Just watched The Gorge (2025) recently. I wouldn’t say it’s a bad film, but it was really mediocre.
I love the premise of having the two guard towers, one on each side of a mysterious and foggy gorge, not supposed to communicate with each other, guarding us all from whatever is down there. People have previously gone in but never come out. Strange monsters sometimes attempt the climb up the cliff walls. Is it the gate to hell? What’s the story behind it all? Chemistry slowly happens between the guards of the two towers.
(If you think you might enjoy this movie, don’t read my spoilers. Just watch it. I liked it even though it was a bit disappointing.)
spoiler
But the good setup and world building is quickly over and then they both enter the gorge, and it’s just an old evacuated biological lab that created super soldiers, and the whole thing instantly stops being mysterious.
They could have kept it mysterious for longer and given us some kind of twist perhaps, like they might discover they’re guarding the site of an old defunct biolab, but some things don’t add up, and it turns out to be the actual gates of hell. I also don’t think Drasa should have dived straight in to rescue Levi. Let her hesitate for a while. Create tension. Keep them separated, him somewhere below and her in her tower (perhaps she will need to get over to his tower to reactivate the auto-turrets or do something important, she believes he’s gone), and cut between showing both their struggles. Perhaps he then manages to contact her, and then a rescue effort begins.
Somebody played Enshrouded and decided to make a post-Cold War movie out of it
I feel like the plot undercut the otherwise cool metaphor that the gorge represented.
East and West, separated by nothing but their deepest fears. Two killers searching for human connection but unable to reach the nearest person. How fucking cool is that? You can do so much!
Then you find out that there isn’t really any East/West divide, they’re both working for the same bad guys. Traversal of the gorge plays like a joke instead of being a serious moment of character development. Then the ending is a bunch of run-shoot-explode.
I was going to mention this, but thought it was too recent.
I thought it was pretty good until they went in. Even the way they met was pretty silly.
the trailer didn’t entice me that much, so I went ahead with the spoilers. Yeah I hate when a good mystery is ruined by over-explaining.
I still haven’t forgiven Steven King for writing all those sequels to The Gunslinger
The movie In Time (2011). The premise was interesting but I can’t even remember the plot because it was so meh.
I also think Idiocracy could have been better. It had good moments, and that’s what most people remember, but the overall cohesiveness falls flat. Great moments, iconic scenes, but could have been a better film.
Came to the comments to say In Time. I always have to remind myself how bad it was, because I really like the concept, so the movie tends to be much better in my head than it actually is as I keep adding things that weren’t there.
At first I thought you meant there was a movie inside a movie called Time.
In time, has such a awesome premise.
But what we got was a “poor little rich girl” story.
What we got was Bonnie and Clyde. I liked it though.
Wanted (2008) - The comics are brilliant, sharp, funny and intelligent. By leaving out everything smart/interesting from the comics they managed to create a mediocre action movie.
Except for shooting around corners and that thing with the car, those bits were cool.
The comics were ‘edgy’ and somewhat needlessly abrasive, but yeah they were enjoyable
The ideas behind They Live are fascinating and deserved better treatment than a 20-minute alley fight about sunglasses.
Lucy
It’s entertaining as all hell. It doesn’t pretend to be anything more, so I don’t understand the hate it gets. Just turn off your brain, and have some fun. It’s not supposed to be hard sci-fi.
I in no way call this “mediocre”; Its just a flat our terrible low budget bullshit film that the director made as an excuse to hang out with shirtless dudes.
But years ago the guys at Red Letter Media did a segment on “Bigfoot vs D.B. Cooper”, and that premise alone (what happened after D.B. Cooper landed) has lived in my brain ever since.
It legitimately angers me that such a great high concept idea was completely wasted on what basically amounts to gay porn.
Lmao, the reviews are somewhat illuminating
Yep. And therein lies my frustration.
