Bright builds a fascinating world where fantasy creatures and modern-day cops coexist, but it completely wastes this incredible concept. The social allegory is laid on so thick with a trowel that it becomes clumsy and unsubtle. Instead of exploring its unique setting, the film just recycles every cop cliche, making for a disappointingly generic and forgettable experience. | © Netflix
Absolutely Anything had a fantastic premise, with a man gifted god-like powers by aliens, voiced by the Monty Python team. Unfortunately, the film never rises above a series of silly and predictable gags, wasting its potential for sharp satire. The Python reunion feels like a missed opportunity, and the film's tonal shifts, including strangely dark jokes, leave it feeling underwhelming. | © Lionsgate
Hancock starts with a brilliantly fresh idea: a flawed, alcoholic superhero who the public genuinely hates. The first half is witty and sharp, but the film completely falls apart in its second half. A bizarre and poorly conceived twist derails the entire story, trading the original, edgy concept for a confusing and overly sentimental mess. | © Sony Pictures
Prometheus sets up a fascinating mystery about humanity's creators, but the story quickly gets lost in its own confusing plot. Despite stunning visuals, the characters act in bafflingly stupid ways just to move the story forward. It's a frustrating experience that raises big questions, only to ignore them completely. | © 20th Century Fox
Moonfall presents an overused disaster movie concept: the moon is falling out of orbit. The film commits so completely to this ridiculous nonsense that it becomes a spectacle of pure, unadulterated stupidity. It asks you to abandon all sense of physics and plot coherence, turning what could have been a thrilling epic into a baffling, albeit strangely entertaining, parade of nonsense. | © Lionsgate
Tenet builds around a high-concept time inversion mechanic, but this complexity ends up being its greatest weakness. You spend so much mental energy just trying to understand the rules that the action scenes and emotional stakes completely flatline. The result is a cold, confusing film where the brilliant concept overwhelms everything, leaving you with a hollow and emotionally empty experience. | © Warner Bros. Pictures
Army of the Dead sets up a promising heist in zombie-infested Vegas with a slow opening that suggests real depth. Unfortunately, that potential is completely lost to awful pacing, cringeworthy dialogue, and characters who only exist to get to the next set piece. The film drags on far too long, dropping its most intriguing ideas for a repetitive and forgettable sequence of events. | © Netflix
Detective Pikachu brings the world of Pokémon to life with incredible visual style and a charming performance from Ryan Reynolds. However, the film gets completely bogged down by a needlessly convoluted and messy plot that's hard to follow. It ultimately wastes its fantastic premise by failing to decide on a consistent tone, leaving both casual viewers and fans with a disappointing experience. | © Warner Bros. Pictures
The Purge presents a brilliantly chilling concept about a society that legalizes all crime for one night, but it abandons any real social commentary. Instead of exploring the disturbing implications of its own premise, the film devolves into a standard, confined home-invasion thriller. It wastes its incredible potential by playing things safe, offering a frustratingly tame take on what should have been a deeply provocative story. | © Universal Pictures
Cowboys & Aliens promises a wildly fun genre mashup, but the film completely fails to deliver a story worthy of its concept. Despite a star-studded cast and multiple high-profile writers, the plot is a cliché-ridden mess with paper-thin characters and motivations that never resonate. It ultimately becomes a lifeless exercise, proving that a cool premise is worthless without a compelling story to make you care. | © Universal Pictures
The Happening starts with a chillingly simple premise: a mysterious force that causes mass suicide. Unfortunately, this intriguing concept is immediately undone by a painfully stupid reveal, laughably bad dialogue, and bewilderingly wooden performances. The film asks you to be terrified of people running away from the wind, making its initial promise dissolve into sheer ridiculousness. | © 20th Century Fox
Slender Man had a golden opportunity to terrify with its iconic mythology, but it falls back on every tired Hollywood horror trope instead. The plot starts with some potential before completely spinning out of control by the halfway mark, abandoning genuine scares for predictable jump scares. It ultimately squanders a fantastic concept, proving once again that big budgets often smother what makes a horror idea truly chilling. | © Sony Pictures
Colossal sets up a brilliant and original metaphor for personal demons, but its execution feels rushed. The film introduces complex, flawed characters only to have one transform into a pure villain with almost no believable development. It's as if the entire middle of the story is missing, racing past its most interesting concepts to reach a conclusion that feels unearned. | © Neon
Passengers promised a serious sci-fi thriller but delivered a straightforward romance that asks for a staggering suspension of disbelief. The plot is riddled with superhuman survival moments, from withstanding a thermonuclear blast to miraculous rescues in the vacuum of space. It wastes its incredible premise by opting for a completely artificial, forced happy ending, avoiding any real challenge for its audience. | © Columbia Pictures
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice had all the ingredients for an epic blockbuster, but messy editing and frantic pacing make it a confusing experience to sit through. The film juggles too many plots at once, from a miscast Lex Luthor to the rushed introduction of Doomsday and the Justice League. It ultimately wastes its incredible concept by getting bogged down in future setups, leaving the core conflict between Batman and Superman feeling forced and poorly motivated. | © Warner Bros. Pictures
We've all seen them: the movies with a trailer so good and a concept so brilliant you can't wait to watch. Yet, for one reason or another, the final product completely fumbles its incredible premise. This article takes a closer look at films that had all the potential in the world, only to waste it.
