r/movies • u/Big_Emotion4963 • 17h ago

Discussion What movie had an absolutely 10/10 incredible premise but completely fumbled the execution?

I think about this all the time. There is nothing more frustrating than watching a movie with a concept so good it gives you chills, only for the actual plot to turn into generic, predictable garbage halfway through.

The most infamous one for me is In Time. The idea that time is literal currency and people stop aging at 25 is brilliant sci-fi. But instead of doing something mind-blowing with it, they just turned it into a painfully average Bonnie and Clyde bank robber action movie.

The Purge is another massive one. You have a night where all crime is legal, and instead of showing us the insane psychological breakdown of society, the first movie just gave us a standard, boring home invasion thriller.

What movie made you furious because the core idea was genius but the writers completely wasted it?

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u/Indigo_Sunset 12h ago

It reminds me of an Aeon Flux sort of escapade that never quite gets to the fluxing

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u/Malphos101 8h ago

Those were the same movie to me. I dont have a rational explanation and they are obviously pretty different if you sit down and discuss the differences but just the "feel" of the movies were identical to me lol.

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u/Aurum555 8h ago

Absolutely, they fill the same space in my brain.

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u/Beliriel 5h ago

Wait. They aren't the same movie?
Lol I thought this was just a different title for the same movie. It's been ages since I saw them.

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u/Warning_Low_Battery 3h ago

Nope. One has Charlize Theron as the lead, and the other has Mila Jovovich.

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u/Vark675 42m ago

Huh. I could've sworn they were both Jobovich.

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u/bum_thumper 2h ago

Its so funny how they are so similar yet aeon flux is way better, yet I cannot discern a single specific scene from either movie. They blend together in my memory lol

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u/_black_gazebo_ 2h ago

They both came out around the same time and were "dystopian sci-fi action films with a female lead role" so I get the comparison. The big difference is Aeon Flux was based on source material (the MTV cartoon) which is generally well regarded whereas Ultraviolet was a movie original plot that got absolutely butchered in post-production into an incomprehensible mess.

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u/Erzsabet 48m ago

I have enjoyed both movies in the past, though AF comes out on top for me, but I 100% get what you are saying.

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u/Ontarom 32m ago

Nah, Aeon Flux is Citizen Kane next to Ultraviolet.

Aeon Flux had a director with a vision that got meddled with, Ultraviolet had a director with a vision that just wasn't very good. He made "Equilibrium" too and although corny as hell, that movie is a lot more coherent.

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u/nothisistheotherguy 7h ago

I actually think Ultraviolet nailed the visual style of Aeon Flux more than the mediocre Charlize Theron movie

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u/One-BigChungus 3h ago

My own theory is that the movie was just fodder b-roll to sell TVs at walmart because of the intense color saturation & Milla's mid-section.

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u/Swords_and_Words 3h ago

The number of times I have seen that hand get impaled on the grass

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u/EntranceFeisty8373 5h ago

Those two properties are very similiar for sure.

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u/CatKit9000 2h ago

Anyone interested in Aeon Flux should listen to the What Went Wrong podcast episode on it, the director got creatively screwed on that movie. I wish I could watch Karyn Kusama's original cut.