Media Research Failure/Film: Difference between revisions

 

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* The ''[[X-Men (film)|X-Men]]'' films:

** Another review, this one appearing in the ''New Times Los Angeles'', blasted the first ''[[X-Men (Comic Book)|X-Men]]'' movie for departing from the comic's signature yellow-and-blue costumes, and for giving Magneto, the "master of all evil", a sympathetic Holocaust-survivor [[Backstory]]. Which shows that he did actually read the comic... in the '60s, and not once since.

** A review of ''X2'' in the ''Irish Times'' complained that a character who had been killed in the first film was somehow alive in the second... except he wasn't: Mystique the shapeshifter had taken his place. This was not only pointed out explicitly in the first film (for those viewers too sleepy to notice the characteristic flash of yellow eyes) but was a ''pivotal plot point'' in the second, which makes you wonder if the reviewer actually bothered to watch the film.

** A negative review of the first movie in ''People Magazine'', among other things, said, "Since when do superheroes have such traumatic backstories?" Oh, since about [[Batman|1939]]?

* A talking head on CNBC reported that the then-just released ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean]]: Dead Man's Chest'' movie had broken the opening box office record held by the movie "[[Aquaman]]". However, ''Aquaman'' was a [[Show Within a Show|fictional movie]] within the universe of ''[[Entourage]]'', and has never actually been made, to say nothing of breaking any box office records.

** One article about the fifth movie showed a picture of Harry and Cho about to kiss, but the caption read that he was puckering up for Hermione Granger. The canon shippers were not amused.

** A Norwegian newspaper called the aforementioned kiss scene a "highly controversial sex scene".

* The local Twin Cities (Minneapolis/St.Paul, MN) paper's movie review of the 2007 ''[[Transformers Film Series|Transformers]]'' movie repeatedly referred to the Autobots' human buddy as "Spike". Spike was the equivalent human in the [[Transformers Generation 1|original comic and cartoon]].

** For Transformers 3, we have Movie Juice's negative review that tells us that you can disguise the fact you didn't watch a film with a series of jokes about it. The reviewer called Megan Fox a Decepticon, made jokes about Rosie Huntington Whitely wearing tight dresses and high heels during battle scenes including the scene with the colapsing building, and made several jokes about how silly a lot of the character's names are. To those who haven't seen the film, let me explain these problems: Megan Fox was a human girl in the first film who sided with the good guys, the Decepticon's are ''aliens'' and ''bad guys''. RHW did wear a form fitting dress and high heels in one scene that you could call a fight scene, but that was between humans, consisted of two holding one down while a third punched him, and her involvement in the scene was her leaving a party and being abducted by a Decepticon before she's even left the premisis. The collapsing building scene is right after she's been rescued, to which she's already changed into more casual clothing. The characters with funny names are all ''alien robots'', it would be weird if they ''didn't'' have alien sounding names. This was, of course, not helped by the reviewer basically trolling anyone who called them out on it.

* In Armond White's review of ''[[Inglourious Basterds]]'', he identifies Marcel, the black film projectionist/Shoshanna's lover, as the narrator of the penultimate chapters. There's a LOT wrong with that statement: 1. The brief narration is done by Samuel L. Jackson, who has a distinctive voice to anyone who watches movies. 2. The narration is in English, where Marcel appears to speak only French, 3. There is no narration in the penultimate chapters. The two times Jackson narrates are near the center of the film.

* ''[[The Lord of the Rings (film)|Lord of the Rings]]''

** A review decried the fact that Arwen gets such a small role (whereas in the books, she has all of ''one line'', near the end of ''Return of the King''). Another assumed that Eowyn's killing of the Witch-king was an [[Affirmative Action Girl|expansion of her role in the books]], but her role in the books was actually reduced for the films. In the film, she kills the Nazgul Lord and sort-of-generally pines for Aragorn. In the book, she slays the Nazgul Lord and delivers a badass speech on how men get all the glory and heroism, whereas women's right is, once men fail, "to be slaughtered at the threshold of our own home."

