A great beginning is important, but it isn't everything — and that definitely applies
to the movies.
Plenty of films get off the starting block just fine, but sometimes those interesting
opening acts are just a prelude to a series of stumbles that end in utter collapse.
Here's our list of movies with great beginnings...that fell apart after minutes.
Jonah Hex
Who doesn't love a sci-fi Western?
It's a genre that keeps on giving where the small screen is concerned.
Consider the lasting popularity of TV shows like Firefly and Westworld.
The full-on disaster Wild Wild West made it seem like a good sci-fi western might never
make it on the silver screen...but Jonah Hex had a shot at turning things around.
Its comic book origin provided rich source material about a troubled antihero who was
accused of being a "a turncoat and a traitor" to his Confederate army unit.
There's enough content right there for a solid movie all on its own.
However, the movie's numerous last-minute changes dogged the film's production and turned
the final product into an unintentional disaster movie, despite few solid intro scenes.
"Searched you pretty darn good, didn't they?"
"Wouldn't you?"
The Last Airbender
M. Night Shyamalan's live-action take on The Last Airbender should've been good.
The cartoon series certainly was.
But the film version was plagued by accusations of cast white-washing, and the actors who
wound up in the film were misused anyway, and largely made into movie mockeries.
Pretty much the best thing about the movie is its opening credits which show people using
tai chi to manipulate the elements.
And that dimly lit 15-second demonstration is as good as this movie ever gets.
"Fools."
What a shame.
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
Let's face it.
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace makes Battlefield Earth look like A New Hope running
on a crooked projector.
Much has been made of the fact that Jar-Jar Binks and a number of new aliens come across
as thinly disguised ethnic stereotypes.
But bad as that definitely is, this thing barely hangs together as an actual movie.
All things considered, the movie does open on a high note.
The screen is black and the comforting mantra, "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…"
appears onscreen, accompanied by silence, then the classic epic fanfare.
Star Wars was back!
After 16 years!
What could be a better beginning to a movie than that?
The first sentence of that old, familiar Star Wars crawl is pretty enticing, too: "Turmoil
has engulfed the Galactic Republic."
Turmoil, you say?
What sort of turmoil, Mr. Lucas?
Fans were awful excited to learn the specifics, but then … womp.
The whole thing basically turned into an intergalactic vision of the Boston Tea Party with a crazy
costume game.
"It is clear to me now that the Republic no longer functions."
No kidding.
Good thing The Force Awakens breathed new life into this series by getting back to basics
because this movie — and the two prequels that followed — were a hot mess.
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
While the Wahlbergian Age of Extinction gets a lot of hate and Dark of the Moon isn't exactly
a work of art, it's not much of a stretch to pick Revenge of the Fallen as the ugliest
of the subpar Transformers sequels.
It starts out in the usual course with a follow-up to its robot action predecessor by going back
in time to the start of these robotic renegades.
But then things start to fall into some shady territory with a racist robo-thread running
through the entirety of this itchy CGI sweater of cinematic sin that, if pulled, causes Bay's
movie to completely collapse.
From the unflattering characteristics of its stereotypically primitive tribesmen to the
minstrelsy of the Twins Mudflap and Skids,
"What are we going to do with this shrimp taco?"
"Let's just pop a cap in his ass, throw him in the trunk, and nobody gonna know nothing,
know what I mean?"
to the pervasive racially tinged one-liners, Revenge of the Fallen retrofits a beloved
sci-fi franchise with deplorable racist tropes — and then only gets worse from there.
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
Director Zack Snyder has some explaining to do.
The widely derided Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice wasn't his first superhero movie,
so there's no excuse for why he got this one so wrong.
Putting Batman and Superman together for the very first time in a live-action movie was
a sure thing by any measure.
Then, the fact that Wonder Woman was also added to the mix, made half the blockbuster
battle won even without a script.
And that's kinda how Dawn of Justice met its downfall, really.
Instead of a sensible narrative, it's just a collection of stuff that happens, much of
which doesn't make a lick of sense if you spend more than a couple of seconds thinking
about it.
Even the rock 'em sock 'em fun inherent in the title gets steamrolled by a grim, loud,
and utterly preposterous final showdown between our two main heroes that's ultimately settled
because both of their moms are named Martha.
Whoo.
And things started off pretty well.
Sure, there was the Terrible Poetry Corner, courtesy of Ben Affleck:
"There was a time above, a time before.
There were perfect things."
But once we get to Bruce Wayne, zipping around Metropolis as it's being turned into a smoking
crater thanks to Superman and Zod, it's tough not to get excited about the high-stakes drama
to come.
And then?
Well…
"She gave me faith that there's good in this world.
She was my world."
So yeah, in terms of concept, brand legacy, and overall anticipation, Batman v Superman:
Dawn of Justice got off to an excellent start — and then the rest of the movie showed
up.
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