2013 Disappointments

Now I didn't necessarily see any movie that I would straight up call "one of the worst movies I've seen this year".  Some movies I was enraged at for a little while watching them, but usually that feeling would subside and the movie would be partially redeemed.  I never really had a miserable experience this year while sitting in the theater or sitting in a chair in my dorm room watching a DVD.  So since I was never fully enraged or miserable I can't in good conscience make of 'Worst of the Year' list.  So instead I have a list of movies that I thought to disappointing in some way, shape, or form.  Most of these I honestly thought were okay and each had something good about them.  But I was still disappointed in some regard. 




Disappointments
'American Hustle' - The trailers for it looked awesome, it has a great cast and it's from David O. Russell, who directed 'Silver Linings Playbook'.  So what went wrong?  Pacing issues resulting in a lack of getting invested with the story and characters.  It does have one great scene but even that goes on a little long.

'Dallas Buyers Club' - Kept hearing a lot of great things about this movie.  Despite some overall good performances from Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto, this still had several moments that just took me out of the movie entirely and I just felt drained after watching it.  This movie and 'American Hustle' were the only times watching a movie in the theater in 2013 that I kept checking my phone for the time and fidgeting around in my seat.

'Frances Ha' - Another movie I heard great things about, and even the trailer for it wasn't half bad.  Instead of a funny, everyday slice of life movie I was expecting I saw a dull, not funny, pretentious movie.  How this is getting critical acclaim is beyond me.

'The Great Gatsby' - The first trailer I saw for this was in front of 'Prometheus', and it looked GREAT.  But this suffered from being way too long, clunky dialogue early on in the movie and an out-of-place rap soundtrack.  It does have a great performance from Leonardo DiCaprio as Jay Gatsby.

'Insidious Chapter 2' - I liked the original movie enough that I could recommend it, so when I heard that there was going to be a sequel I was excited.  Watching it....the first third I hated, the last third I actually kinda liked and overall it goes to some really strange places.  Honestly it was really close to being the only one on my 'Worst of the Year' list, but the last third helped redeem it.  Somewhat.

'Kick Ass 2' - The first 'Kick Ass' was awesome!  This movie...not awesome.  Too much shaky cam, an annoying villain, and it's just not as funny as the first movie.

'The Kings of Summer' - AMC kept playing advertisements for this during "First Look" before the actual trailers started.  Sometimes I enjoy smaller, independent movies and this one actually looked really good.  But the story is stretched thin and it was hard to root for the characters that you're suppose to be rooting for.

'Machete Kills' - The first 'Machete' was awesome!  This movie...not awesome.  Instead of being entertainingly stupid it just came off as stupid.  This 'Machete' was duller.  And some subplots could've been removed entirely.

'Man of Steel' - That first trailer in front of 'The Dark Knight Rises' was GREAT.  Subsequent trailers and commercials were also GREAT.  This movie....was a letdown but overall it's okay.  It does feature a great opening on Krypton, a good villain and some good action scenes and special effects.  But it's WAY too long, really dark, it gets confusing in parts, and Amy Adams simply isn't Lois Lane.  Still looking forward to the sequel though.

'Monsters University' - 'Monsters Inc.' is a great movie.  This prequel had it's moments, but it's just a mediocre movie.

'Pacific Rim' - Special effects are great, but the movie itself is just kinda 'eh' and it gets really repetitive.

'Prisoners' - Initially I had no plans to see this, but after seeing that it was getting rave reviews I decided to get out of my dorm room and go see it.  And...it's way too long and just not very engaging.  It does feature great performances from Paul Dano and Melissa Leo.

'Side Effects' - This was from Steven Soderbergh, who directed the great 'Contagion'.  This looked thrilling, but overall it was tonally inconsistent.  Sometimes it was thrilling, other times I was bored.

'To The Wonder' - I loved Terrence Malick's previous movie ('The Tree of Life') and I was eager to watch this.  And honestly I was really liking it for the most part but then it started to drag, repeat itself, and a certain subplot during the movie just completely rubbed me the wrong way.  Let's just say I probably shouldn't have watched this movie on the day that I did.  Any other day this subplot might have been overlooked.

'World War Z' - This is another one where initially I didn't think it looked all that good.  But then it received good reviews and made a lot of money, so I decided that I'd get it on Redbox whenever it became available.  Too much quick cut editing, horrible CGI, a rather bad ending, Brad Pitt looks bored during the entire movie, and overall it's just forgettable.




OTHERS:
Okay these movies aren't very good nor was I expecting them to be good but they aren't so bad that they're 'Worst of the Year' material.

'Grown Ups 2' - Simply put I just didn't think this was funny.  I wasn't mad like I was at the first 'Grown Ups' movie.  Just stared blankly at my TV.

'The Hangover Part III' - The least of the 'Hangover' trilogy.  Some funny parts, but for the most part the movie is actually fairly serious.

'Movie 43' - Kept hearing about how awful this was, so I decided to rent it.  Is it as bad as all the reviews say it is?  No.  It does have a few funny moments, but this tried WAY too hard to try and most of the time I just kinda stared at my TV.  Then again I might have been tired from marathoning 'The Incredible Burt Wonderstone', 'The Kings of Summer', and this movie. 

'Scary Movie 5' - I only saw this because I saw the others.  I chuckled every now and then but for the most part I was staring blankly at the movie screen.




So there you have it, my 2013 disappointments and a few other movies that I didn't think were all that good.  Not horrible, just not that good.  What are some movies you saw this year that you didn't like or you were disappointed by?