2015 in Film Part 2: I Came, I Saw and Yeah ... That

With the overall year look out of the way its time to delve into what I consider to be the great disappointments of 2015 you know the ones we got all excited about, we counted down the days until they were out in the cinemas or on disc and then we finally got to see them and they just ... hmmmmm (and there were a fair few of those.)

Well just 4 big ones mainly:

4. The Walk: The Walk was Robert Zemeckis's dramatic re-creation of Frenchman Phillipe Petit's 1974 walk across the Twin Towers and it's a great story from life because after all this is the world we're living in, out of the dreams of Ordinary Men.

But sadly this was a big big disappointment for one key reason: The Script, frankly this script was terrible at telling Petit's story to the audience, it is hamstrung by an awful narration that has to explain every single little emotion just in case the people in the back weren't paying attention and when you do get to the famous Walk you just do not feel any tension or suspense and when it ends you just think "Okay so what."

And so what is right as I just didn't care that much and again this is out of the Dreams of Ordinary Men (a great song by the Aussie Rock Band Dragon) and you ought to have an endless fascination for the web it weaves for us but instead I just felt deceived.

3. Fantastic Four: Now I was one of the few looking forward to this movie after all 20th Century Fox has done a good job with X-Men Days of Future Past (purely because Bryan Singer came back), it has a gifted young cast playing Marvel's first family and a promising young director in Josh Trank whose Chronicle was the origin of Darth Vader film we should have gotten instead of those pissy prequels.

And yet this movie was a complete disaster, everything we read about coming up to this movie in terms of fights with Fox or reshoots months before release or just general studio micro managing was all up there on the screen, the first hour is dull as all hell, the characters are boring, the finale is a joke (I firmly believe that Matthew Vaughn directed that climax instead of Trank as his name is on the Producer's roll in the end credits and it bares the tone of X-Men First Class.) and it all just goes off a cliff and to a horrible horrible death.

And all it did was just give Marvel supporters a great big club to whack Fox over the head with as a fair few of them feel that they shouldn't have F4 or the X-Men and it also made me think "Have they done this to Bryan Singer on Apocalypse" but I consoled myself on that point by saying "Bryan has done the 3peat Simon, he knows what he's doing" but whether he can match Collingwood's 4 in a row record well that's up to the Movie Gods.

And when I walked out of this film I just thought to myself "I'm not angry but I am just very very very very disappointed in all of you responsible for this mess" and I still feel that way, no one gets out of this clean and if Fox had any brains they would do a deal with Marvel and let it go back in return for the rights to make X-Men Merchandise.

2. Dark Places: This was one I was very keen as I really loved Gone Girl from 2014 by David Fincher and this was based off of another Gillian Flynn book so could lighting strike twice?

Nope it did not as this was nowhere near as good as Gone Girl as it did not have a coherent script, a compelling mystery, likeable characters or strong performances, on all 4 of these fronts this film dropped the ball completely and when the mystery does play out your not surprised or shocked like you were in Gone Girl but instead just going "see I knew that would happen."

Then again from what I was told by my ever so fabulous Radio Producer Ms Selina the book itself was also much weaker than Gone Girl so maybe this is simply a case of not being able to polish a turd but still I was left very disappointed with this 1.

But all three of those were minor compared to my number 1 disappointment of 2015.

The Avengers - Age of Ultron: Boy was I excited for this movie, the previews were terrific in promising a much darker tone than the first film, a compelling threat for Earth's mightiest heroes and for it all to play in a way that leaves the world numb from Ultron's rule as well as the heroes bitterly divided, sounds great right?

Wrong this was just more of the same from the first film:

- More of the same quips
- More of the same CGI Armies
- More of the same endless references
- More of the same PG-13 child friendly action

And like Captain America the Winter Soldier from 2014 a darker tone that was promised to me was once again snatched away in favor of something light and colorful because kids go to these movies and well we can't have them walking out of this movie all upset now can we.

Seriously I mean for fucks sake kids in 1980 handled the Empire Strikes Back okay didn't they surely they could've handled a darker Avengers sequel couldn't they but no I guess it's just easier to do something more family friendly instead.

And another element I was keen to see which was how Marvel Studios would handle mutant characters in Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch was also disappointing especially when you consider how well Quicksilver was done in Days of Future Past in 2014 and indeed I did think to myself watching this film "This is how Marvel Studios would do the X-Men if they got the rights back."

As a result of this I am now more skeptical about 2016's Captain America Civil War but the recent preview for that film did indeed looked promising but I've been here twice before and Marvel failed me hopefully they won't do it again and that they'll show us the Dark Side this time around.

And so that was the disappointments of 2015, some more personal ones this year than in recent years but these things happen.