Well That Sucked! Movies That Let You Down.

Have you ever been totally hyped for a movie to come out, cause you saw the trailer and it blew you away, or it is a live action feature film from a cartoon series that you love, or is a continuation or, a "prequel", (curse you Georgey for messing with perfection by placing stupid crap before it)? Well, for some of us this is a huge problem, (for my BFFF this happened with Hitchhickers Guide To The Galaxy, which let him down huge) and for one family that are friends of mine, it actually prompted a first for my blog, which is, I am giving someone else a chance to talk for once. So I am going to start it off by quickly listing a few movies that have been huge let downs for me, and then I am going to turn it over to my friend Michelle for the big kibosh at the end, (Any comments that are mine during that section I will have in green writing, so no one gets confused about who is saying what). So without further blathering, lets get on with the disappointment.

So first up on my list is the abominations that are the 3 Star Wars prequels. I love Star Wars so much, (my very first tattoo was of the rebel symbol, and I was so ticked off by how much the prequels let me down that I got it covered up) and was so excited that they were

This is not my Star Wars universe!!!

 coming out that for a while I let any plot holes, bad acting and overall suckage just slide, cause I thought I was getting a Star Wars movie. Well, by the time the 3rd one came out, all that glimmer and shine had faded and all I could see was how bad the movies actually were, and man oh man, it felt like getting kicked in the gut. It ticked me off so much that I sold my copies of them and have been lucky enough to never have had to sit through one again.*

Next up is X-men Origins: Wolverine. Now, let me say that I don't think that this is a terrible movie. In fact, I think it is pretty good, well, at least for the first half anyway. The first half is really great actually, with some awesome clashes and some incredibly funny lines. Seeing Deadpool, (that is the character that Ryan Reynolds

Why did they make it suck in the second half?
Why?!!!!!!!

 plays) on film finally was great, being the incredibly funny badass that he is, and you get to see Wolverine do his thing too, but then midway through, right after the whole taking down the helicopter, it just starts making less and less sense and sucking more and more. And then they top it all off by sealing the lips of the funniest guy in the movie? Really? What the heck were they thinking, and I am not even gonna start on the whole Adamantium bullet thing, cause I don't have the time or the patience for such stupidity. Needless to say, I was incredibly let down when it was all over as I walked out of the theater.

The last two I will talk about before I hand it over to Michelle are The Score and The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus . The Score is a movie that should have been awesome, it has Edward Norton, (who is the main redeeming thing in the movie) Robert De Niro and one of Marlon Brandos last performances, but sadly it is not that good a film. Also, the trailer for it made it seem like a much more complex a plot then it really was, and so I think that made for part of the problem. As for The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus , the hype surrounding this movie was huge cause it was the last movie Heath Ledger made before his untimely passing, and it had a really good cast. Sadly though, it had an incredibly muddled plot, poor acting and was so boring that Bethany and I only got through half of it before turning it off. Both movies left me disappointed, and annoyed, but that is nothing compared to how the Russell family felt, and for more on that, here is Michelle.

This is the Russell Family, in all their awesomeness.

My family, not unlike most other families, is usually super busy with lots of places to go. That's true almost every day of the week, except Saturday. On Saturday mornings we wake up when we want to, and then snooze until we get hungry for breakfast. The kids all jump into the parents' bed, and we watch Saturday morning cartoons (which aren't as good as they use to be), (I totally agree with Michelle on this point, Saturday morning cartoons used to rock hard, now they just show stuff that they already show the rest of the week, and have almost entirely given everything over to anime, not that anime is a bad thing, but it just shows a lack of creativity on the north american animation side). A few years back, a new cartoon came on called "Avatar - The Last Airbender". We watched it and quickly got caught up in the story line.

The core of the story is that - The long lost master of the elements has returned to the world. He awakens to find that the World is at war and "out of balance". The foundation of their world is that there are four main elements (represented in four tribes of people), one of the elements/tribes (FIRE) has become too powerful and is trying to dominate all the other elements/tribes, (why does fire always have to be the bad guys, for once it should be someone else, like the salad people, cause we all know that salad is evil**) . It turns out that the Master of all the elements (The Avatar) was just a kid when he was told of his overpowering responsibility to ensure the world stayed in balance, so he got scared. You see 100 years ago the boy thought it a really big responsibility to keep a whole world in balance, so he decided to take a vacation before starting his Avatar training. After running away, the stupid kid accidentally used his powers to suspend himself in time, and his short vacation has turned into a hundred year sleep, (I did this once, I think it was called high school). He awakens to the fact that his race is now extinct, and he is - THE LAST AIRBENDER.

That's a great starting point, but what really gets you involved in this cartoon is the characters. Aang is funny, innocent, and powerful, but by himself he can't carry the whole show. He needs a sensible and determined friend/love interest, to join him (named Katara). He also needs the brilliant and hilarious brother figure (named Sokka). Together these three provided my family with laughter and excitement on a sleepy Saturday morning. The three main characters traveled their world, meeting a huge cast of unique characters. The quest is to train the young Avatar for the day he must face the Fire-Lord (and bring peace back to the world). That's not all, the writers were awesome enough to also provide us with a full blown prodigal son character. Our main villain is embodied in the banished son of the Fire-Lord named Prince Zuko. The prince has with him (as he chases Aang) his wise and seemingly lazy Uncle Iroh who is just an older form of Sauka (Aangs' comic relief).

