Bad Movies With Great Premises
 

Sometimes it's because of producer interference, sometimes it's because of a limited budget, maybe it's because Kevin Smith was too high when he wrote the second half of the movie, but a lot of movies that sound interesting on paper are straight up garbage. Post em up in here. Bonus points if you can think of an alternative that does a better job with a similar premise.

I'll start it off with an obvious one: The Purge. You create a world where crime is legal for 24 hours a year and it impacts the world positively and you give us a film that wants to be an incoherently preachy version of The Strangers without any of the well-done suspense? What a waste.

The Purge sounds like it should have been a more nihilistic version of The Warriors tbh.

I've never understood the premise of The Purge. Why would making all crime legal one day a year have any kind of benefit? I've never seen the movie, by the way, just always wondered about it.

To get it out of their systems. That's one of the questions I had about the movie that it answered in an incredibly disappointing way.

the purge episode of rick and morty is pretty ****ing awesome

Sounds like a concept someone who has not met many humans would come up with.

Aye. It could have been made into an allegory on class warfare or something along those lines.

I've always thought that "The Happening" had such a solid premise, but it was obviously executed terribly.

Like the very base premise with the suicides or the whole thing with the murderous plant gas?

I'm like the only one the world but I love that movie.

Both. The fact that the plant gas was making people commit suicide is so sweet. Horrible execution though.

The plant part made it feel like a diehard Greenpeace member's first script.

I've never really understood the hate for The Happening. It's not amazing, but it's not bad.

Star Trek: Generations. Picard and Kirk in the same movie with Malcolm McDowell as the villain. What could possibly go wrong?

I thought everything after the reveal of the source was straight up bad. The movie has a weird atmosphere to it though, I'll give it that.

It ended up turning into that. It was subtle in the first one but as the other two came out. It was clearly about class warfare. The only thing that disappointed me was the way that they revealed the plot behind the New Founding Fathers. I wish they would have gone a different route and explained a specific large event that occured that made them decide to start The Purge event.

I wouldn't say I love it but I have watched it more times than I can count. It is almost like I am expecting a different conclusion any day now.

I was wondering if any of the sequels improved on the concept, but I gave up after the first one.

Do they improve in quality or do they just touch on themes like you mention?

In the second one they decide to follow what actually happens on the outside and what others are going through. You end up seeing how it affects minorities and that there is a club of rich people that use The Purge to hunt people cliche.

The third one really slaps you in the face about how poorly the lower class is treated and there is a female candidate running for office that will end The Purge if she wins. They wanted to play into the whole Hillary/Trump comparison. You also get to see the behind the scenes of the New Founding Fathers which is basically just rich white old men. They have a candidate of their own running against her but in this last movie. They actually let you follow the same character from the second movie into the third.

You should check it out if you are curious where they went with it.

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Q (1982)
This is the only movie I'm aware of that's about the Aztec feathered serpent god Quetzalcoatl. In its 1982 incarnation, it's a schlocky monster movie set, inexplicably, in New York City. However, change the setting to southern Mexico and make Quetzalcoatl more of a terrifying, incomprehensible force of nature and I think you have the beginnings of good horror movie or even, if handled correctly, some kind of psychological terror. I think Guillermo del Toro could make something great out of this.

The Happening was probably the best comedy movie of that year.

I didn't know they made sequels

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This movie could have been great. Instead they made it this thing about religion rescuing us. Also, the main character shouldn't have been made into this perfect fighter.

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Get Out

I thought the idea behind this film was pretty good (especially the elements revealed within the film itself, that were not in the trailer) but damn, the execution of this film was so ham fisted and predictable.

I thought it was the other way around tbh: cheesy premise that was handled surprisingly well.

This.

I thought it was all around good and pretty unique. Can't really think of another movie like it honestly.

Yes! That was exactly how I felt about it.

That one Mark Walberg gets trapped on mars sucks pretty bad. Could've been cool.

7 years a slave and that Hendrix movie both sucked. How you can **** up a movie about Hendrix is pretty incredible. Malcolm X sucked. Oh my god the one where the fresh prince played Ali. Horrible.

I really want someone to re-do Malcolm X. New script, same subject. It's not that long ago that I watched the movie for the first time and it was surprisingly weird, surprisingly long and surprisingly ineffective. I liked it, but just barely. Denzel was great as Malcolm - that was the best thing about it.

Biopics generally suck.

Wait, you mean The Martian? With Matt Damon? If so then eat dog ****.

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And I thought my brain was turning to mush........

I really liked Oliver Stone's film about Bush, "W.".
Josh Brolin was extremely entertaining in that role.

Like with any biopic, you probably have to take it's relation to reality with a grain of salt, but good movie all the same.

I haven't seen either of the bolded yet, but I love Ridley Scott movies in general and I loved Steve McQueen's "Shame", so I sure hope those two won't disappoint me.

12 years in Tibet sucked too

12 years a slave was a great movie that was shot beautifully by one of the best working directors.

The Martian did totally suck a fat one though. Matt Damon is a **** and ultimately the movie was flat, unfunny comedy with a few moments of mediocre drama thrown in.

Man I will fight you over The Martian. I will watch Matt Damon survive on Mars as long as he will let me.

that doesn't make the movie any less ****ty. some of the dialogue genuinely made me want to vomit on my popcorn.

And you can tag team me when you get tired. One of the best movie adaptions of an amazing novel I've ever seen. I looked forward to the movie with sceptisism, but it 110% delivered the goods. Even better than I'd hoped.

"In the face of overwhelming odds, I'm left with only one option, I'm gonna have to science the **** out of this."

"They say once you grow crops somewhere, you have officially colonized it. So, technically, I colonized Mars. In your face, Neil Armstrong!"

"Mars will come to fear my botany powers."

"I am definitely gonna die up here if I have to listen to any more of Commander Lewis' god-awful disco music. My god commander could you have not brought something from this century. No I won't "turn the beat around", I refuse to."

I guess you had to be there.