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There's nothing worse for a film fan than being let down by a movie you were eagerly anticipating. This video explores 10 films, from long-awaited sequels to ambitious blockbusters, that everyone wanted to love but ultimately couldn't.
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00:00Now, absolutely detesting a movie that you were looking forward to for months, even years,
00:04is definitely one thing. But what about those movies that you had more mixed feelings about?
00:09We all have those films, whether sequels or original projects, that we just wanted to love
00:13with every fibre of our being, but the end result just didn't quite get there. So let's take a look
00:18at them. As I'm Jules, this is WhatCulture.com, and these are movies everyone wanted to love,
00:22but nobody did. Dumb and Dumber 2
00:25Given that Dumb and Dumber is widely regarded as one of the funniest and most iconic studio
00:29comedies of the 1990s, everybody desperately wanted the 20 years later sequel Dumb and Dumber 2
00:35to live up to it. And while Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels were clearly game for another go-around,
00:40the script that was written by a total of six people sorely lacked this smart, stupid charm of
00:45the original, reducing their characters to broad caricatures. Drowning in lazy callbacks to the
00:50first film and lacking even a single truly memorable one-liner or sight gag, Dumb and Dumber 2 is proof
00:56that some classic comedies are just better left off alone. While the sequel hardly retroactively
01:01ruins the original and isn't without some fleetingly amusing moments, it's a little
01:05surprise that barely anybody talks about it almost a decade after its release. I mean,
01:09why would anyone bother watching this again when you can just watch the vastly superior original instead?
01:14You know, when the nights get here faster and the temperature starts dropping and I'm in need of
01:19something cozy to pick me up, there's nothing I want to do more than spend some time with your
01:25friend and mine, Pumpkinhead. As in the 1988 supernatural horror movie Pumpkinhead directed by
01:31Stan Winston, obviously. And wouldn't you know it, you can go and do that on Prime Video right now,
01:37and if you sign up using our special link in the description or scan the QR code on screen,
01:43you'll get 75% off your first two months, which is as low as 99 cents per month. That includes
01:49both
01:49single subscriptions and bundles, so you can add in stuff like Apple TV and HBO Max and watch all the
01:56movies and shows you want to your heart's content. Like, guys, they have all of Columbo on there,
02:01I'm about to go into a winter hibernation and come out talking like Peter Falk, I can't wait.
02:07Eternals. God, Eternals, man. I mean, talk about a movie that looked like it could not fail on paper.
02:13Between the incredible ensemble cast, the neat premise, atmospheric visuals, and having Oscar-winning
02:18filmmaker Chloe Zhao at the helm, many touted Eternals as the first MCU movie with a genuine
02:23shot at winning Best Picture, which definitely seems like a rather laughable statement in retrospect,
02:28doesn't it? Now, this isn't to say that Eternals is terrible, because it certainly isn't,
02:32but it is a disappointingly generic, exposition-heavy, bloated superhero epic that ultimately is more
02:38exhausting and ponderous than entertaining. This had the potential to be an all-timer MCU movie,
02:44yet ironically ended up nabbing the series' lowest Rotten Tomatoes score to date, tied at 47% with the
02:50recent Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantumania. While Eternals absolutely has its passionate cheerleaders,
02:55more than any other MCU film, it's one which invites a spate of mixed feelings. The highs aren't that high,
03:01the lows aren't that low, and so we're just left with a watchable, over-egged blockbuster that
03:06really doesn't invite repeat viewings.
03:08Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
03:11Even the most energetic defenders of the fourth Indiana Jones film, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,
03:16will not try and pretend that it's on the same level as its three statuesque predecessors.
03:20Pre-release, hype was at an all-time high for Harrison Ford reuniting with Steven Spielberg to
03:25don the fedora once more, and all the ingredients seemed to be in place for another superb entry into the
03:31series. Yet while broadly well-received by critics, the fourth film went down considerably less
03:35favourably with fans, who took issue with Shia LaBeouf's role as Indy's son Mutt, the middling
03:40visual effects, and the infamous sequence where Indy survives a nuclear blast in a fridge.
