The Most Disappointing Film Experience You've Ever Had

[JJ Sefton]

I'm not referring to the movie you hated the most, or you consider the worst, but the movie that you had such high hopes for and those hopes were crushed after you saw it.

For me, that's an easy one: The Color of Money

The Hustler has always been one of my favorite movies of all time and one of the best - a true classic. When I heard that a sequel was going to made, starring, of course, one of my favorite actors of all time, and directed by one of the best directors of all time, I couldn't wait to see the finished product.

Now, I know that there are plenty of people who love The Color of Money, and my purpose is not to get into a useless argument about it's merits or lack thereof. But, for me, and for plenty of critics, the movie was a complete dud. The screenplay was a mess, the characters (especially Vincent) were annoying, and Paul Newman, who won the Oscar primarily because he DIDN'T win for The Verdict, was hardly memorable. As for it being a "sequel", except for a view cryptic references back to The Hustler, it may has well of been about a completely different character than Eddie Felson.

Anyway, that was my biggest disappointment. What was yours?

[HD Goofnut]

Relatively certain this belongs in the movie section.

[Al_The_Strange]

Jurassic Park III. Considering that the first two did a bang-up job of raising the stakes, I really expected #3 to escalate things to the next level (with Sam Neill returning nonetheless). Nope. It's just more island shenanigans. Few new dinos, glossier SFX, but the dipsh*t characters and some really stupid scenes dragged the experience way down for me. What I wanted out of the movie was the kind of thing Jurassic World: Forbidden Kingdom set up (although that movie's pretty bad for other reasons). What JP3 delivered was a pretty forgettable, silly, throwaway adventure. Sure, I'll watch it as a guilty pleasure level, but I'll always value the two Spielberg films more.

It's been so long, I forgot all about how it was on the big-screen. My mom was with me at the time, and she tells me that there were like 20 kids running up and down the aisles and their parents were nowhere to be seen. I probably paid them no mind somehow, but that seriously would be the least appealing theater experience I ever had.

[Mister_Kidd]

The Last Jedi.

I'm a Star Wars guy. I even like the Prequels. This one was highly anticipated, I like TFA and the trailers were awesome. Left the theater angry. Second viewing even worse. Third viewing turned off when they got to Canto Bight.

[Bolty]

I can't narrow it down to a single movie but both Superman 3 and Superman 4 were huge disappointments.
Star Trek V is in the mix.
The Last Jedi.
And even though I'm not a huge Jurassic Park Fan I agree that the third one was such a let-down. And the most recent Planet of the Apes movie was a big disappointment to me.

[chad_1138]

Battlefield Earth. Hands down.

[JayTL]

Ultraviolet. Im not sure why, but I was super excited for it.

First and only movie i walked out of.

[Fred Bang]

I'm gonna go with the obvious one: The Phantom Menace.

I also had a funny experience once with "Somethings Gonna Give" (with Diane Keaton). At one point in the movie, the format changed (it got expended vertically as if it suddently became 4:3) and we could see boom sticks in a bunch of scenes. It was distracting to say the least.

It's at this point that I realised that movies were shot on 35mm in the full frame and the "widescreen" was basically just putting black bars over. Weird.

[Cremildo]

Not sure. I don't dwell on negative experiences, film-wise.

[karsten]

The Force Awakens.

I grew up with Star Wars, kept loving it despite ROTJ being a bit of a disappointment, followed by the awful "special edition" revisions, followed by the glaring flaws of the Prequels...

... but I was so annoyed by the awfulness of TFA -- I practically walked out, but felt that I had to see it through the bitter end, and hated every single scene, every single new character in that movie -- that I finally said, "Enough," and haven't watched either TLJ or the most recent film.

Nor Solo. Nor The Mandalorian.

Almost by accident I did catch Rogue One and will say that, deeply flawed as it was, it certainly was worlds better than TFA. (The final Vader scene was the first time that Vader has been done right since Empire Strikes Back [sic].)

But TFA pretty much finally killed my interest in Star Wars. Jar Jar and the snotty child Anakin were merely aggravating; TFA is indigestible.

[bferr1972]

The Rise of Skywalker left me deflated and empty on first watch. By the third viewing, I had come not quite to a place of acceptance; more like resignation.

[bigrob]

Won't dwell on the recent ones but in the past...

Godzilla (1998) - Grew up with the Toho films and absolutely loved ID4 so it was the perfect combination but came out of the first showing really disappointed. Have warmed up to the film over recent years though.

Star Trek Into Darkness - not the best film. Lazy sequel that just tried to retread TWOK but entertaining enough to warrant rewatches from time to time.

The Village - wasn't sure what to think about it back and still don't now in all honesty

[Bugg]

Back in the time I was very hyped about seeing Conan the Destroyer. Man what a crushing letdown. Gone was the buckets of brutal bloodshed, the epic story scale, and the copious amounts of glorious titties. Instead is was like a TV show made for kiddies.

Today I could probably appreciate it for it cheesiness but as a teenager in 1984 it was a slap in the face!

[Purplenoon]

Feels like this is turning into a Star Wars thread of some kind, but I’ll bite: BAD TIMES AT THE EL ROYALE. Great cinematography, terrible movie. Big letdown for me. Sorry to the fans of it.

[The Debts]

Originally Posted by Purplenoon

Feels like this is turning into a Star Wars thread of some kind, but I’ll bite: BAD TIMES AT THE EL ROYALE. Great cinematography, terrible movie. Big letdown for me. Sorry to the fans of it.

Just go look at the Worst of the 2010s thread and take a shot every time someone says TLJ.

[Steedeel]

The Rise Of Skywalker. Couldn’t believe how bad it was.

[Al_The_Strange]

Man, I didn't want to bring Star Wars into this, but since everybody else is...

Rise of Skywalker is a close second for me in terms of disappointing movies. I think I can throw it a bone or two for a handful of scenes I liked. I know everybody loathes The Last Jedi and blames it for not leaving enough story threads to continue, but the way I see it it shouldn't have mattered. They could have taken the third part in any--ANY--direction they desired, but they chose nostalgia, uninspired cliches, a lot of head-scratching decisions, and a bunch of forced, unearned payoffs. Use some imagination, FFS...

I have other gripes about it, but suffice to say that at best the movie's "just okay," at worst it's frustrating.

[Bradsdadg]

Two come to mind for me. The Visit and Hereditary. I was expecting something much different with both of them and came out of the theater really disappointed...

[karsten]

Originally Posted by Purplenoon

Feels like this is turning into a Star Wars thread of some kind

I think the more common element is "betrayed expectations."

Just running into a bad movie is, well, dismaying. At worst, one walks out of the theater (or ejects the disc) and feels frustrated at having lost money and some time. Your enjoyment level goes from beginning at "0" [neutral] and ending up at, say "-20".

But it's when one has a not-unreasonable (or at least, not completely ungrounded) basis on which to build up some hopes for something good, but then one encounters something particularly awful -- that's when the disappointment is confounded

Then, one has already begun at, say, a "+20" level of enjoyment (out of the anticipation/expectation of something good), and when one subsequently drops to "-20" -- well, then one's enjoyment level has dropped a full 40 points, double what it did when one simply encountered a bad movie, after coming in with a neutral mindset.

[Chaotic]

Prometheus