We’ve all been to the cinema, or sat at home, and been disappointed by a film for which we had high – or even just reasonable – expectations. Lately, I seem to be on a roll for having my expectations dashed.
Take ‘Avatar’ for example. I’d read enough to know that I didn’t have high expectations for the plot, but I didn’t anticipate that I would actually be relieved when it finished! Sure, it’s a marvel of technological achievement (I could even just about forgive Cameron for the twinkly-dinkly Disneyesque glowing vegetation … just) but the heavy-handed plot and leaden script was terrible, absolutely awful. Did I expect to put it on my list of favourite films? No, but I didn’t expect to thoroughly dislike it either.
A couple of nights ago, I watched ’2012′. Now, I had even less high hopes for that than I had for Avatar. I didn’t expect any more than a series of special effects, loosely bound together by an attempt at a plotline & totalling not much more than a load of tosh, but what I got was a series of special effects, not quite held together with a boatload of pseudo-scientific bollox and enough plot holes in it to have driven one of those bloody stupid arks through. But … I watched it all the way through (there’s a place for mindless, Friday night entertainment!) because it lived up to – or should that be down to? – my expectations.
Will I ever watch either again? Not unless seriously drunk or desperate ;)
‘The Men Who Stare At Goats’, ‘The Informant!’ and ‘The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus’ are three films for which I had at least reasonable expectations – and all of which I found unwatchable (as did my husband) and all got the big red button treatment after about half an hour or so. Now why I could sit through ‘Avatar’ and ’2012′ and not those three is, I think, down to having higher expectations of the latter three, whereas I could take the first two as the tosh I expected.
‘Im indoors talks about Mars Bar movies (the guilty pleasures) compared to five course cordon bleu movies. No reason why there shouldn’t be a place for both, but I think with the films listed above we’ve recently tapped into the ‘oh my god, I can’t believe I just put that in my mouth’ movies.