** At least one review of the ''Lord of the Rings'' movies put forth the opinion that the reason the filmmakers put so much painstaking effort into Gollum's portrayal was simply because CGI is a new toy and they wanted to show it off as much as possible.

** A newspaper reviewer of ''The Return of the King'' made a complaint that the movie included a giant spider and wondered why Peter Jackson felt it was needed. Shelob appears in the series, though her appearance was moved to the third installment for the films.

** A newspaper synopsis of ''The Lord of the Rings'' read "Frodo and friends go on a quest to find a magic ring." Some quest that would have been, given that one of the first things that happens in the story is Frodo getting the ring from Bilbo.

* ''[[Star Wars]]''

** One TV-news reporter in 1977 referred to Chewbacca as "Choobie." Another referred to the ''Millennium Falcon'' as "Darth Vader's ship".

*** Vader ''is'' called "[[Dub Name Change|Dark Vador]]" in most French versions. Bringing the business full circle, however, [[Inconsistent Dub|both the English and French names are used in French Canada]] (with the French name no longer used in official material translated there), causing some people to mix up the two names, leading once again to the "Dark Vader" mistake or variations thereof.<ref>A French-Canadian movie site, for example, has many reviews referring to the character as "Darth Vader", "Dark Vader" or "Darth Vador" but never "Dark Vador".</ref>

** Italian magazines sometimes get to call Darth Vader "Death Star". Or with the Italian dub name, Dart Fener.

* The ''Boston Globe'' reviewer of ''[[Donnie Darko]]'' seems to have taken a bathroom break during half of the film and walked out fifteen minutes before the ending. No other explanation would suffice. However, he admits to not paying attention to the part where Frank explains to Donnie that he (Frank) comes from outer space. Because the reviewer seemed sure that scene appeared in the movie.

* The whole kerfuffle that erupted over the film ''[[The Last Temptation of Christ]]'' was because people were informed about scenes of Jesus settling down, getting married, and having sex. What they ''weren't'' informed about was that these scenes were a hallucination caused by the Devil in order to try and convince Jesus not to fulfill his destiny, walk away and have a normal life, a temptation Jesus rejected. You know, as sort of described ''in the name of the film''. Nobody listened, however, and due to staunchly Catholic [[Media Watchdogs]], the film wasn't premiered in Mexico ''until 2005!''

* A Chilean negative review of the ''[[Rocky and Bullwinkle]]'' movie called Rocky (who is a flying squirrel) "a beaver". ''[[Rocko's Modern Life|Rocko]]'' feels his pain.

* In the UK series of ''[[Gladiators]]'', a character refers to Spartan saying 'he doesn't have 299 friends to back him up now!'. About a second later, the commentator says '300 Greeks fought for Rome, but there's only one Spartan!'.

* For a time, Hulu described the scene from ''[[Back to The Future]] Part II'' where Doc whisks Marty and Jennifer off to 2015 as "Doc surprises Marty and Lorraine with an urgent request to come into the future to save their kids." Lorraine is the name of his mother.

* [http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/20094/Godzilla-vs-Biollante/overview This article from the New York Times] wrongfully calls the film ''[[Godzilla]] VS Biollante'' "Godzilla VS Bioranch". It's made even more annoying by the fact that the article even has a poster from the film that shows the actual title of the film.

* TV Guide's blurb for ''Godzilla vs Megalon'': "Godzilla and giant robot Jet Jaguar team up to fight a giant cockroach (Megalon, a stag beetle) and a big black chicken (Gigan, a bluish-green and gray reptilian cyborg with a beak and mandibles) sent by Seatopians."

* David Edelstein, reviewing the ''[[Bewitched (film)|Bewitched]]'' movie in ''Slate'': "Using R.E.M.'s impassioned "Everybody Hurts"—written by Michael Stipe after the suicide of Kurt Cobain—to underscore shots of Kidman and Ferrell feeling blue about their inability to pair off is an aesthetic crime." Take Th... uh, wait a minute, that song was recorded in 1992, while Cobain died in 1994. In fact, the album that "Everybody Hurts" is on, ''Automatic for the People'', was found in Cobain's stereo and [[wikipedia:Death of Kurt Cobain#Discovery of Cobain.27s body|was apparently the last album he ever listened to]]. To his credit, [http://www.slate.com/id/2121389/ Edelstein quickly issued a (very snotty) retraction.] "I don't like having to change something after it's published." Dude, then don't make a mistake on an easily checkable fact.

