Great Books, Dreadful Films!
Everything they had in the beginning, pre 'pre-production,' was so good, so why did it all go so bad? This often goes without saying, for most book adaptations, but the following list, which will continue to grow and grow, I'm sure, will reveal my own personal 'worst of the worst.' The unquestionable, senseless, dismantling and destruction of some of the best stories I've ever read.
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- DirectorMichael RymerStarsAaliyahStuart TownsendMarguerite MoreauIn this loose sequel to Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994), the vampire Lestat becomes a rock star whose music wakes up the equally beautiful and monstrous queen of all vampires.Interview with the Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, The Queen of the Damned, and The Tale of the Body Thief, are some of my favorite books of all time, part of a larger selection of books. The first film following this series was good, I've always liked it, saw it before I read the book, but 'The Queen of the Damned' is among the worst films I have ever seen. It broke my heart to see such a ghastly adaptation of greatness!
- DirectorFrancis LawrenceStarsWill SmithAlice BragaCharlie TahanYears after a plague kills most of humanity and transforms the rest into monsters, the sole survivor in New York City struggles valiantly to find a cure.The film isn't terrible, but compared to the book... Instead of vampires we get zombies, that upon infection becomes some kind of strangely engineered human clone, with no personality. The vampires in the book were full of personality, and menace!
- DirectorChris WeitzStarsNicole KidmanDaniel CraigDakota Blue RichardsIn a parallel universe, young Lyra Belacqua journeys to the far North to save her best friend and other kidnapped children from terrible experiments by a mysterious organization.A terrible film, despite the beautifully crafted source material. Could have, should have been so much more. A good cast too, but one that couldn't raise this disaster from the depths of ruination it had been re-written into.
- DirectorKevin ReynoldsStarsJim CaviezelGuy PearceChristopher AdamsonA young man, falsely imprisoned by his jealous "friend", escapes and uses a hidden treasure to exact his revenge.I watched this very soon after I read the 1000+ page tomb. Why I don't know, because of course a 2hr movie was never going to deliver anything near to what was available in print. Horrifying adaptation. I guess it could have been a good film, if anyone involved had bothered to read the book, only I get the feeling this was more than likely based upon a similarly poor, previous movie adaptation.
- DirectorPaul W.S. AndersonStarsLogan LermanMatthew MacfadyenRay StevensonThe hot-headed young D'Artagnan along with three former legendary but now down-on-their-luck Musketeers must unite and defeat a beautiful double agent and her villainous employer from seizing the French throne and engulfing Europe in war.Well, based on the above film (Cristo) - you can rest assured that I didn't make that mistake a second time. The trailer alone showed enough rubbish to render this film un-watchable to anyone who previously enjoyed the book. I was pleased to see a wide range of reviews reflect my assumption in this case (this will be the only one I add that I didn't see).
- DirectorRon HowardStarsTom HanksAudrey TautouJean RenoA murder inside the Louvre, and clues in Da Vinci paintings, lead to the discovery of a religious mystery protected by a secret society for two thousand years, which could shake the foundations of Christianity.Ok - so not a great book, not really, though I thoroughly enjoyed it at the time, and I was quite excited to see this particular film portrayal. This book was made in a way that seemingly slingshot it straight into the laps of any would be producers, each segment within easy reach of any attempted screenplay, and yet... on film... meh! Underwhelming, poorly paced, and boring. The 'Angels and Demons' follow up was significantly better, however on film, like the Da Vinci code, some of it's more ridiculous elements on the page, were glaringly absurd on film.
- DirectorRobert SchwentkeStarsEric BanaRachel McAdamsRon LivingstonHenry DeTamble, a librarian, possesses a unique gene that lets him involuntarily travel through time. His wife, Claire Abshire, finds it difficult to cope with it.Horrifying film adaptation of a lovely book. This could, and should have been good, but was so bad it wiped clean my memory of a book I held in high regard, making me think 'perhaps the book was bad too,' and I somehow didn't see it that way on print. No, no, no - good book, BAD film!!!
- DirectorPhillip NoyceStarsDenzel WashingtonAngelina JolieQueen LatifahA quadriplegic ex-homicide detective and his partner try to track down a serial killer who is terrorizing New York City.Another not so obvious "Great book" - this was however a marvelous tale on page, that on screen had gleaned almost nothing of note from it's source material. There were some particular moments in the book that would have really bought some tension to the movie, a moment when the apprentice analysist disappears and finds herself burried alive, for example, among serveral little bits like that that would have injected a bit of energy and tension into this particular film.