5 Ways to tell if a movie will be bad
There’s always that movies you see the trailer of and instantly know it’s gonna be bad. However, there are also those movies that seem like they could qualify for movie of the year based off the trailer alone. But, in reality, they’re just as bad, if not worse than the ones that looked bad from the start. Below is a list of five common ways to tell if a movie will be bad before it comes out.
The Movie is a Sequel
If the movie is a sequel to a classic, or based off a movie already renowned for its greatness, you might immediately be weary of the film from the start. And to be honest, you should be. Many remakes or sequels of movies end up with some of the lowest ratings of the year, and make fans of the original ask “what were they thinking?” for deciding to desecrate the original movie. These sequels are usually bad for two reasons: one being because they take away what was so good about the first movie unknowingly, and two being that there just wasn’t any real need to add to a story that was already concluded. An example can be found in the sequel to The Blair Witch Project. The reason the original Blair Witch movie was so good is because it was marketed to look like the movie was real, but in the sequel, the movie lost all its charm when it was made to look like a real movie.
2. The Movie Had Reshoots
When you find out that a particular scene in a movie had to be reshot for unknown reasons, you may worry about the movie as a whole. Whenever a movie needs to reshoot a scene, it’s usually because of early movie screenings. These screenings are typically meant to find the imperfections in movies and to properly receive the first wave of responses from movie critics before the movie is released to the rest of the world. And there are some cases where a movie is negatively received for being too dark, having too convoluted of a plot, or having an ending that just doesn't do justice to the rest of the film. These issues typically mean that producers will have to reshoot scenes that weren’t acknowledged well. However, when these scenes have to be reshot, it sometimes ruins the continuity of the movie. It seems like a random scene was just kind of thrown into a movie, rather than flowing with the plot. An example of this is from Suicide Squad. One of the biggest complaints with Suicide Squad are the scenes that don’t really fit with the flow of the movie. The reason some of the scenes didn’t fit was because these scenes were reshoots aimed to make the movie more crowd-pleasing and humorous. Another example comes from the movie I am Legend, a movie that stayed fairly close to its original book until the very end, where they decided to reshoot and change the ending to add in an infamous Hollywood explosion.
3. The Movie is Based off a Book
Divergent. Twilight. Maximum Ride. These three books had one main similarity between them. Their movie adaptations were not well-received. With each of these movies having less than a 50% on Rotten Tomatoes, a popular movie rating site, these movies were deemed as some pretty awful movies. But why? Why are these popular, well-received books getting such awful ratings in theatres? Reason one, because they can’t be hours upon hours long. If these movies were to stay true to the book, and act out every scene exactly how it was written, then the movie would literally take the entire day to watch. Some movies can pull it off, such as the 2017 film It, based off a book with 1,138 pages condensed into a 2-hour-long movie, that got a solid rating of 85% on Rotten Tomatoes. However, with It and a few other exceptions, most book to movie adaptations can’t pull that off. Reason two is casting and budget. A great example of this being the book series Maximum Ride. Maximum Ride, written by James Patterson, was a teen fantasy novel that was generally a well received book series, given 4 ½ stars on goodreads. However, the movie had awful casting choices, resulting in even worse acting, had mediocre effects, and even had the director quit halfway through the movie. And yet they still decided to go through with the project.
4. The Movie Pushed Back its Release Date
Sometimes movies have a double whammy where both their screenings had an overall negative reception, and they had to push back the release date because of said screening. Case in point, Jupiter Ascending. Jupiter Ascending had a rather common rating among movie critics. With a 26% on Rotten Tomatoes and actors best known for comedies coming over to sci-fi, this movie was terrible. Directed by the Wachowskis, creators of The Matrix, a groundbreaking movie with amazing graphics and spectacular actors, the Wachowskis really let people down on this one. And, as stated before, this movie did have a pushed back release date, a major hint that this movie probably wouldn’t live up to any expectations set.
5. The Movie had Too Much Hype/Promotion
Sometimes movie trailers can blow your mind. They can feature amazing songs, funny clips, a sense of mystery, and just an overall great summary of an upcoming movie that you just can’t wait to see. Then, as it gets closer to releasing in theatres, you see billboards, commercials, posters, more and more trailers and clips of the upcoming movie, all of them looking just as great as the last. And then the time finally comes for the movie to be released, and you go to the midnight showing, finally getting to see this masterpiece you’ve watched the trailer for over and over again, and when you finally watch it… it’s awful. Just plain awful. The jokes were already told in the trailer, the best action scenes were already shown in the trailers, the characters didn’t live up even close to your expectations and the part of the movie you were anticipating to see most turned out to be the biggest let down of your entire life. And yes, this is targeted towards Suicide Squad.
With a 25% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, this was the most hyped movie of the year and quite possibly the worst. Honestly, this movie wouldn’t have been rated as bad had it not had so much hype. If you’re going to go through with mass amounts of promotion for a movie, it has to at least be somewhat good. And if that movie doesn’t live up to the expectations it sets for itself, it’s its own fault.