In particular CGI characters in action scenes aren’t as exciting as action scenes with stuntmen. Think about the Spider-Man 3 finale vs Zoey Bell on the hood of the car in Death Proof.

Raiders of the Lost Ark vs Crystal Skull would be a better example but I haven’t seen Crystal Skull.

Expectations are different with every person, as stated above. Whats more is with certain films, people are willing to over look its flaws and allow its good traits to be more apparent. Spiderman 3 and Transformers come to mind. Both are terrible terrible films. Both have their haters and lovers.

As for the debate about CGI ruining movies, that’d be a great topic, if it hasnt been used yet and I’d like to put in my two cents. I strongly believe that CGI is not ruining film. Not even an over abundance. CGI has nothing to do with the script. A bad script is a bad script. I dont feel CGI is dictating the way a script is written anymore now then the way a particular effect would dictate something from the 80’s or 70’s or so on. Its a tool, a fantastic tool, that allows filmmakers to create worlds unlike before. I’ll end it there, its a bit off topic :-P.

I personally really liked Spiderman, Spiderman 2, and Spiderman 3. I believe all of those were greatly hyped up. There are plenty of other examples. X-Men 3 and Transformers on the other hand were hyped up a lot and I just thought they were horrible films.

In my opinion it’s really a case by case basis as to whether something will perform well depending on the hype, the subject matter, and the quality of the film itself, along with several other factors.

And for Spiderman 3, part of what ruined it for me was hearing that the budget was upward of $350 million. Adding money to a subpar project does nothing to help it– it’s just a really expensive turd.

Even more, I like CG. As a pro hopeful filmmaker myself it makes me happy that some of my ideas could be realized with as much realism as possible. I want to see things I could never see in real life on film (or preferably HD) and CG is the harbinger of that dream. I just think 90% of directors have no visual style so they end up shitting all over everything and making close-up shots w/o practical effects and other things that are easily on the “what NOT to do with CG” list.

I agree. This especially applies to so-called horror movies especially.

As for hype on movies….I dunno the last hyped up movie I liked was “The Blair Witch Project”, which had least added some mystery to the story before the film came out. I thought that was very clever.