* One particularly scathing movie review for ''[[Silent Hill (film)|Silent Hill]]'' derided the film for being based on a video game series, but praised the movie's composer for at least writing a unique cinematic score instead of relying on the video game's "[[Pac-Man Fever|beeps and whistles]]". The music in the movie, of course, was taken directly from the games. Coming at this from another angle, a newspaper blurb on the game ''[[Silent Hill Homecoming]]'' described it as being based on the movie. There were in fact several [[Shout-Out]]s to the movie in ''Silent Hill: Homecoming'', so it's easy to see how they got confused. For example, The Boogeyman/Pyramid Head's design is based off his movie design, and the introduction of the Smog enemy looks almost identical to the introduction of the Armless Man in the movie.

* ''[[Iron Man (film)|Iron Man]]'', starring Robert Downey Jr. as [http://img129.imageshack.us/img129/57/1210171758386fy6.png Tony] [http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=%22iron+man%22+%22tony+spark%22&rlz=1R2GGLL_en-GBGB376&aq=f&aqi=g-sx10&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai= Spark]. If you think that's bad, Swedish ''Metro'' called him [[wikipedia:Robert Frost|Robert Frost]].

* An article on a magazine about ''[[Quantum of Solace]]'' stated that [[James Bond]] allied with the exiled General Medrano from Chile to destroy the Quantum Organization. Medrano is actually a [[Complete Monster]] and part of Quantum's plan (he's to be installed as dictator). It's also set in Bolivia, not Chile, though it was shot in Chile.

* Australian newspaper ''The Age'' had a still from the movie ''[[Watchmen (film)|Watchmen]]'' and credited it as being from the upcoming movie ''[[The Spirit (film)|The Spirit]]''.

{{quote|"It was irritating when people started asking me ''why'' the advertising said "From the director of ''The Nightmare Before Christmas''", and wasn't it some kind of a sneaky attempt to make people think that it was by Tim Burton?, and I would sigh, and say no, it was a sneaky attempt to make people think it was directed by the person who directed ''The Nightmare Before Christmas''. (And given that people were saying this about trailers that made a point of saying Henry's name, I had little patience with it.)"}}

** Another blame for this is the [[In Case You Forgot Who Wrote It]] for ''Nightmare''. (In other words, its full title is ''Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas''. Mind you, Burton was only responsible for the ''concept'' of that movie as he was busy directing ''[[Batman Returns]]'' at the same time.)

* Marcus Berkmann in the ''Daily Telegraph'' reviewed ''[[Batman and Robin (film)|Batman and Robin]]'' without, apparently, bothering to see the movie, as he confidently informed readers that Mr. Freeze was motivated to avenge the death of his wife, whereas in the movie the fact that his wife is very much alive (albeit, y'know, frozen) at the beginning and end of the film is an important plot point.

* Sam Wollaston, TV critic for ''The Guardian'', reviewed a TV documentary titled ''The Human Spider'', about a guy who climbed a big building dressed as, obviously, [[Spider-Man (Comic Book)|Spider-Man]]. His review, however, referred to the guy as being dressed as [[Batman]]. Because those costumes look ''so'' much alike...

* ''The Metro'' even went so far as to call the main character of ''[[The Matrix]] Reloaded'' ''Nero'' and claim the film was about his adventures in [[Another Dimension]].

** Another reviewer somehow confused the three main female characters in "Reloaded", stating that "Hero Neo must also enlist the aid of a virtual beauty, played by Carrie-Anne Moss, who captains a ship of her own." (Now we know that it's possible to be ''too'' high while watching this trilogy.)

*** We could easily fill this page with reviews from that long, ''long'' summer, because a considerable number of them were written by people (people paid to write reviews of movies, mind you) who [[Did Not Do the Research|did not bother to go back and watch]] [[Continuity Lock Out|the first movie]]...

