29 December 2014

Disappointments of 2014

10 films from 2014 that disappointed me in some way or another. Only Sin City 2 is a bad film, all the others are good or great and still recommended but personally didn't work for me in the way I wanted.


In alphabetical order.



  • Frank

    I liked Frank but I wanted to like it a lot more, I kept hoping for something special to happen. It nearly does towards the end but it wasn't enough to rescue my disappointment.



  • The Grand Budapest Hotel

    It's great that The Grand Budapest Hotel did well, I know people I never imagined even seeing a Wes Anderson film really liking it. Everybody else appears to adore it and it's high in several films of the year list. My expectations were high (Moonrise Kingdom was my favourite film of 2012) but it just left me cold. Hopefully when I watch it again I'll like it a lot more.



  • Ida

    No grand expectations here apart from only hearing very good things. It was a film I saw when I was too tired to fully appreciate it, and as I was watching I knew I should be getting more from it but it didn't connect.



  • The Lego Movie

    The Lego Movie is very good, you don't need me to tell you that. But whereas everybody else came out of the cinema thinking everything was awesome I left disappointed. With no expectations or reason to think a film about Lego should work I think most people were pleasantly surprised. I, on the other hand, had The Lego Movie as one of my most anticipated films of the year. I'd already been surprised by 21 Jump Street and the Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs films, so I had high hopes for directors Lord and Miller. I'd also played the Lego City Undercover video game and knew how funny the Lego Universe can be (the game features a level with an Austrian building site foreman who manages to work the titles of nearly every Schwarzenegger film into his dialogue). When I watch it again (and I already own the DVD) with lowered expectations I'm sure it will be awesome.



  • Leviathan

    This just didn't work for me.



  • Nightcrawler

    I liked Nightcrawler but got a shock when I saw people dishing out five star reviews and claiming it was one of the films of the year. The performances are fantastic, delivering wonderful dark dialogue and the film frequently looks great. I found the direction was lacking a lot and manage to make everything look incredibly cliched. Perhaps I was too harsh (another tired viewing) and look forward to giving it another chance sometime in the near future.



  • Nymphomaniac: Vol. II

    The first part of Nymphomaniac was really fantastic and interesting which just makes the disappointment of part two all the greater.



  • Sin City: A Dame to Kill For

    Incredibly boring and no where near the greatness of the first film.



  • Mr. Turner

    Another highly rated film from a director I usually like and a performer who I thought could do no wrong but I couldn't see what any of the fuss was about.



  • Two Days, One Night

    I've liked the Dardenne's other films and the critical response to their latest was all positive. I like Marion Cotillard and the story here offered lots of potential but it didn't work for me. It felt like a wasted opportunity which I found repetitive and full of small flaws that added up to a bigger problem.




December 29, 2014 at 06:03PM

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