9 Movies You Love That Become Terrible After 30 Minutes
We like movies a lot, obviously. And nothing bums us out more than when we want to love a movie but, after 30 minutes, they don't seem want to help us out. Batman, Bond, and Wolverine are just some of the heroes guilty of appearing in movies barely worth a half-hour of your time.
'The Lost World: Jurassic Park' (1997)
When it comes to sequels, outside of odd-numbered Indiana Jones movies, Spielberg is hit or miss. And this much-anticipated is a miss as soon as they get to Site B -- but before Malcolm's daughter performs her raptor gymnastics.
'Alien: Resurrection' (1997)
This sequel hooked us with its shot of a Ripley clone in a creepy tube. It lost us once the aliens -- usually our favorite part -- got loose.
'The Patriot' (2000)
The trailers had us so hooked on this Summer 2000 release. But watching the movie was a slog. Once Heath Ledger's character dies, and Mel Gibson gets his crazy-faced revenge on, the movie becomes a very expensive excuse to nap.
'Die Another Day' (2002)
We checked out about 10 minutes in, thanks to that crappy opening titles song. But we liked the idea of Bond being captured and tortured. The film mostly abandons that story thread, and its dramatic potential, the moment Bond gets clean-shaven and takes off for Cuba.
The Matrix Reloaded (2003)
Unlike "Matrix Revolutions," which started bad and got worse, it took the first Matrix sequel around 20 to 30 minutes to make us wish we took whichever colored pill would un-happen this movie.
'X3' (2006)
Compared to "X2's" iconic opening sequence -- Nightcrawler's bamf-happy assault on the Oval Office -- "X3's" Angel origin story comes off clunky. A bad omen that only gets worse around the time Cyclops dies off-screen because Jean Grey. Cyclops is a hero, he deserves to die like one. Eff this movie.
'The Dark Knight Rises' (2012)
This threequel sucks. The wannabe opening mid-air hijacking of a plane is muddled with hard-to-hear dialogue (Bane) and confusion over what is happening/the stakes. It continues to snowball in to a visually-impressive conveyor of exposition and the occasionally good explosion or fist fight.
'Prometheus' (2013)
The hard-to-follow opening sequence, involving 'roided-out Powders from another world slurping down some DNA-altering black stuff, is a clear harbinger of the disappointment to come. But we stuck with it, as this prequel showed signs off life, until the worst old age make-up showed up and our human characters found themselves on a murder planet.
'Spectre' (2015)
To be fair, this movie goes off the rails soon after the gun barrel logo opening, with its pretentious "The Dead Are Alive" title card. From there, its an uneven, over-plotted decline from "Skyfall"-level highs.