** This even extends to some of the films' own DVD features. The Ultimate Matrix Collection features commentaries on all the films by three critics, who clearly hadn't been paying much attention (one of them seems to think Zion is in space rather than underground, for starters). The sequels are notorious for being impenetrable, but you're not helping your case when you screw up the few things that ''are'' clearly explained.

* A review of ''[[Dragonball Evolution]]'' opened with the following informed lines.

{{quote|Another Japanese manga bites the dust with its cinematic adaptation: in this case, the "Dragonball Evolution" series.}}

**** It gets funnier for people living in socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe, as the actions of Norsefire closely resemble the communist regime. Some would say that save for engineering a plague, the severity of regime has been downplayed.

* A "[[What Do You Mean It's Not for Kids?|parent's review]]" of the ''[[Watchmen (comics)|Watchmen]]'' [[Watchmen (film)|movie adaptation]], instead of reviewing the actual film, listed every single instance of violence or sexual content without mentioning anything else, then concluded that the ultimate message of the story was that "humankind is inherently savage". What? Even more hilarious, another blurb stated the movie's premise as: "After the death of one of his colleagues, the masked vigilante Rorschach sets out on a mission to kill all superheroes."

*** That could be forgiven if they didn't have the "Message" section at the end, where they are in fact interpreting (in this case wrongly) what the movie is trying to say. There were many things Watchmen was trying to say, but "humandkind is inherently savage" was not one of them.

** Somewhere out there is a review where the author assures the public that soon there will be no more superhero movies, because Hollywood has reached the point where they've made this movie "based off characters ''nobody'' has ever heard of." Um...

* A review of ''Fanboys'' by Robert Wilonsky shows that he neglected to watch the full film. At this point in time to save from possible spoilers here is the link to the review for those of you who have seen the movie [http://www.movietome.com/pages/tracking/index.php?tid=23&ref_id=362251\]{{Dead link}} or here [http://www.metacritic.com/movie/fanboys/critic-reviews\]

* A review of ''[[Spy Kids]] 2'' said that Carmen and Juni have to fight the evil Romero, and team up with a new duo of Spy Kids to aid them in their battle... Which seemed to reverse the newcomer's roles; since Romero was a good guy (made clear from his first appearance) and the Cortez siblings had to race against, and battle, Gary and Gerti. It also completely ignored Donnagon's blatant corruption and the dangers of the Transmooker device. It was like they didn't even bother to watch the film at all.

* A review for the [[G.I. Joe]] [[G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra|movie]] states "Formerly a Real American Hero, G.I.Joe is no longer a hero (it's a group)..." Funny... [[I Am Not Shazam|G.I.Joe has almost always referred to a group (the "almost" is there because there was actually a namesake) and not a single person, even before the '80s (when they were first called Real American Heroes).]]. The original action hero was titled like that, but the toyline (and TV series) that inspired ''Rise of Cobra'' most certainly wasn't.

* A review of ''[[Return to Oz]]'' criticized the movie for having "unimaginative" characters, such as a man with the head of a pumpkin and a yellow hen. Problem was, those characters—Jack Pumpkinhead and Billina—are [[Adaptation Displacement|straight out of L. Frank Baum's]] ''The Land of Oz'' and ''Ozma of Oz'', which ''Return to Oz'' was based on.

** This is, in a way, partially the fault of whomever decided to title and market this film based on the original, printed page, [[What Do You Mean It Wasn't Made on Drugs?|very weird]] ''OZ'' series in such a way that audiences were doomed to assume it was a sequel to the beloved musical version.

* And here's a kicker: Ted Baehr's [[Movie Guide]] did its review of the 2007 ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (film)|TMNT]]'' film shortly after its release, and did an utterly atrocious job explaining the film's content factually. For starters:

** Leonardo and Raphael's fight ''midway'' through the movie is described as a battle between Leo and Michaelangelo—at the film's beginning!

* A November 2009 issue of the Seattle Times had a picture of Simon from ''[[Alvin and The Chipmunks]]'' labeled as Theodore in the picture for an article promoting the new December movies. This was especially [[Egregious]] because the person who wrote the article was apparently a fan of the movies.