03:45Is Kingdom of the Crystal Skull a crime against humanity like some fans and the creators of South Park
03:50might have you believe? Well, not quite, but the gulf in quality between it and its three prior sequels
03:55is huge, that's for sure. No, it didn't ruin your childhood, and Harrison Ford is still a lot of fun
04:01in the role, but there is no denying that it's a huge step down from the first three films, as
04:05a good
04:05measure of charm just is not there. Elysium
04:08After District 9, a rare sci-fi film to receive a Best Picture nomination, hype was through the
04:13damn stratosphere for Neil Blomkamp's next sci-fi action flick, Elysium. Yet, despite touting a
04:18tantalising premise, superb visual effects, and a game Matt Damon, Elysium fell far short of his
04:24mesmerising debut. Though never less than entertaining, except perhaps for whatever the
04:28hell Jodie Foster was attempting to do with that accent, as The Thinking Man's action film, its
04:33critiques of class warfare and American healthcare just felt a little too on-the-nose and broad-minded
04:38compared to District 9's inspired apartheid allegory. There's never any doubt where the story
04:42is going. The characters are uninteresting archetypes, the world-building is weirdly underwhelming,
04:47and it's full of dramatic cliches. It's still pretty as hell and touts some fun action,
04:52but Elysium ultimately provided a depressingly early indication that Blomkamp might sadly just
04:57be a one-hit wonder.
04:58Scream 3
04:59Scream 3 was heavily hyped up as the hotly anticipated finale to Wes Craven's meta-slasher
05:05trilogy, and after two great movies, it seemed like Craven would nail this three-peat. Yet,
05:10with series writer Kevin Williamson unable to return, Scream 3 ended up lacking the razor-sharp
05:15wit and genre literacy of the first two films. As playful and potential-rich as shifting the
05:20setting to Hollywood was, and as much as everyone loves Parker Posey and the role of Gail's stab
05:25equivalent Jennifer, Scream 3 eventually succumbs to many of the tropes the franchise was initially
05:29sending up. With a wildly convoluted villain reveal that feels like a dispiriting retcon of
05:34the series' lore, and a number of surreal sequences that fall tragically flat, Scream 3 can't hold a
05:40candle to what came before. Granted, it's gotten a little better with age due to how ahead of the
05:45curve it was in calling out sexual abuse in a Weinstein-era Hollywood, but it's still a dog's
05:50dinner of a movie that feels relatively limp as a conclusion to a three-movie arc.
05:54Toy Story 4
05:55You won't find many people who confess to hating Toy Story 4, because it is honestly a very good movie,
06:01and by the metric of any typical animated movie, a damn good one at that. But Pixar, and especially the
06:07Toy Story franchise is a storytelling powerhouse unto itself. Given the basically flawless nature
06:12of the first three Toy Story movies and how brilliantly Toy Story 3 wrapped things up,
06:16nothing but another masterpiece would have quite sufficed for number 4. And Toy Story 4 ultimately
06:21was not a masterpiece by any means. A solidly entertaining postscript to the trilogy with
06:27gorgeous animation and strong voice work, but still a movie that many Toy Story fans fail to
06:32actually love. I mean, how many have felt a desire to go back and revisit Toy Story 4 since 2019?
06:37It's a film that we all watched and probably enjoyed to a modestly decent extent, but in a
06:42series renowned for its consistent brilliance, that actually isn't enough.
06:45Righteous Kill
06:46The marketing for 2008's cop thriller Righteous Kill relentlessly hyped it up as the first film
06:51ever featuring Robert De Niro and Al Pacino as co-leads, after sharing just a few scant minutes
06:56of screen time together in Michael Mann's heat. And by God, the appeal of seeing two screen legends
07:01starring together as grizzled, aged detectives hunting down a serial killer, well, it speaks for itself.
07:06I mean, if you gave this to Dennis Villeneuve or David Fincher, you've got instant fireworks.
