12 Major Problems With Today's Blockbuster Movies

9. They're Too Damn Long

Sky Beams
Paramount Pictures

Another current trend with Hollywood blockbusters is the ever-increasing running times, which in many cases can make them an absolute chore to sit through from start to finish. How many times have you watched a big-budget movie in the last few years and thought; 'man, that would be so much better if it was half an hour shorter'?

It may have won eleven Academy Awards, but did 200-minute epic The Return of the King really need all of those endings? Similarly, 168 minutes for the trilogy-closing Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End is a tad excessive. The much-maligned The Dark Knight Rises? 165 minutes. Two of the Transformers movies clock in at over two and a half hours. The last four installments of the Fast and Furious franchise run at least 130 minutes each.

Batman v Superman, Spectre, Avengers: Age of Ultron, X-Men: Apocalypse and many other recent blockbusters would have all benefited from a tighter edit, but the problem is industry-wide. There's a reason why 'bloated' and 'excessive' are frequently used words when describing the recent glut of franchise films.

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