Well. I took a trip to the movie theater the other Thursday and saw an advance screening of Star Trek,and I have to say that all the hype for this movie almost didn’t do it justice. Abrams’ Star Trek was fantastic. There wasn’t a moment where I wasn’t being entertained. So, to honor the hype of Star Trek, I have compiled this list of movies that were really hyped-up and yet sorely disappointed me when I spent the money on the movie ticket to see them. I even tried to get my money back after one of them. Here’s why…

8: Alien Versus Predator (2004)

There really aren’t too many good things I can say about this movie. I went opening night, sat down with my drink and popcorn and spent about an hour and a half squirming in my seat waiting for this thing to get better. Firstly, why on earth did they name it Alien Versus Predator? Something along the lines of “Humans Running Around Scared” or “Five Actual Minutes of Aliens fighting Predators” would’ve told me what this movie really was and I wouldn’t have wasted my money. But I guess what's done is done, right? I understand that the directors maybe trying to go for the whole “scary because you don’t see much of it” kinda thing, maybe. But if they were going for that, why didn’t they do a better job? And why is it that I started praying for an Alien or Predator to come and kill somebody? And really, couldn’t they have given us some more fights between the two coolest other-worldly beings to ever hit the big screen? I hate to say this, simply because they could’ve done so much more with it, but this movie makes me think of one word: Ugh.

7:  Spider-Man 3 (2007)

I really wanted this movie to be awesome. Really. But it wasn’t. It has its qualities, it really does. For example, the effects were pretty amazing, the zany comedy pokes its head up every now and then and Mary Jane is fairly hot/good-looking, but that’s really all it has going for it. Most of the movie I found myself wishing they would develop some sort of plot instead of just literally dropping things right into the midst of things. But no, they couldn’t do that. Instead of a movie, I had to watch Peter Parker walk around being retarded for two hours, with a couple of cool fight scenes intermingled in there once in a while. And really, did they have to ruin Venom? Read some  Spider-Man comics and you will see that Eddie Brock / Venom is a completely different character than what they made him out to be. And really, too much drama Mr. Raimi. Way too much. Don’t make Peter Parker such a cry-baby little prick please, I paid to see Spider-Man, not Harry Potter. Oh, and that whole “evil side” thing, please please please tell me you were on drugs when you wrote that part. I personally didn’t know whether to laugh or cry myself. Lets hope you do better on Spidey 4.

6: Ghost Rider (2007)

Could this movie have been any worse? Is there anybody out there who actually enjoyed this movie? I remember seeing trailers for this movie and thinking “Hey, ya know that could be pretty good” but boy-oh-boy was I wrong. We don’t need to talk about the dialogue, because well, we just don’t need to. We could talk about the acting, but I don’t really think there's much of a need to do that either, so lets discuss some of the things that just generally pissed me off about the worst movie Nic Cage has ever done (we wont talk about Bangkok Dangerous). Alright, well, Eva Mendes was hot, but extremely unimportant. That whole romantic aspect of this movie made no sense to me whatsoever. And how come all the villains got their demonic asses kicked in about five seconds? One of them was so scary, he could use his special wind powers to, uhhh, push Ghost Rider. Absolutely terrifying. But there was one moment where I hoped the movie was going to redeem itself. The Riders were going to ride together, fiery motorcycle and fiery horse, seems a pretty cool idea right? Well yea, the actual riding scene was alright, but just when I thought it might get cool, the other rider just leaves. Like, “that’s my last ride, I just wanted to ride, you’re on your own against the son of the Devil.” What the hell? Seriously, WHAT THE HELL? The problem is that there is really too much crap in this movie to write all of it out. If we never talk about this again, I’ll be alright with that.

5: Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)

I am not saying this movie is an awful picture. As a matter of fact, this movie was actually alright and if you watch it a second time, knowing what to expect, you might find yourself enjoying all the gags and stunts and classic Indy movie experiences that are thrown in there. The reason it is on here is because it wasn’t what we were hoping it would be. Indy 4 was, simply put, a disappointment. All us Indy nerds were expecting something on par with the originals, if not something much better, and we were let down. I personally think that this movie is a little bit of an abomination to the original trilogy, but its still Indy, so it has been added to my DVD collection. It is only on this list because I was let down, as were so many other fans out there. I cried with you guys, I was there.

