8 Disappointing Movies That Should Have Been Great

Is there anything worse than being disappointed by a movie? Think of the ones you waited patiently and eagerly for, only to discover that everything you imagined in your head hadn’t made it up onto the screen. Like, at all.

There are certain movies that had the odds weighed against them from the very start, and we’re not going to be dealing with those here: think George Lucas territory, what with The Phantom Menace and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. You willed them to be amazing, of course, but you knew the chances of success were on the lower end of the spectrum: in those cases, George Lucas is a generally lousy filmmaker, and the hype machine was in maximum overdrive.

But what about the flicks whose ingredients seemed perfectly placed, only for the final product to emerge mediocre in every sense? Motion pictures with marketing campaigns that made us feel as though their studios were promoting genuine classics? What about the movies that boasted an idea so brilliant that it seemed impossible for the filmmakers to screw it up? Here’s our pick of seven movies that fall into such a category: despite their esteemed cast and crew, each one failed to meet our (rightly) high expectations.