Mediocre Movies That Could Have Been Great

[vultan]

Basically what it says on the tin. Some movies are very good, others very bad, but most are just some shade of mediocre. They could be successful in the short term, even get pretty good reviews, but ultimately they are more-or-less forgotten.

The goal of this thread is to ask what movies that were considered okay instead could become notable in the long run. For instance, I could imagine The Adjustment Bureau or maybe Limitless becoming Fight Club or Matrix-level cult films with a few changes in production. If done better, Willow could have been to the late 1980's 's what the Lord of the Rings movies were to the early 2000's.

Thoughts?

 

[John Fredrick Parker]

Two ideas from Cracked:

The Devil's Advocate (1997) -- could have been so much better had it not went with Keanu Reeves in the lead

Eyes Wide Shut (1999) -- would have been a complete classic, worthy of being Kubrick's final film, if it never tried with Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman (I really like their idea of Harrison Ford taking the lead)

 

[Desmond Hume]

I'd nominate "Daybreakers" as a major example of a could've-been great movie. I was absolutely loving it up until the last few minutes, when they went for the gross-out cannibalism-fest that felt more like it belonged in a zombie movie than a vampire movie and then didn't really give a satisfactory answer to where Ed and the other survivors go from there now that they have the cure.

If the makers had seriously thought through all the implications of the cure, and told that story at the end, they could have made a really interesting and thought-provoking movie.

Oh, and JFP: it was Nicole Kidman in "Eyes Wide Shut." Tom Cruise's then-current wife. Katie Holmes was later.

 

[ColeMercury]

Star Treks 3, 5, 7 and 9.

3, 7 and 9 only need minor restructuring. 5 needs major restructuring. But they all could've been much better than they were.

Also, Star Wars 6 and 1.

 

[Kevin R.]

I shall nominate the 1998 horror film Disturbing Behavior. What was ultimately crapped out into theaters after the studio lopped nearly twenty minutes off of it was a shallow, hollow Scream-meets-Stepford Wives ripoff. Having seen the deleted scenes (they're all included on the DVD), I must say... what the fuck, MGM? This film could've been a true horror classic like its inspirations, but instead, such minor things as "character development", "motivations" and "plot" were cut in order to make a cheap fright-fest.

 

[Kalvan]

1. Judge Dredd with the plotline of Dredd 3D. Not really a better film, but still one most likely closer to the source material, makes better use of Stallone's action chops, and probably makes way better money. Plus, there won't be any comparisons to The Raid: Redemption. The big question is: who do we cast as Judge Anderson?

2. An uncut, unexpurgated Black Cauldron, the first animated Disney film not to be an all-singing, all-dancing musical since The Three Caballeros, and one of only six hand drawn animated Disney cinematic films that way. (The others are The Great Mouse Detective, Mickey's Christmas Carol, Duck Tales: Treasure of the Lost Lamp {Which is the recycling of both a Duck Tales Plot from the Afternoon cartoon and the plot of Disney's Aladdin [Minus any sort of Jasimine character analogue]}, and The Frog Prince). If it had been allowed to have been done by the suits as something more than a means to sell Burger King Kid's Meals and toys, it might have jump-started the Disney Rennaisance seven years early!

3. The Phantom Menace where Jar-Jar isn't such of a comedy stereotype.

4. Any of the late 70's-80s Bugs Bunny movies done with actual plots and genuinely new animation footage, instead of Warner Brothers simply recycling both.

5. A Harry Potter movie franchise with the following parts recast:

Ian Holm as Albus Dumbledore
Rowan Atkinson as Flitwick
Judi Densch as Minerva McGonnagal
Jeremy Irons as Severus Snape
Eric Idle as Quirrell
Donald Sutherland as Lucius Malfoy
Carey Elwes as Lockhart
Daniel Day-Lewis as Sirius Black
Mark Metcalfe as Voldemort
Diane Wiest or Angela Landsbury as Sybil Trellweny
Tilda Swinton as Bellatrix Lestrange

6. Switching the casting of Kick-Ass and The Amazing Spider-Man around so that Andrew Garfield is Dave Liezewski/Kick Ass and Aaron Johnson is Peter Parker/Spider-Man. Granted, this would have required recasting for their respective fathers, too, but still.

When I think of more, I'll post them.

 

[Andrew T]

If Universal had adapted another of Gregory Macdonald's novels (Confess, Fletch?) instead of letting Leon Capetanos write a thinly-veiled L'il Abner ripoff as Fletch Lives, I can envision a series of Fletch films stretching into the 90s....

 

[John Fredrick Parker]

Oh, and JFP

Oops, thanks for the correction

 

[MaskedPickle]

Well, working on my new timeline, as I am in 1968, I have the feeling that Charly, that was poorly based on Daniel Keyes' wonderful novel Flowers for Algernon, could have been great with right actors and directors. It earned the Academy Award for Best Actor to Cliff Robertson, but it was more the result of publicity than anything else.

 

[MrHuman]

In direct response to the OP, I agree that The Adjustment Bureau could have been great. The thing with the doors, those cool moving lines in the notebooks, even the hats were nice touches. I like Matt Damon and Emily Blunt in pretty much any movie, I like John Slattery and Anthony Mackie, and Terence Stamp is awesome. And as a PKD fan, I really wanted to like it. But the religious theme was way too prevalent, and it should have kept more closely to the source material (which was religious, but it more abstract, you just knew that the Old Man was essentially God).

So yeah, Adjustment Bureau could have been a very good movie.

