I've been writing movie preview posts for years now, and I've never really
gone back to re-examine them AFTER I've seen the movies I was talking about.
I thought it might be interesting to compare my expectations with the eventual
reality and see how some of these turned out.

----- 2005 -----

The Amityville Horror

> Few realize it, but there were actually *eight* movies in the Amityville
> Horror series that began with the 1979 film. . . . I've seen the first three
> and was singularly unimpressed: the word on the later entries is that
> they're even worse.
>
> This remake has more promise than any of the sequels did, but my problem is
> that the story is inherently uninteresting. . . . English teachers taught you
> how sentences written in the passive voice are weak, right? The Amityville
> Horror is a whole story written in the passive voice.

Since writing that, I've now seen all eight of the original series, plus this
remake. Indeed, the sequels all vary from "almost tolerable" to "wretched."
(Best line from Amityville Dollhouse: "Don't worry! It only hurts FOREVER!")
The remake, however, was mostly competent and creepy, perhaps a hair better
than the original. Still, though, it feels like a waste of time.

--

The Interpreter

> At his best, Sydney Pollack is a fabulous director, and though he hasn't had
> a hit in a while, this movie looks like a great entry in my favorite genre.
> . . . . Even if the film turns out to be weaker than I hope, it should at
> least be good to look at.

While not great, it was certainly very good and indeed good to look at.

--

Unleashed (Danny the Dog)

> It's what looks to be brutal, uncomfortable, and merciless, but with a lot
> of potential for some real deep thinking about humanity and evil.

My first point was dead right. The second, not so much. Rather than playing
to the intellect, it played to our empathy. This it did very effectively, and
even though this was ultimately a grimy action movie, it stayed true to the
characters and wound up being surprisingly emotional.

--

Mindhunters

> Word of mouth is largely ambivalent. It's probably an improvement on Deep
> Blue Sea.

It wasn't. Mindhunters was ghastly.

--

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

> The Ya-Ya Sisterhood for teens? Perhaps an unfair comparison. This one looks
> better, and its literary heritage shows more promise.

I'm not supposed to like this, but I loved it, and the sequel too.

--

Mr. and Mrs. Smith

> Sounds great as a pitch, doesn't it? But can the idea sustain a full-length
> movie and come off as anything more than the gimmick?

Yes. I was totally unprepared for how fun this was. It's completely
disposable entertainment, but if a movie can make me smile, that's a good
thing that's sadly less common than it should be.

--

Batman Begins

> A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. "*Another* Batman movie?" is what I
> keep hearing, as if this one is next in the progression Joel Schumacher
> inflicted upon us with Batman Forever and Batman & Robin. No, this is a
> back-to-the-basics psychological thriller. If it's any good, it's the one
> Tim Burton tried to make unsuccessfully with his 1989 film. . . .
> With Nolan at the helm of a Batman movie, the promise is for the first
> truly great Batman movie ever.

I was so, so right here.

--

Herbie: Fully Loaded

> As silly an idea as this sounds, Lindsay Lohan is 2 for 2 on Disney remakes.
> Both "The Parent Trap" and "Freaky Friday," while clearly inferior to their
> originals, weren't bad at all. . . . But...I don't know. Part of Herbie's
> charm was his relative lack of ability to communicate. Looking at the car was
> rather like looking at Hal 9000: you don't *see* any visual communication,
> but darned if you can't feel the mind at work underneath the mechanical
> facade. But "Herbie: Fully Loaded" gives Herbie *eyelids*, with which he can
> make facial expressions: anger, sadness, deviousness, and so forth. Is
> subtlety completely lost on us, now, as a culture?

My reservations turned out to be grounded. I didn't hate the movie, but
Herbie's makeover lost the heart that the earlier movies had.

--

Dark Water

> This remake of the Japanese film, from director Hideo Nakata (Ringu) just
> might be the thriller that the succession of eight or so we've had so far
> this year were trying to be.

I was wrong. The Japanese version was only okay, and the American remake was
just plain bad.