David Decoteau (or he’ll sometimes use his alias “Richard Chasen”) stole the perfect premise for what could have been a great shlocky low-to-mid-budget action movie. And no NO ONE can ever make it without being compared with…that…whatever it is…
In Time (2011). Time is currency in the dystopia in the film - paying for something decreases your lifespan, earning wages increases it.
The movie sets up a really cool class structure, wherein there are rich people born with/inheriting hundreds of thousands of years of life, and poor people barely managing to scrape enough hours to stay alive until they can earn more the next day. There are segmented areas of the city that cost years to get into.
Overall incredible premise, but the story wasn’t exceptional beyond a couple of the cool mechanics you might expect based on said premise.
In time is absolutely an idea that I wish would get revisited for a TV show.
When I was a kid, for some reason, I loved the original West World movie, which is about 20% high concept and 80% “how do we copy terminator when all we have are a bunch of random Wild West, medieval and classical back lots?”
Obviously a few years ago HBO picked it up for a show, and that first season explores some of the richest philosophy I’ve seen on TV, in the way only Sci-Fi can; by building characters and technology directly around their philosophical takes and stress testing them. Also simultaneously it created an incredibly compelling story and characters. All of this stemmed from the idea “what if there was a wild west theme park manned by perfectly realistic animatronics?”
In Time may not have the cult classic reputation of the first Westworld but it’s got appeal and charm, while being basically only interesting in it’s high concept, and therefore perfect to pull apart and explore an HBO style branching plot. I bet you could get Justin Timberlake to appear in it again too, for added audience appeal. A show like this can also explore multiple characters in different classes, and those who interact with both. It’s just wasn’t that suited to a movie.
I loved the original West World movie, which is about 20% high concept and 80% “how do we copy terminator when all we have are a bunch of random Wild West, medieval and classical back lots?”
I’m sorry what? ‘West World’ came out in 1973, ‘The Terminator’ came out in 1984. Am I missing something here?
Oops, you’re right. It is copying something of its time because it’s all my dad would tell me when watching it growing up, but I can’t remember which film.
Agree. Great premise and decent world building in the film, but it just felt like a generic action thriller after 30 mins.
And Justin Timberlake is good at pop music
What was that anime where you wear a VR headset and if you die in-game, you die in real life?
Ya that one
Sword Art Online had a pretty decent few opening episodes, it just… for some reason decided to go full-blown Knights of Sidonia and turn itself into a weird harem anime.
I HIGHLY recommend the SAO Abridged series. It’s one of the few “parody/satire” projects that actually makes the original story better and most regard SAO Abridged as the better version as a whole.
I love TeamFourStar!
Same! I rewatch DBZ Abridged all the time! Funny enough, never actually watched DBZ or any of Dragon Ball in its entirety, but I’ve played a LOT of the games and basically know the entire story, front to back, from the games and Abridged lol
I would absolutely say Something Witty Entertainment is 100% on par with TFS. They do such a great job taking SAOs original story and making it ACTUALLY make sense, while adding a lot more comedy and sometimes some actually heart breaking moments.
Added bonus, it’s still ongoing! They basically only release one episode a year now, but I think every episode is worth the wait because they put in a lot of effort. They do some other Abridged series as well (like a newer ongoing series of My Hero Academia,) but I believe SAOA is their longest running one right now.
All I wanna do,
is see you turn into,
a Super Saiyan (•a super saiyan!•)
that’s pretty much a whole manga subgenre now
Spy Kids 3D
What Sword Art Online Alternative. Amazing plot and characters.
Dark City (1998) could definitely fit the bill, it has so many unique ideas for that time in film and you can see there’s of all sorts of future sci-fi movies in it from the matrix to inception, it’s a very visually ugly movie and the acting is subpar but as a premise it’s super interesting. Generally I think remakes are a waste of time and money but I’d love to see this movie with a proper budget and modern technology
I just watched this! It felt like the director wanted to go real big with it but technology just wasn’t there with effects. It also tried very hard to be a mindfuck movie but also kept spoiling the twists somehow lol. Overall solid 7+ movie.
