Recently, I asked the BuzzFeed Community to tell me about a time they bought into a movie's hype, only to be severely disappointed once they actually watched it.
Here are 19 of their top responses:
1. "Madame Web. It was so boring."
"I agreed with my partner that we should leave and get a refund because of the rowdy kids that snuck in and kept shouting, 'Balls!' in the middle of everything."
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2. "Saltburn, definitely. I struggled to get to the half point of the movie, abandoned it, and then finished it a few days later. I couldn't understand why everyone was so wild about the bath scene when THE FUNERAL HAPPENED. Anyway, not even my lady and savior Rosamund Pike was enough to entertain me."
"It didn't help that I'm kind of scared of Barry Keoghan (and the final scene left me confused). I couldn't wait to finish the movie so I could watch some comfort show."
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3. "Mean Girls (2024). I was ecstatic to see the musical on the big screen in a more modern day retelling, and they butchered it. The cast (minus Damian, Janis, and Regina) are not strong enough singers, and to fix that, they changed the songs instead of the people singing them."
"I also wish that they used less technology. It dated the film by using too many references and fashion that will be out of date in the next month."
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4. "I work in advertising, and we were all in awe of the Barbie marketing campaign — my favorite being the billboards which had nothing on them but a date and the signature Barbie pink. The movie wasn't great."
"Barbie. Sorry, not sorry. Mediocre movie. Don't know if I really laughed once. It's all marketing with movies like this, which sucks. Just pushing consumerism."
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5. "Suicide Squad nailed the trailer with 'Bohemian Rhapsody,' all the marketing, the stacked cast, Twenty One Pilots releasing 'Heathens' for the soundtrack, everything. It was genuinely a gut punch when you started the movie and quickly realized what an absolute dumpster fire it really was."
"I don't think I've ever seen that amount of hype die so fast before."
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6. "Birds of Prey. I genuinely thought after the shit show with Suicide Squad (2016), DC creating a tell-all story with Margot Robbie, Cathy Yan as the director, and a fun soundtrack would mean that this movie might be the turning point. I was wrong."
"The movie was pretty boring and lacked substance in terms of character and story. And the villain was super dull. Kinda wish I didn’t go see it, haha."
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7. "The Joker. It was boring; it reminded me of Taxi Driver. Another movie for film bros and sad/angry guys to idolize the main character as some sort of hero."
"After seeing the film, my father said, in its defense, 'Film isn't always supposed to be good.'"
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8. "Bridesmaids! Maybe part of it was because by the time I had seen it (when it came out on DVD) there had been so much hype about it that I went in with high expectations. I didn’t find most of it funny, and the diarrhea scene, which had been SUPER hyped up, was simply not funny."
"I was bummed because I desperately wanted to like it, but I haven’t been able to bring myself to watch it again."
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9. "Our cinema famously made the national news when it emerged that we'd given refunds to people who hadn't realized that The Artist was a black-and-white silent film."
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10. "Frozen 2. Everyone was so excited for it to come out, but when I finally was dragged into watching it with my sister, I was so confused why everyone was so obsessed with it."
"The plot was horrendous, the songs were sub par, and it totally ruined the first Frozen for me."
—cnf1
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11. "TBH Leave The World Behind. While I thought I was going to like the movie, it wasn't necessary for them to force the movie to share a universe with Mr. Robot. It became an unneccesarry stealth sequel to the series as a result and ruined the ending of the series."
"That's why I choose to ignore it taking place around Mr. Robot."
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12. "The Huntsman: Winter's War, the sequel to Snow White and the Huntsman. It had a stacked cast — Charlize Theron, Emily Blunt, Chris Hemsworth, Jessica Chastain — and the trailer made it seem like it was going to be a fun fantasy/action story."
"But it ended up being kind of blah and forgettable."
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13. "Don’t Look Up. I can’t honestly say it was a movie I was actively pursuing, but I thought I would eventually get to it. All the clips and trailers made it look funny and intriguing. I like Leo, I like J Law, but good Lord, what a dumb movie."
"I didn’t even finish it. I walked out of the room and took a nap."
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14. "Thor: Love and Thunder. Taika Waititi is brilliant, and the Thor actors are fantastic. But it flatlined."
"They tried to make it an action comedy instead of an action movie with a couple of jokes, like they had done with previous Thor movies. That was a fatal mistake."
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15. "Battle: Los Angeles. I was so psyched for this movie that my friends made it a part of my bachelor party. We left the movie and apologized to everyone."
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16. "Wonder Woman 1984 was...so not good. The hype of the showdown between her and Cheetah was in actuality only, what, five minutes long? And so anti-climatic."
"The first film was magnificent, and it was so disappointing to see them drop the ball on the sequel."
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17. "Freddy vs. Jason. Waited my whole life since I was a kid for this to happen. When it finally did, I saw the cast and was beyond upset but decided to give it a chance. I walked out 30 minutes in."
"I feel like I'm owed an apology for that disaster."
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18. "Scream VI for me. I kept hearing we were getting the most brutal Ghostface, and he's loose in NY. What we got was a killer who didn't actually kill anyone of importance, and they CLEARLY were not in NY."
"Was not shocked to find out after that most of the movie was shot in Canada."
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19. And finally: "I worked at at one of the busiest cinemas in England for over three years. I can tell you some films we had walk-outs from. Drive with Ryan Gosling was a big one. Even before someone famously decided to sue the studio for false advertising, I was already advising people when they requested tickets at the box office that it wasn't like a Fast and the Furious film and to treat it like a character study."
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Which overhyped movies wound up severely disappointing you? Why? Let us know in the comments!
Note: Some responses have been edited for length/clarity.