07:10But under the direction of the considerably less accomplished John Avnett, admittedly working with
07:15a weak-sourced script, Righteous Kill was a spectacularly generic cop romp, memorable only
07:20for a howlingly ridiculous last-minute plot twist. De Niro and Pacino certainly tried to work with what
07:25they've got, but it's not much, ensuring that their much-ballyhooed big-screen reunion ended up
07:30feeling like a garden-variety straight-to-video thriller joint. In 2019, De Niro freely admitted
07:35that both he and Pacino regretted making the movie, though at least they were eventually able to re-team
07:40once more for an altogether worthier project, Martin Scorsese's masterful The Irishman.
07:45Terminator 3 – Rise of the Machines
07:47As much as Terminator 2 Judgment Day brought James Cameron's sci-fi action franchise to an incredibly
07:53fitting conclusion, fans spent years excitedly awaiting a third film also to be directed by
07:58Cameron. Yet when Terminator 3 – Rise of the Machines finally materialized in 2003, Cameron
08:03had no involvement with it at all, but the returning presence of Arnold Schwarzenegger nevertheless gave
08:08fans hope for a worthy sequel. Ultimately, Terminator 3 was a solid movie in its own right,
08:13though, like Toy Story 4, struggled to escape the long shadow cast by its vastly superior predecessors.
08:19Arnie was great, the action was fun, and the bleak ending was awesome, but the comic relief largely
08:25fell flat. And overall, it was hard not to view the movie as Diet Terminator, lacking the technical
08:30ingenuity and strong character work of T2. Making a follow-up to one of the most important and popular
08:35blockbusters ever is no easy task, and while plenty of people like T3, you'll struggle to find anyone who
08:42puts it on the same footing as the first two movies.
08:45The Matrix Resurrections
08:46The Matrix's impact on action cinema over the last 25 years is undeniable, and though the two
08:52immediate sequels proved relatively divisive, the prospect of a fourth Matrix was a tough one for
08:57fans to resist. Between Lana Wachowski being back in the director's chair and both Keanu Reeves and
09:01Carrie-Anne Moss returning to star, there was much hope that The Matrix Resurrections would put the
09:06dormant franchise back on firm footing. And there are certainly those who respect Wachowski for taking
09:11such a bold meta swing on this movie. I mean, it's undeniably ballsy to literally criticise the studio
09:16funding the movie Warner Bros. within the movie itself, while having such a blatant contempt for
09:20the never-ending mining of IP for content. Yet even the film's more amusingly cutesy flourishes can't
09:26compensate for the genuinely unsatisfying muddied narrative, with the absence of both Hugo Weaving
09:31and Laurence Fishburne as Agent Smith and Morpheus, and the thunderously mediocre action sequences
09:35dominating the experience. In terms of technical execution, this felt like an imitation Matrix movie
09:41directed by a hack-for-hire filmmaker, not the original director returning to their glorious
09:46creation with a colossal budget. It's a curious film for sure, but ultimately one that again saw
09:50the series fall far short of the peerless original. Anchorman 2 – The Legend Continues
09:56In the very least, Anchorman 2 felt like a movie made for the right reasons. The cast wanted to
10:01make it and spent almost a decade trying to put it together, even if it fell shy of expectations.
10:06The original Anchorman is one of the most beloved comedies of the last 20 years,
10:09thanks to both its bevy of memorable one-liners and superbly drawn characters.
10:14Anchorman 2, though, well, it's fine. As belated comedy sequels go, it's no Dumb and Dumber 2.
10:20I mean, it stays true enough to the characters and has some periodically hilarious moments,
10:23but it's also aggressively overlong at two full hours, and is decidedly more hit and miss than
10:29its predecessor. The news crew fight absolutely rocks, aside from Kanye West being in there,
10:33but for the most part, Anchorman 2 feels like too much of a warmed-over retread,
10:37with all of the predictably diminishing returns that it entails. Again, it's decent,
10:42but a movie that's hard to fall in love with compared to the electrifying original.
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