10 Disappointing Action Movies You Should Die Before You See

This time it's boring.

In a perfect world, every action movie would be Die Hard. However, since you€™re more likely to get Olympus Has Fallen, the genre's hype machine always goes into overdrive in an attempt to sucker in unsuspecting viewers. Even if you don€™t buy the tenuous connections in the trailer ("From the producers of Die Hard 4.0"), or the nonsensical idea of having a famous name €œpresent€ a movie, there are still ways of reeling in the unwary. Not that Hollywood would ever condone the practice of posting fake reviews, but check out all the glowing notices John Carter received on IMDb after its L.A. premiere. A week before Disney€™s $250 million epic fail opened in American multiplexes, it was being hailed as a €œmust see€ by would-be viewers who called it €œlean and compact€ and €œcomplex and nuanced.€ Somewhat less impressed was USA Today€™s critic, who called it €œbloated, dreary and humourless€, while San Francisco Chronicle preferred to be more succinct: €œJohn Carter is a dud.€ If even salaried critics were disappointed, you can imagine how paying audiences must€™ve felt while watching the film or, for that matter, any of the following.
Contributor

Ian Watson is the author of 'Midnight Movie Madness', a 600+ page guide to "bad" movies from 'Reefer Madness' to 'Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead.'