Worst2First: My Top Ten Films That Were Too Long

Worst2First: 

My Top Ten Films That Were Too Long

When you go to the movies and pay $10 for a ticket, you expect something that will last awhile.  When you find out the movie you spent your hard-earned money on only lasts 90 minutes, you feel cheated.  Then there's those rare movies that are extremely long but they're worth seeing ("The Hateful Eight," "The Lord of the Rings," "Saving Private Ryan").  Then there's those excruciating films that drag on and on and on and on and on and on...and on and on, that you just wish would end already.

These are the ten films I'm going to talk about today.

Together, these ten films have a total runtime of 26 hours, 25 minutes.  So if you want to spend more than a day watching these, be my guest.  But I wouldn't recommend it. 

That being said, here's my top ten films that went too long, this time in order from the shortest to the longest, but still Worst2First.

**There will be no spoilers.**

#10

Trainwreck

2 hours, 9 minutes

Director Judd Apatow (who you will see again on this list) needs a decent editor.  His films are (for the most part) laugh out loud hilarious, but sometimes they tend to drag on and on.  "Trainwreck," written and starring Amy Schumer, is one of those films.  Schumer delivers the goods throughout, but it's like getting a triple Whopper when you only wanted the Whopper Jr.  If it was cut by about 20 minutes, it would've been absolutely amazing.  However, it was just long enough to give it a sense of prolonged story.

#9

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part II

2 hours, 17 minutes

This isn't the longest in the "Hunger Games" series (that would be "Catching Fire" at 2 hours, 22 minutes), but unlike "Catching Fire," I was just waiting for "Mockingjay - Part II" to end.  Splitting the final book into two movies is bad enough, but when you got the finale having a totally unnecessary bloated runtime just makes you really distaste the series as a whole, which doesn't do it justice (the first and second films are absolute knock-outs).  Still, by the end, you just wanted it to end already.

#8

Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones

2 hours, 22 minutes

"Episode II" is the longest in the entirety of the "Star Wars" franchise, and it was a struggle to get through.  First we're given Hayden Christensen, who almost single-handedly tarnished the Darth Vader name for decades to come.  Then there was the unnecessary padding of the romance between Anakin and Padame that no one asked for (although we did learn an important life lesson about how coarse sand is), and no one cared about.  Obi-Wan plays Columbo for most of the film, and it's overly excessive in its CGI and padded dialogue.

#7

Funny People

2 hours, 33 minutes

Judd Apatow strikes again, but this time it's flagrant false advertising.  There's nothing "funny" about "Funny People," it's just a painful exercise in Adam Sandler's own hubris.  Typically, the comedy genre has the shortest run times in cinema, mostly because audiences' attention spans aren't all there when they just want to laugh, and its virtually impossible to have a long movie be funny from start to finish.  Throw in the fact that Apatow gives us some serious subject matter to work with (one of the stand-up comedians deal wtih having leukemia), and you've got his worst film to date, an over-bloated film that's neither funny nor dramatic enough for it to require such a long runtime.

#6

Batman v Superman

2 hours, 33 minutes

I might be giving this film too much of a hard time, but after anticipating this match-up for years, I expected something a lot more than what I got.  You've got some questionable casting (Jesse Eisenberg), a story that doesn't make a whole lot of sense and runs around in circles, needless dream sequences, and a totally implausible twist.  Not even Wonder Woman could save this overly long yarn.

#5

Superman Returns

2 hours, 34 minutes

Christopher Reeve was an amazing Superman, and gave two great films.  Unfortunately, the two that followed were total flops, and Superman was placed on the shelf.  Finally, Bryan "X-Men" Singer decided to reinvent the Man of Steel by directing "Superman Returns."  The result was a superhero film that doesn't have a lot of action, a hero reduced to serving as the jealous ex-boyfriend who eerily watches his old love with her new boyfriend, and a stupid side-story about a potential son of Superman.  Not even Kevin Spacey could salvage this disaster.

#4

Transformers: Age of Extinction

2 hours, 45 minutes

There's the old saying: "fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me."  Michael "let's make everything explode instead of actually having a story" Bay brought my favorite toy line to the big screen in 2007, and it wasn't that bad.  I actually enjoyed it.  Then he brought two more sequels - each one longer than the other - and I was starting to get tired.  Then he announced "Age of Extinction," which is the longest of the "Transformers" series, but also teased the arrival of one of my all-time favorite Transformers - Grimlock.  I decided to get excited again, but as the saying goes, I shamed myself.  Grimlock was reduced to a brainless dinobot that doesn't talk, and is only on screen for about twenty minutes of the 2 hour, 45 minute explosion fest.  The film needlessly focuses on Mark Wahlberg's family (including an extended scene describing why it's perfectly acceptable for his underage daughter to date a man in his 20s), and even Wahlberg looked like he was phoning it in.  With news that Bay will now be doing "Transformers 5," I no longer anticipate it with excitement.  You've made me a very bitter Transformers fan, Bay.

#3

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

2 hours, 49 minutes

You've got to hand it to Jerry Bruckheimer.  He managed to take a Disney theme park ride and turn it into a blockbuster hit (even earning Johnny Depp an Academy Award nomination).  Then he decided to do a sequel, which wasn't bad.  Then he did "At World's End," which made me feel like it was the end of the world as I sat through its extremely overly convoluted runtime in the front row of the theater because we got there late, and pretty sure I suffered permanent neck damage because of it.  The film has several subplots that weren't necessary, Jack Sparrow spends way too much time in Davey Jones' locker, and it seemed like Bruckheimer just threw a bunch of things at the screen to see which would stick.  I won't even discuss how he managed to do a fourth (and an upcoming fifth) film to this franchise that should've been put out of its misery after the second.

#2

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

3 hours, 2 minutes

Peter Jackson will always hold a special place in my heart.  "The Lord of the Rings" is my all-time favorite movie (yes, I consider all three to be one epic masterpiece), and I can watch them all over and over again and not be bored (even the extended editions).  When he announced he would finally do a "Hobbit" movie, I was overjoyed - until I found out he took a book that was all of 300 pages and split it into not two, but THREE, movies.  This was an obvious cash grab because he knew people like me would still flock the theater to see how he would bring the book to life, and "An Unexpected Journey" was the most excruciating three hours of my life.  Some people argue that nothing happened in "The Fellowship of the Ring," but in all actuality, NOTHING AT ALL happened in "An Unexpected Journey," and I was wondering what journey was going to actually take place, except the journey to the bathroom I made.

#1

King Kong

3 hours, 21 minutes

Ah, Peter Jackson.  Once again, I admire your bravado, but there's such a thing as too much of a good thing.  "King Kong" was his true passion film, something he's wanted to do forever, and when he finally got to do it, he spared no expense (nor runtime) in achieving his goal.  The result is a film twice as long as its 1933 counterpart, padded with unnecessary subplots and weak characters, and only a few really memorable scenes (Kong fighting the dinosaur sticks in my mind).  On a personal note, when the film came out I had finished my finals in college and was about to head home the next morning early.  My friends wanted one last hurrah before we left for Christmas break by seeing "King Kong" at midnight.  I had no idea how long it was, I figured it would've been two hours at most, so I figured why not?  On the way there my friend mentioned that it's over three hours, and I almost turned around.  Instead I sat through the film and even fell asleep during it.