My family would not start our Saturday without first waiting to watch the next episode of this show. Everyone laughed, and at the end of the episode we would all talk about the events and what we think should happen next. Then we heard about the movie being made. We got so excited because our little Saturday morning ritual was going to be made into a full blown movie - with awesome special effects, and real fight scenes, and more Sokka jokes. It had the blessing of the outstanding co-creators, and of the studio (Nicolodian). It had an award winning director and some-what known actors. What it did not have was the writing staff of the original series or a good special effects team.

The day my family went to see this film we were so excited. The movie was DISASTROUS. We couldn't figure out why none of the main characters resembled their original counter-parts. They even had different names! Who renames a main character? Should we rename Elizabeth Bennett, or Anne (with an e) Shirley, or Aragorn, or Harry Potter, or King Arthur? NO... No director or writer should ever mess with the name of the main character. But he did...

We tried to get past the name thing but we were immediately presented with another major problem. Nobody was funny! Not one hint of a laugh throughout the whole movie. Zuko was super stiff and so was his uncle. Aang had very few lines (and he couldn't act so maybe that's why he wasn't allowed to speak), and Sauka had even less to say. Why is it that the three main characters don't have anything of real substance to say? Maybe because they didn't have time.

Oh No You Didn't!!!!!!!!!!!

The story line moved through the events of the television series as though it was a checklist of events that had to be done. Actually; they didn't get the checklist done either. They left out Souka's first love interest (the

Kyoshi Warriors) and barly touched the fact the Katara wasn't allowed to practice her waterbendin (because of sexism). When the first real fight scene came, it was a real let down. In their world when people fight, they use their ability to bend the elements to do the fighting for them. Not in the movie. The acting was stiff and the special effects reminded me of the days of claymation. It was so obvious that there was no connection between the effect and the actor. My whole family groaned when it took seemingly forever for someone to "generate enough power to pick up some water". We continued to watch, hoping and willing the movie to get better, but it was all in vain. The climax scene near the end when GOOD TRIUMPHS OVER EVIL. In the cartoon it is an awesome display of the power of the spirit world, but in the movie it did not happen.

The season ending scene of the tv show begins with Aang surrendering himself to the WATER SPIRIT, to be used to avenge the death of his beloved MOON SPIRIT. Through Aang the Water spirit creates an overpowering water monster that single handily destroys the entire Fire Nation Navy. The people that bow down to him - live. The people that don't bow - get smashed. In the movie - that doesn't happen. The Water Spirit swims helplessly as the Moon Spirit is murdered. The fights take place between the people, and at the end when the Moon is brought back to life, Aang water-bends a big wave to gently push the Fire Navy ships away.

Could this movie been more disappointing? Recently I decided to watch it on DVD again, just in case I was too hard on it the first time. I must say that I got even more disappointed. It's because I was able to really appreciate the huge vacuum that was left. It was as though the characters we watched on Saturday mornings were not even there. Not their names, not their powers, not their humor, not their friends, not their anything. I

This is Justine, she kinda
hates me right now cause
I said I liked the movie.

 blame the co-creators (Michael DiMartino and and Bryan Konietzko) and Nickolodian for abandoning Aang and friends to the half-hearted whims of a one-hit wonder director, (this is where I hugely disagree with Michelle, M. Night is an incredible director that has some amazing and successful movies. The Sixth Sense made $661,500,000, Signs $407,900,000 and The Village $114,195,633 at the box office, and that is not including DVD sales, so one hit wonder he is not, also he made number 17 on my top 20 best movies of all time list, so just cause you hated this movie, don't hate the man). If the original writers were used instead of "Shyama-bomb" ,(ah ha ha, that is so creative of you Michelle, taking M. Nights name and putting Bomb in it, you should do this for a living) then maybe this movie might have had a fighting chance. After watching the film I felt compelled to immediately watch all the TV episodes on DVD to purge myself of the bad taste left in my soul. Needless to say my family is really hoping that Nickolodian does not give permission to Mr. Shyamalan to make the next two seasons into a movie. He just can't do them justice.

Michelle Russell

So there you have it, movies that were a huge disappointment to me and my friends. Let me know some of the movies that you felt like this about, cause it is my experience that it varies from person to person. Until next time, stay classy true believers, and always eat your breakfast with a spoon, no matter what it is. Blog at you later.

*I introduced my daughters to Star Wars last year, and they now tell their friends on the play ground that start talking about clone wars and prequel nonsense that, "Those aren't real Star Wars movie!", and oh does it make me so proud.

**My oldest daughter Marajade would disagree with me on this point, cause she loves Salad, but I stand by my statement, it is evil.