 

[thekingsguard]

So many to name, here's a few off the top off my head:

V for Vendetta - Stick to the comic books anti-government/facsim themes rather than the idiotic George Bush/9-11 conspircy bull shit we got. Would have been more timeless, and may have been as hailed as the source material. At the very least, you get a movie about rebellion that could as much appeal to the Tea Party as it could to OWS.

Scott Pilgrim vs the World - Literally cast anyone but Micheal Cera, and tone down the Micheal Cera-ish movie elements. He was likely the reason it flopped OTL, and the feel that it was a Michael Cera movie with better special effects ruined it for a lot of people. Cast a tolerable actor and aim for the nerds and geeks, not the hipsters.

I am Legend - Use the alternate ending as the main ending.

Green Lantern - Use John Stewart instead of Hal Jordan

Sucker Punch - Don't cut the 25 minutes of the film out like they did OTL, play up the guilty pleasure elements and aim for Rated-R rather than PG13. the PG13 rating crippled the film. The bits they cut out included much of the ending and some other good scenes, and having it rated R would let the movie go full out insanity. Wouldn't be an Acadamy Award winner, but no doubt it would be a cult classic.

Snow White and the Huntsman - cast literally anybody but Kristen Stewart as Snow White.

Kingdom of Heaven - Show the whole movie, nott he horably mangeled theatrical version which cut out the core of the movie.

Titanic - Have it be more of a montage focusing on the passengers rather than a half-ass Nicholas Sparks movie. It may make less money, but it would actually deserve Acadamy Awards this go around.

Superman 2 - Keep Richard Donner as the Director all the way through.

I can keep going if you like

 

[sharlin]

RE kingdom of heaven how much of that film was cut? I enjoyed the film but it did seem to have stuff missing, now I know.

 

[vultan]

I can keep going if you like

Please do.

 

[Alternatehistoryguy47]

The Dark Knight Rises

Rename the movie: "The Caped Crusader"

Make Talia Al Ghul the main villain from the start. Take Catwoman out of the movie, or at least downplay her role (she really didn't serve much of a purpose imo).

Rework Bane's storyline to have him be a hired henchmen of Talia's, with the use of special steroids called Venom that give him near-superhuman strength.

Have the story center around Talia rather than Bane looking to avenge the death of Ras Al Ghul by destroying Gotham.

Also, don't have Batman be retired for 8 years, but instead have him continue to be Batman in secret, with him running from the police while trying to fight crime.

If you want to keep the part about the nuclear bomb in there, then fine, but have it serve a different purpose. I would have had it introduced as a new energy source developed by Wayne Enterprises. Then, at the intro party, the new League of Assassins crashes it and steals the core, planning to set it off in Gotham. Then, Batman is in a race against time to find and stop the detonation.

The climax deals with Batman and the police storming the bomb's locaiton, leading up to an epic final battle between Talia and Batman, where Batman defeats her.

Also, if you're going to have Talia and Bruce fall in love at some point, then find a way to make that work. Perhaps Talia wears a mask or something while she's in Super Villain mode but falls in love with Bruce Wayne. At the end, they could find out each others' secret identies (which would make for a very awkward moment, though considering I don't like awkward moments, perhaps not.)

Series ends with Batman having improved relations with the GCPD, but vowing to continue to be Batman until he has eliminated crime in Gotham.

 

[SPJ]

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

I liked the film when I first saw it but the Graphic Novels are much more mature (in more ways then one ) in there storyline. I didn't mind the casting choices (Connery included) and I loved the choice they had for Nemo. But they should have left out Dorrian Grey and Sawyer. They could have kept the version of the Invisible man they had in the film which might have lead to interesting storylines. Mainly I think they should have had a plot similar to the first volume of the Graphic Novel which involved an elderly Morriarty (not the young looking guy in the film) as the big bad fighting against Fu Manchu and the League have to stop both. That could have been better.

 

[Simon]

RE kingdom of heaven how much of that film was cut? I enjoyed the film but it did seem to have stuff missing, now I know.

IIRC the directors cut has something like forty-five minutes of extra footage, it's what Ridley Scott wanted the theatrical release to be but the studio insisted that it be cut for commercial concerns and it still clocked it at about two and a half hours long. It certainly adds a fair bit to the film.

 

[imperialaquila]

Avatar.

Have Cameron give the plot, dialogue, and characterization maybe a quarter of the effort he gave the CGI, and you could have a brilliant movie. This generation's Star Wars, probably.

 

[9 Fanged Hummingbird]

RE kingdom of heaven how much of that film was cut? I enjoyed the film but it did seem to have stuff missing, now I know.

The theatrical release cut quite a bit of characterization right out. The director himself said that Sibylla was the character who suffers the most as a result, as her son is eliminated entirely from the theatrical release. The director's cut also elaborates a bit more on Godfrey and the entire France segment of the movie is much longer, with some backstory added not just for Godfrey but for Balian and the ambush in the forest makes much more sense. As I've always said, the theatrical release of Kingdom of Heaven was a fun and enjoyable summer action flick. The director's cut however is a work of art that goes on my list of Top 10 favorite movies of all time.

 

[vultan]

Re Kingdom of Heaven: maybe Prometheus will be considered a lot, lot better after people see the uncut version?

 

[modelcitizen]

1. Judge Dredd with the plotline of Dredd 3D. Not really a better film, but still one most likely closer to the source material, makes better use of Stallone's action chops, and probably makes way better money. Plus, there won't be any comparisons to The Raid: Redemption. The big question is: who do we cast as Judge Anderson?
...

Okay, as long as a near-immediate sequel includes the Angel family as rendered in the otl film with a larger role in the (longer than otl) movie. The original Stallone film was I thought too damn short, and parts that were done well --especially the Angel family featuring Mean Machine-- were given too little opportunity to really devour and digest the scenery as was their right.