The city itself was interesting as hell
Jennifer Connelly is the best part of the movie
I really like that movie. But watch the directors cut, for the love of all that’s good! It removed the narration at the beginning that gave away the whole plot. Much better that way.
I don’t want a remake, I want a sequel. I’m glad I’m not the only one who disliked the visuals of the movie, tho.
Just joking. I really liked the movie for its style and the frightening bad guys in all sizes. Also Kiefer Sutherland with a mad scientist touch.
I am 100% convinced they had a masterpiece and then test audiences didn’t get it and they went and changed everything around and added the prologue and gave away the entire twist at the start by explicitly telling the viewer where and when we are. Also made the dinosaurs weird for … reasons…?
Wow, I watched that on opening night and there were like three people in the whole room. I don’t remember much about it, but what really bugged me was the whole start of the film. A spaceship that is designed to travel fully automatically and immediately fails when there’s a small asteroid field in its path? Absolute BS.
Oof. Having the statue of liberty there on the opening credits of Planet of the Apes
Like that, yes.
Highlander II
The Dark Tower
It’s a long list but these two were painful.
Highlander 2 is unsalvageable. That movie sucked so bad it wasn’t even fun to watch with friends to make fun of it
Fuck The Dark Tower. That movie doesn’t exist for me. Total waste.
Mind you, Highlander II would’ve made more sense as a non-Highlander movie that just revolves around space aliens dealing with Earth having a planetary shield now. As a sequel to Highlander its premise was really weird.
The premise of Highlander 2 was awful, too, though.
Not a film, but a TV series? It’s called Jericho, and the synopsis in the Wikipedia reads:
Jericho is an American post-apocalyptic action drama television series, which centers on the residents of the fictional city of Jericho, Kansas, in the aftermath of a nuclear attack on 23 major cities in the contiguous United States.
But yeah, the execution is mediocre at best. Both the action and the drama are unbearably flimsy and cliche, even the argument flops as metal.
I remember starting watching that. I have no idea how far I got, but I don’t remember a thing about it.
Same here. Aamof I just try watching it last year. Visually, it was cool to come back to those years, but I don’t think I finished season 1.
I love Jericho. On my third watch right now actually. Would agree that it’s frequently cliché, but overall I’d say it’s very good. Skeet Ulrich is transfixing.
Did you read the season 3 in comic books? I was surprised about the following they’ve got as I was reading that Wikipedia entry.
yeah but it’s been aaages, I forgot about what happened in those. I remember it was good.
Yeah, I can’t stop thinking about that show either.
Nuts
Oh man I haven’t thought of Jericho in a minute. I used to watch that after The Unit.
CATS
Cats is not a complicated musical. All they had to do was animate it and get actual voice actors/singers. I’ve seen sketches for what I think was a Tim Burton sketch, and that would have been a million times better. I don’t know who looked at Cat’s and was like, “Yup, we need CGI.” It looks horrendous and sounds bad more often than not. The musical is already pretty out there, how much more fun would that movie had been if we had animators working on it. The creative visuals, colors, motifs. Not to mention a cat is a wonderfully complex animal to animate just because of how they move. That movie could have been a visual delight in part with the Spiderman movies if they let it, but noooooo. Let’s make a nightmare.
Mickey 17 is the latest one for me.
Not a film, but a novel:
Starflight 3000 by R.W. Mackelworth
If I remember, it was about this asteroid called “The Biosphere” that got hollowed out and sent on relativistic speeds through deep space to seed other solar systems with human colonies. The inside of it was set up like a giant rural town with massive skies, and a foot print the size of New York. And that’s a cool ass premise.
But the book was so fucking milquetoast and bland. I could not tell you anything about the protagonist, their challenges, or anything.
