The Fallacy of Composition refers to a fallacy, a mistake in reasoning. The mistake in reasoning is as follows: people tend to think that if you take the best individual parts and put them together, than your product will turn out to be the best.

This fallacy is seen all the time in Hollywood. How many times have you seen a movie with an amazing cast, and thought it would be a great movie? A lot of times this will happen, and for the most part you may be correct. A great cast may lead to a great movie. This is not always the case though. Many films have been made with a phenomenal cast yet turned out to be complete trash.

This article is going to run down five films that fall under the fallacy of composition.

Valentine’s Day

Don’t ask me why I saw this movie but I did and now I wish I hadn’t. It was easily one of the worst movies I’ve seen all year. Despite it being a chick flick it did have potential; the cast featured such big names as Bradley Cooper, coming off the very successful film The Hangover, Jaime Foxx, an Oscar winner and usually a very solid actor, Ashton Kutcher, who I personally always find very entertaining, Julia Roberts, an Oscar winner and overall fantastic actress, and many more big name stars.

So where did this film go wrong? Seeing as the Metacritic score is only 34/100, it went wrong in more than one place. The first place where the movie falls is in the script. The movie has us following ten different love stories, and not only can this be a bit boggling or jarring for the viewer but it also never really lets the viewer become involved in any one story. Add on the fact that the stories themselves are superficial and fluffy, it makes it very hard to really care for any of it. Like the movie Crash, the characters are connected to some degree and you do see how they are connected, but unlike Crash, the characters are just so superficial and corny that you really don’t care. The all-star cast may actually be the movie’s biggest downfall. So many stars, all fighting for screen time creates a jumbled mash-up of stories that are hard to really give a damn about. Overall it’s a shallow film with not much to offer. I would not recommend watching this with your partner or significant other.

Couples Retreat

Okay, now here’s a film that wasn’t terrible, it just could have been a hell of a lot better. Couples Retreat is a comedy film starring one of the funniest actors working in Hollywood today, Vince Vaughn. Backing up Vaughn are other great actors like Jon Favreau, Jason Bateman, Kristen Bell and Jean Reno. Not a bad cast at all, and Vaughn and Favreau even teamed up to write this one. Despite all this, Couples Retreat completely bombed and earned itself a disgraceful 23/100 on Metacritic.

The first problem falls in the acting. Bateman, Favreau and Vaughn are all fairly good — not at their funniest but still decent. The two female leads though, Kirstin Bell and Kristin Davis do absolutely nothing for the film. Neither of them are particularly funny and neither of them give good performances. It also doesn’t help that the script was written in a way that was more geared towards the male leads. Davis and Bell don’t have much to work with.

The script is also pretty straightforward and predictable and follows an age old formula, there isn’t much originality to be found. In the end Couples Retreat is just poorly written and conceived. While it did have its funny moments, it could have been a lot better, especially with Bateman, Favreau and Vaughn heading it up. It seems as if the cast had more fun filming the movie than the audience did watching it.

Seven Pounds

Now here’s a movie I hated. I was really looking forward to seeing it, but in the end I absolutely hated it. Almost everything Will Smith has done recently has been pretty good. The Pursuit of Happyness, I, Robot, I Am Legend, Hitch… all these have been pretty enjoyable films, so where did Will go wrong this time?

Seven Pounds, although led by Will, has a supporting cast that’s nothing to turn your nose up at with Rosario Dawson, Barry Pepper and Woody Harrelson all backing him up. Clinching an embarrassing 36/100 on Metacritic, this movie failed on all counts. Not only is the movie phony and the plot very predictable, but Will Smith is just not on his game here. In his role as Ben Thomas, he is not the least bit convincing and he just seems confused, as if he doesn’t even know what’s going on with this film. The whole romantic plotline with Dawson’s character also falls flat.

It is unfortunate than the film turned out so poorly. I was really looking forward to it and usually Will Smith doesn’t disappoint. I loved The Pursuit of Happyness, which also starred Smith and was directed by the same director, Gabriele Muccino. Here’s to hoping Seven Pounds stays buried six feet under the ground where it belongs.

Righteous Kill

Okay, here is one that baffles me. Pacino and De Niro are arguably the two biggest actors of all time, and the last time they came together in Heat, pure magic was created. This time, though, they create one of the worst films of the year. How they managed to do this is beyond me.

It seems as if this movie is more of an event than a movie, focusing on two of the biggest actors from this generation coming together on screen. De Niro and Pacino, while not at their best, are not the problem with this film. The screenplay is incoherent, predictable and convoluted and doesn’t provide very engaging dialog. This movie should have been electrifying, but instead it lacks excitement and suspense. When you finally find out who the killer is, it’s just so hokey that you scratch your head and ask, who came up with this storyline?

It also doesn’t help that De Niro and Pacino both look so old and fragile for the roles that they are supposed to be playing. In the end, the movie is just dull, cliched and poorly written.

Troy

Like Couples Retreat, Troy was not a bad movie, just not as good as it could have been. I mean, come on, Brad Pitt, Peter O’ Toole, Eric Bana, Orlando Bloom, and Brian Cox, with Wolfgang Peterson directing… how could this movie not be epic?

Troy currently holds a 56/100 on Metacritic. The reviews seem to be mixed; some loved it and others hated it. Personally I didn’t hate it, it was somewhat enjoyable but it should have been fantastic. Firstly, the movie doesn’t portray the story in a historically accurate way. A lot of things that happen in the movie are either inaccurate or never happened in real life. Another issue is that there is also no chemistry between Helen and Paris and this is supposed to be a pivotal point in the story. It didn’t help that Orlando Bloom’s acting was also pretty poor.

Aside from the biggest flaw, which was destroying the true story of Troy, the movie also ran on way longer than it needed to and really dragged on in some parts. The pacing was off for a lot of scenes. Overall, while the movie was decent, I got bored after a while and by the end, simply couldn’t care less about the characters or the story.

Well there you have it, my first feature for Film Junk, hope you enjoyed it. As always let us know what you think in the comments.