--

The Wedding Crashers

> Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughan star in this buddy comedy of hijincks. Yawn.

I haven't seen it yet, but it's only fair to concede that people weren't
yawning at it.

--

The Island

> And so we come to Michael Bay. Sigh. Michael Bay dukes it out with McG for the
> title of worst mainstream director of all time. . . . "The Island" would
> therefore be the one I dread this coming summer if the preview didn't tempt me
> to give Bay another chance. I'm doomed to disappointment, but . . . I dunno.

I was floored. While not a great movie, I enjoyed The Island quite a lot.
It does something I didn't think Bay was capable of, slow-burning for the first
half and gradually establishing the hidden horrors of this strange place.
By the time it kicks into the absurd action sequences, we care enough about the
characters that they work.

--

The Pink Panther

> Interesting casting, getting Steve Martin to play the role of Inspector
> Clouseau, and I'm sure he can do it, despite the irreplaceability of Peter
> Sellers. But . . . What does it mean when the trailer doesn't have any funny
> gags in it at all?

It means it's a complete piece of crap, that's what. I gave Steve Martin too
much credit. I remain an admirer, though: "cannot replicate the performance
genius of Peter Sellers" is not much of a criticism. The problem was the
script: completely unfunny in every regard, and demonstrating a complete lack
of understanding of what made the character funny in the first place. "Son of
the Pink Panther" was worse, but not by much.

--

Red-Eye

> I'm always hopeful for movies like this, and even if Craven's track record
> is spotty (to say the least), I think he'd be good at handling the small
> genre diversion from horror to thriller. Still, when movies like this fail,
> they fail awfully, and late August is a time-honored dumping ground for bad
> thrillers.

I loved it.

----- 2006 -----

Mission: Impossible III

> If one or two of those sequels work out, this probably won't be one of them.
> Two strikes out of two and a hack TV director don't leave me with any reason
> to be optimistic. . . . (Lost fans: Ok, ok, I watch the show too. J.J. Abrams
> is still a hack.)

I was kind of surprised to see my vitriol over Abrams. I can't quite figure
out what he'd done by this point to warrant it. "Cloverfield" was still a
couple of years away. Maybe I was holding his writing on "Armageddon" against
him. Certainly I don't credit him for the brilliant "Lost"; he's more of the
name, rather than the creative force, behind that show. Anyway, M:I3 turned
out to be the best in the series, which is to say, it was all right.

--

X-Men: The Last Stand

> Can the series maintain its track record with a change of director? . . .
> There aren't many big action blockbuster series that maintain quality
> standards over three films.

There still aren't. Ratner turned in a serviceable film and an entertaining
spectacle in the moment, but unlike the previous two movies, this one has no
staying power. It's the kind of movie whose effect wears off the instant the
credits roll. Disappointing, to see a great second chapter set things up so
nicely, only for the third to fall apart. Sadly, that happened with two other
superhero franchises.

--

A Prairie Home Companion

> ...if you're interested in an alternative for simplistic blockbusters this
> summer, seek this one out. It's getting great reviews on the festival
> circuit, and Altman's track record speaks for itself.

Loved it. Never dreamed that it would turn out to be Altman's last.

--

Cars

> Admittedly, the trailers don't make this look like Pixar's finest work. And
> it may not be. Their winning streak has to end sometime.

...But four films later, it's still going. Cars did turn out to be weaker than
its peers, but it's still excellent.

--

The Lake House

> Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock reunite, this time in a metaphysical romance
> of sorts, something like the chick-flick version of "Frequency." On a scale
> of -10 to 10, the casting averages out to a 1 for me.

I absolutely loved this. No, you can't blame it on my affection for Sandra
Bullock in general. I'm not shy to admit when her movies are weak (Hope
Floats, Practical Magic) or downright wretched (Miss Congeniality 2,
Premonition). But Leen and I had a great time at this.