** While this is a perfect example of the trope, it should be mentioned that writers do not, in most journalism, have anything to do with the pictures or the captions thereof. So if a picture is mislabelled, that's on the editor, not the writer.

** It is within the realm of possibility that the reviewer thought he was preserving an important spoiler concerning Death's role; he does seem rather sinister up until he starts to talk.

* A ''Daily Mail'' article viciously attacked the film ''[[Kick-Ass (film)|Kick-Ass]]'' several weeks before its release; in particular, they claimed that the film was the brain-child of screenwriter Jane Goldman (it wasn't; the film is based on a comic book by Mark Millar), who was also the film's director (she wasn't; Matthew Vaughn was the actual director, and co-wrote the screenplay with Goldman), and that it was about a foul mouthed 11 year-old assassin (the film does in fact feature such a character, but the protagonist is a wannabe superhero). Arguably a subversion, since there's a significant possibility that the article was ''deliberately'' badly researched so that they'd have an excuse to attack Goldman, who just happens to be the wife of TV host Jonathan Ross—who the ''Daily Mail'' despises for reasons much too long to list here.

** And the ''[[Fan Nickname|Daily Fail]]'' strikes again with its review of [[Four Lions]]. The picture accompanying the review is almost as long as the actual review itself. The review accuses the film of bowing to "political correctness". This, of course, being the comedy about Muslim terrorists.

* The book ''Film in Australia: An Introduction'' by Albert Moran and Errol Vieth screwed up its section on ''Lantana.'' Apparently, they chose to get most of the cast's names from the end credits instead of actually paying attention to the film, and in the process failed to notice that the cast were billed in order of appearance. Thus, they referred to Vince Colosimo's character Nik D'amato as Steve Valdez and his wife Paula as Lisa, who were the fourth and fifth billed characters, right after Leon, Sonja and Jane (three points of the film's love square), but were fairly unimportant to the story. More understandably, they called Geoffrey Rush's character John Somers instead of John Knox (his wife was named Valerie Somers), and more inexplicably, they called Peter Phelps' character Alex instead of Patrick, even though there's no character by that name in the film. Ironically, they still got most of the plot details right.

* A reviewer of ''[[The Last Airbender]]'' (one of the few who gave it a positive review) describes how "Aang and friends travel on a flying six-legged albino beaver." The "beaver" in question is actually a bison, and not an albino. Not surprisingly that a positive review came from someone who likely never saw the movie and certainly never watched the TV show on which it is based.

* The Rotten Tomatoes website and a few movie theatres that gave away free film pamphlets, made this summary from [[How to Train Your Dragon (animation)|How to Train Your Dragon]]: "Hiccup goes on a mission to pass their village's initation into manhood by capturing and training a dragon. If he succeeds, he will become a warrior. If he fails, he will be forever banished". This would techically be true had the film been more faithful to Cressida Cowel's book, but so much liberties were taken to change the plot that instead of a boy going through a rite of passage capturing and training dragons, it's a teenager whose village is dedicated to killing dragons befriending an injured dragon and finding that everything he and his village knows about them to be wrong.

* A small but still irksome example: In an article covering ''[[Repo! The Genetic Opera]]'', Fangoria repeatedly referred to Terrance Zdunich's character as "Gravedigger."

* In the film description of the [[Rocky Horror Picture Show]] on [http://www.netflix.com/WiMovie/The-Rocky-Horror-Picture-Show/60000448?strackid=32e2e90d294e6552_0_srl&strkid=894448976_0_0&trkid=438381 Netflix] it describes the plot as "... the exploits of naïve couple Brad (Barry Bostwick) and Janet (Susan Sarandon) after they stumble upon the lair of transvestite vampire Dr. Frank-N-Furter (Tim Curry)." Vampire? Really?

* A crossword puzzle provided the clue "Comden and Green musical" for "Auntie Mame." Trouble is, ''[[Auntie Mame]]'' isn't a musical, at least not under that 10-letter title, and Comden and Green only wrote the screenplay for the film of the play Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee adapted from Patrick Dennis's original story. There is a musical adaptation, titled simply ''Mame'', which Comden and Green had nothing to do with.

