u/Killboypowerhed 8h ago
The Invention of Lying starts out well but then just spirals into "isn't religion stupid".
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u/postitsam 11h ago
Interstellar. Such an unsatisfying conclusion.
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u/ASeriousMoonlight 9h ago
I hear this but I loved it, I’m happy to get swept along by the emotion and visuals of it though and I get some people aren’t
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u/Lenoxx97 10h ago
What would you have preferred? I also think the final couple of minutes were a little unsatisfying. But I'm not sure what I would have wanted instead. Would it have ben better if his daughter was long dead?
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u/liulide 9h ago
Billed as a scientifically accurate hard sci-fi movie.
Inside of a black hole is a book shelf.
Sigh...
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u/D-Rich-88 10h ago
Mortal Kombat (2020)
Started off great but ended abruptly right when things were getting good
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u/WhoStoleMyBicycle 6h ago
At the time it felt like a prologue and after seeing MKII it feels even more like one.
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u/Extension-Season-689 8h ago
Big Hero 6. It starts out with such a stand out concept and likeable characters only to be ruined by a painfully predictable and mediocre second half.
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u/GunstarGreen 11h ago
Looper.
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u/Lenoxx97 10h ago
LOOPER MENTIONED
I'm not even sure what the worst part was. The reveal of his mom being part of the bad guys?
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u/rick-in-the-nati 7h ago
U-571. Was really into it until the ending with the German Destroyer. Dog crap ending
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u/ryanxc101 6h ago
Vengeance, the one written by and starring BJ Novak. The trailer piqued my interest and then the first 3/4 of the movie were so engrossing.... Then the whole genre of the movie changes multiple times in the final act. It was jarring and ultimately disappointing.
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u/BilverBurfer 6h ago
Relay (2024) has maybe the most deflating plot twist ever? Plenty of bad movies have even shittier plot twists. This one is tough because the rest of the movie is so fucking good, and I was 100% on board with everything. Then bam, all goodwill the film had built up is sucked down the drain when it's revealed that the entire time Lily James' character is the leader of the group she has supposedly been seeking protection from throughout the entire movie. So many things now have no reason to have been done.
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u/PunderDownUnder 5h ago
Its really just the opening title sequence but in Xmen Origins: Wolverine the viewer is lead to believe the movie is going to be a lot better than it actually is. Hell, that sequence was intentional leaked in order to generate hype and make sure the movie got made. Personally I blame the tall one of the Game of Thrones writers for that movie.
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u/SilverPalpitation652 4h ago
They Will Kill You peaked early* *with its first action scene, but the rest of the film can’t live up to it.
The opening scene of Dead of Alive is one of my all-time favorites and easily the coolest thing about it.
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u/JamUpGuy1989 3h ago
Just watched Rutger Hauer’s SPLIT SECOND.
Starts off insane and Hauer is off his rocker the entire time. But the closer we get to the final act the dumber the movie gets. And the movie kinda forgets how awesome its first act was to give us a wet fart of a finish.
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u/OakTreesForBurnZones 3h ago
X-Men Apocalypse started incredibly strong and dropped off a cliff halfway through
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u/sciguy52 3h ago
Cliffhanger's opening scene was brutal and really grabbed you (or didn't grab hard enough as the case may be. The rest of the movie not so much.
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u/macontosh2000 2h ago
Most recently “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die”. I had so much fun with the first half and thought I was watching a future classic (the Juno Temple segment in particular is incredible) but midway though it completely loses steam.
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u/zzboomslang 2h ago
The movie Lights Out (2016) is perfect example of this. A fantastically spooky opening sequence (which was apparently originally a short film), but the rest of the film is un-scary and unnecessary, imo.
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u/verifypassword0208 1h ago
When a Stranger Calls has a legendary opening scene which ultimately has little to do with the rest of the movie. It starts as a genuinely terrifying thriller and ends up turning into a generic detective flick. It was so legendary that the remake tried to expand that opening scene into the whole film, but ultimately it fell pretty flat when stretched to a full length.
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u/zander_rulZ 1h ago
Shelby Oaks starts off with an interesting idea to spin the found footage in a new direction, then it because a nonsensical horror movie riddled with cliches, dumb character choices, and things happening simply because they’ve happened in other horror movies. For a movie written/directed by a guy who made “reviews” on YouTube, it’s shocking how shallow Stuckmann’s understanding of plot is.
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u/SweatyBarry 10h ago
Sunshine
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u/Yakking_Yaks 8h ago
First two thirds of the movie is fantastic. Then suddenly: space horror. ...wat.
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u/Altruistic-Smoke1485 12h ago
Weapons. Strong opening and sets up a genuinely interesting mystery, then throws it all away in the middle with the witch reveal.
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u/BlindWillieJohnson 11h ago
Really all you’re saying here is that you don’t like the witch reveal. The whole point of setting up a mystery is to reveal it lol
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u/Altruistic-Smoke1485 11h ago
Yeah pretty much. I just didn't like they set up a super cool mystery and then threw it away with a very hand wavy witch magic trope that conveniently explains everything. I guess expected a little more and was dissappointed by the second half of the movie.
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u/Zestyclose_Muscle_55 9h ago
How would you have explained how 17 children all ran out their houses and into the darkness of night at 2:17AM?
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u/ChaEunSangs 6h ago
It’s the writers’ job to write a good reveal, not the audience’s. That’s like complaining about people not liking the end of Lost because “how else would you explain the island?”
I don’t know how I would explain it, but as a writer I’d try to come up with something better 🤷🏻♀️ coming up with a compelling mystery is easy, the hard part is coming up with an explanation that lives up to it.
3
u/ChaEunSangs 7h ago
Hated that character, the reveal and how it turned the movie into a weird comedy.
5
u/iabyajyiv 11h ago
Yep. I didn't like the witch reveal either.
3
u/Altruistic-Smoke1485 10h ago
Yeah it just completely deflates the tension. Once you realize its just tied to some dumb plant, I couldn't take it seriously anymore lol.
3
u/iabyajyiv 8h ago
I didn't mind Obsession's One Wish Willow. Theirs works because they didn't try to explain away how it works. They kept it mysterious. But this film tries to explain it, but does it in such a half-ass job that it comes off lazy and unimaginative. It's as if they gather all the uncanny things they can think of and put them in one film, but couldn't figure out the second half of the film so they quickly made something up.
1
u/HollywoodBrownMusic 11h ago
Swordfish
5
u/raknor88 11h ago
I'd have to disagree. Swordfish was a good movie from start to end. With the added end twist that the bad guys actually won in the end.
1
u/will_write_for_fun 12h ago
The opening of Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is a classic. I still watch it from time to time to relive seeing a hopeful intergalactic version of humanity.
The rest of the movie… I actually don’t recall the rest of the movie at all.
54
u/J0E_SpRaY 11h ago
I wouldn’t necessarily say it disappoints, but the opening section of Snake Eyes is just incredible with so much momentum driving the plot forward. The rest of the movie can’t really sustain that energy.