Open Forum Friday: Biggest Surprises and Disappointments from Halfway Through 2007

Posted by on July 6th, 2007   Filed under: Movies, Open Forum Friday

Well we’ve just passed the halfway point of 2007, and with a lot of the movie news slowing down due to the July 4th holiday, it seems like a good time to pause and reflect on the crop of movies we’ve seen over the previous 6 months. Overall, I think it’s fair to say that 2007 has been a year full of disappointments up until now, although with a lot of the blockbusters people have probably been setting their expectations a little too high. Very few of the major releases have come through unscathed; from Spider-Man 3 to Pirates of the Caribbean 3 to Transformers, all have received their fair share of criticism from both critics and fans alike. Which is not necessarily to say that it’s been a bad year for movies… certainly a lot of moviegoers have still been opening their wallets, and they’ve been rewarded with a few pleasant surprises as well. So I thought we’d throw it out to you guys: what are the biggest surprises and disappointments as you see it thus far? What are the highlights and lowlights from what you’ve seen throughout the first half of 2007? Give us your thoughts here on Open Forum Friday.

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  • This was a tough one. I guess you have to be looking forward to a movie for it to turn out to be a disappointment, so that immediately cut Evan Almighty, Pirates 3, Fantastic Four, Ghost Rider, and Hostel II off my list, because while they may have been bad, I never cared about them in the first place.

    Out of the remaining selections I’ve got to go with Transformers. I was really expecting a great action film, but there was too much story, not enough action, and what action was there was rushed and too damn blurry or full of shaky cam that I could hardly tell what was happening. I guess it just comes down to me liking Spiderman 3, Live Free Or Die Hard, Grind House, and Zodiac better than Transformers.

  • Goon

    I am amazed at how some people raked Spiderman 3 over the coals over every last detail, however are giving Transformers a free pass. Transformers on every level is the lesser of pretty much every one of the films I’ve seen on this list. All it has is special effects composites, which Bay quickly through away the merit of by shaky camera work and awful editing. Just horrible. Horrible.

  • Primal

    I totally agree with Goon on the horrendous editing in Transformers. I don’t think this is a spoiler, but during the bumblebee/barricade car chase, at the height of the chase it all of a sudden becomes night time and you see bumblebee and the humans trying to hide from barricade. wtf?

    There are plenty of bad edits throughout, but I still found the movie enjoyable to watch as a transformers fan.

    The one I truly was disappointed with was Live Free or Die Hard. I don’t see how this movie could be on the IMDB top 250. I found Jay and Greg’s review of film to pretty much be spot on, but I really disliked the film. The movie should of been called The Escort Man.

  • Liz

    I was actually really, really disappointed by Ratatouille. I kept hearing absolutely brilliant things about it and when I finally went out and saw it, I came away thinking “That’s it?” The animation was tops, but the story and the sense of humour I’ve come to expect from Pixar were sorely lacking.

    Most of the films on the poll that I didn’t end up loving, I never had huge expectations about to begin with, so I can’t really say I was all that disappointed by them.

  • Ratatouille was rather disappointing to me too. Each Pixar movie felt like they were getting smarter and more geared for an entire family. I took my 3 year and wife to see this one. He didn’t laugh as much as he did for Cars or seem as interested in it like the Pixar DVD’s at home. It didn’t have the “heart” that I expected. I shy away from hype as much as possible, but the two weeks prior to release one couldn’t help but hear how great this one was and how it deserves to be at the top of the Pixar list. Here’s hoping Wall-E is better.

    The other movies I were really disappointed with were Hostel II, Spiderman 3, and Pirates 3. I blame fanboys and the Internet in general for creating the buzz for movies so far in advance that they almost always disappoint nowadays. The second a movie is officially announced, we’re theorizing and speculating. It’s kinda hard to make a movie for more than $50M and NOT get hopes up. We’re conditioned to think Big Budgets = Box Office Take = Quality Film.

    The best movie of the year is 300.