* Roger Ebert's review of ''[[Labyrinth]]'' contains this quote: "One of the key characters in this film is Toby (played by Toby Froud). Froud is a midget who has been given a Muppet head to wear." The character he's thinking of is Hoggle, played by Shari Weiser. Toby is Sarah's baby brother, played by non-midget baby Toby Froud.

* [https://web.archive.org/web/20120509211245/http://cinemovie.tv/cinemovie_new/component/content/article/55-interviews/1280-guillermo-del-toro-interview-pinocchio-dreamworks This article] about Guillermo Del Toro joining [[Dreamworks Animation]] claims that the studio's 2012 movie "Rise of the Guardians" is a sequel to Zack Snyder's "Legend of the Guardians." You know, that owl movie made by ''WARNER BROTHERS''.

* [http://animatedviews.com/2011/superman-the-motion-picture-anthology-blu-ray-collection/ This review] of the ''[[Superman (film)|Superman]]'' Motion Picture Anthology Blu-Ray keeps crediting Bud Collyer as the lead of the 1940s serials and portrayer of Lois Lane's father in the extended version of the first movie. However, Bud Collyer voiced Superman in [[The Adventures of Superman (radio)|the radio series]], as well as some cartoons from the 1940s and '60s. Kirk Alyn actually acted as the lead in the serials, and Lois' father in the first movie.

** In his review of [[Sherlock Holmes]] - A Game of Shadows; Ebert also says that "I've luxuriated in the genial atmosphere of the Conan Doyle stories, where a step is heard on the stair, a client tells his tale, and Holmes withdraws to his rooms to consider his new case during a period of meditation (involving such study aids as opium).". Given that Holmes ''never'' took narcotics during a case (only when out of work) and even when he did, it was either Cocaine or Morphine, one can wonder just how much of Conan Doyle Ebert actually read.

* The author of ''The New York Times''' [http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/14/movies/14dvd.html review] of some remastered [[Rodgers and Hammerstein]] DVDs expressed disappointment when he read the back cover of ''[[Carousel]]'' saying that it came with a film adaptation of its predecessor, ''Liliom'', assumed this referred to the 1930 adaptation, but then found himself watching [[Fritz Lang]]'s 1934 movie. One must wonder why he felt surprised, since the back DVD cover and the insert listing production notes and DVD features and chapters clearly list the 1934 adaptation among the bonus features. (Granted, other people anticipated the inclusion of the 1930 movie, but they did so ''before'' obtaining the DVD.)

* When ''[[The Land Before Time]]'' IX was first released, there was [http://www.amazon.com/review/R541BWG3VM38C/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm a very bizarre review on amazon.com], talking about the film's predecessor, ''Time of Much Snow''. There has never been a ''Land Before Time'' film by that name (although the previous movie, while using the title ''The Big Freeze'', did feature a snowstorm as a major plot point, so it is possible that English was not this person's first language). Also, and even more strange, is when the reviewer talks about the reincarnation of Littlefoot's grandmother. Considering his grandmother never died, one must wonder what this person was smoking.

* Whoever wrote the official website for ''[[An American Tail]]'' probably never watched any of the movies. They describe Tanya as "always getting her brother into some kind of trouble" (which he does just fine on his own), and when they describe Tony Toponi they imply that he's in love with Tanya, which of course is never even hinted at in the movies. Now granted, the site was probably created with the idea that the [[Viewers are Morons]], which is also sadly reflected in Universal's more recent DVD releases of the movies.

* [http://www.vulture.com/2018/03/ready-player-one-review.html A review on Vulture.com] for the film adaptation of ''[[Ready Player One (film)|Ready Player One]]'' consistently referred to the OASIS as "ORACLE" throughout, suggesting that the reviewer, one David Edelstein, hadn't actually ''seen'' the film at all -- or even any of the trailers. (Someone at Vulture eventually caught on and corrected the article, but not until a few days had passed.)

 

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