--

Superman Returns

> The saga of this film is documented in detail elsewhere on the web. It's
> long and painful, and reading it makes it clear just how much disregard the
> producers had for not just the Superman mythos but for plain ordinary good
> taste. . . . Somehow, amidst the smoldering ashes of false start after
> false start, Bryan Singer came in and got things moving. He's the best
> choice of director out of anybody who was ever attached to the project, and
> he's also probably the most likely to respect the character, if the
> producers let him.

The reviews were mixed and probably dampened by the heightened expectations
people had. When I finally caught up to it, I was very pleasantly surprised.
The movie captured the breezy tone of the Reeve movies, and the actors did a
good job recalling the original cast without simply imitating them. I was
even okay with Kevin Spacey as Luthor (the glimpse of him in the trailer just
felt so wrong). While it's not up to the caliber of Reeve's first two movies,
it does the legacy justice, which is more than can be said for Superman III
and IV.

--

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

> It could go either way. . . . If the film is too self-aware, it'll shatter
> the illusion.

Much like X-Men 3, this one evaporates in the mind right after seeing it.
And, indeed, it WAS too self-aware. Whereas the original was a movie whose
various elements just happened to come together just right, the sequel is
The Amazing Captain Jack Sparrow and Friends Show! It's not bad, just kind of
a let-down. The third movie was a small but substantial improvement, but only
the original has the magic.

--

Lady In the Water

> M. Night Shyamalan is one of my favorite current directors. I even liked
> "The Village," which I think would have gone over better if it hadn't been
> preceded by three much better thrillers. This one stars Paul Giamatti and
> Bryce Dallas Howard in what looks like one of those mysteries where you're
> not sure where the layers of reality are. I love movies that play with this
> idea, movies as diverse as "Dark City," "Wes Craven's New Nightmare," and
> "Adaptation."

I remember when Shyamalan excited me like this. If ONLY "Lady In the Water"
and turned out to be Dark City, New Nightmare, or Adaptation, instead of the
mess it was. And I still seemingly liked it more than anybody else -- it
did have some nice moments of humor and atmosphere. But the story was
terrible. I now no longer look forward to the next Shyamalan flick so much as
vaguely wonder if he'll ever find himself again. I certainly hope so. He
made some great, great movies once.

--

Miami Vice

> This would be the biggest joke of the summer, except that Michael Mann is
> at the helm, the guy behind "Heat" and "Collateral." . . . I think this is
> this year's "Batman Begins" -- a movie nobody will take seriously until it
> comes out and they see it and it turns out to be a lot of fun.

Hahahaha. Yeah, so I was way, way wrong about this. I hated every dull, dull,
boring, dull moment of this useless nonsense.

--

Flags of Our Fathers

> I'm excited about it. But the interesting thing is that Eastwood will have a
> companion film called "Red Sun, Black Sand" ready as early as this December,
> which tells the same story from the perspective of the Japanese. The two
> films together stand a great chance of being a unique and wonderful
> cinematic experience.

"Red Sun, Black Sand" got retitled "Letters From Iwo Jima." Neither lived up
to the high hopes I had for them, although "Flags" was good and "Letters" was
great. Although the stories are still best seen together, they don't
complement each other as well as I was thinking they would. The best
"both sides" view of Iwo Jima remains the joint U.S.-Japan film "Tora, Tora,
Tora." Still, Eastwood hits a double and a homer with this pair.

--

World Trade Center

> Oliver Stone's 9/11 movie is sure to be everything "United 93" apparently is
> not: manipulative, preachy, one-sided, melodramatic, and self-important.
> Stone is a gifted filmmaker, but you just can't trust what he applies
> those gifts to.

I stand by the second sentence, but in fact "World Trade Center" turned out to
be a great movie and honored the firefighters at the WTC on 9/11. It was
genuinely emotional and empathetic and not at all preachy or self-important.
It's not the masterpiece that is "United 93," possibly one of the five
best films I've seen this decade, but the two complement each other nicely.

--

Snakes On a Plane

I haven't seen it, but by all accounts the web phenomenon was better than the
movie.