4: Any M. Night Shyamalan film after Signs

There's so much here we can talk about and I am finding it difficult to talk about just one of those disappointments, but I think the most disappointing of them all was The Happening. The trailer for The Happening was full of mystery, suspense, with some eerie force wreaking havoc upon the unsuspecting people of America. It looked pretty sweet overall. But then I watched the movie. Honestly, the script for this movie was terrible. Poor dialogue and poor acting made me literally uncomfortable as I sat in the theater wishing I hadn’t come. Unfortunately for me, I have this thing where I will never walk out of any movie, as I always have a hope that a bad movie could just maybe rescue itself; but I didn’t even get a hint of that from The Happening. It started out bad and it just got worse. And worse. If you’ve never seen it, don’t waste your time. If you have seen it, try and erase it from your memory. I will always hold out hope for Mr. Shyamalan because I loved Signs so much, so uhh, here's to him making another good movie someday. Cheers.

3: Planet of The Apes (2001)

Sometimes I wonder why Hollywood puts out movies like this. The original was excellent, had fantastic dialogue, and there was substance to the movie. In this one, Mark Wahlberg just shows up and gets attacked by some monkeys. They could’ve named this movie “Mark Wahlberg getting chased by monkeys for two hours” and no aspect of the movie would have seemed out of place. The character development doesn’t really exist at all, and we really have a hard time understanding what's happening half the time due to lack of… well for lack of a better word, lack of anything. I will say this for the movie though, the effects were pretty good. Regardless, I was so excited about this movie and how was I rewarded? A cuppla crappy fighting scenes and some running around in the woods. And seriously, what's wrong with the ending? Could they have messed it up any more? I have nothing more to say about this movie because, really, there isn’t any more.

2: Hulk (2003)

You know how most movies have a beginning, a middle, and an end? Sometimes, as is the case with Memento, The Usual Suspects, any Tarantino movie, etc… movies show the beginning, middle, and end all mixed up and it makes for a very mind-capturing movie right? But usually movies just show them in that order, beginning - middle - end. Well the problem with Hulk was that its beginning lasted for two hours and then we were hit with the end. No middle, the beginning was boring, and the end was weird and didn’t fit very well. But the thing that pissed me off was that they made it out to be like the best movie ever! I remember all the trailers for it and they ended showing Hulk’s crazy green eyes fading into the word HULK. What an intriguing trailer. There were billboards everywhere advertising this movie. I had to see it. But then it sucked. I walked out of the theater and asked for my money back. I’d never done that before, but I was pissed. How could Hollywood do that to me? Especially with one of my favorite superheroes! Its all just so aggravating and I was sorely disappointed. But I will say this, Edward Norton made up for it in the other one. The better one.

1: Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)

I sat outside the theater for who knows how many hours waiting to see this supposed-to-be-amazing movie. I sat in my seat prepared to be blown away, I’d been waiting for this ever since I’d seen Vader chuck the Emperor over that balcony thing. This movie just had to be good right? But then I just continued sitting there with my mind turning into a pile of mush. I couldn’t speak. Why were all the characters so freaking boring? Why are the aliens suddenly speaking English laced with a horrible Chinese accent? And honestly, the amount of CGI in this movie is way too much, c'mon. But then something happened that I don’t know if I will ever get over: Jar Jar Binks. I know its like, a huge cliché to hate him, but clichés are clichés for a reason. Jar Jar Binks was the worst thing I had ever experienced. Ya know when you're driving along and you see road kill or a car accident and you know its gruesome and disgusting but you just have to look anyways? THAT’S Jar Jar. Then there's Darth Maul, who really could have made this movie good, but we only get him for maybe fifteen minutes. Can't we get just a little more, please? And I am still amazed that Darth Vader built C-3PO. It just doesn’t fit. But honestly my biggest problem with Episode One wasn’t even Jar Jar. Who is The Phantom Menace? Is it Darth Maul? Is it Anakin? Why on earth did Lucas name this move The Phantom Menace? I thank God every day that, if I want to, I can pop in any of the other Star Wars movies and try and erase this one from my memory. Lucas may have redeemed himself in 2005 with Revenge Of The Sith, but lets hope he doesn’t try for number seven, shall we?