Films that were not what you expected

Here are mine:

- Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom: Well I first saw the first 40 minutes or so when I was a little kid and I thought the film was this silly, campy adventure movie. Then about 6 years later I saw the remaining hour and 20 minutes and realized the second half was the complete opposite of a silly, campy adventure movie. I thought that Raiders of the Lost Ark was as dark as the franchise would ever go, oh boy was I wrong.

- First Blood: Well I saw the two sequels first and I figured First Blood would be another over the top, yet awesome action kill fest. What I didn’t expect was a psychological drama about the horrors of Vietnam and the effects of PTSD on veterans or on how they were treated by society. I also didn’t expect the action to be as grounded in reality as it was (sure it was still over the top but not nearly as much as Parts II and III). Also after watching him mow down hundreds of VC and Russians I was quite shocked that Part I had him against a Sheriff and his deputies (rather small scale in comparison to the sequels).

- Blade Runner: I expected it to be an action/adventure, Sci-fi kind of like Total Recall or Robocop. Instead it was a deep, philosophical study of what it means to be human and had very little action

- Apocalypse Now: Same as Blade Runner, I expected tons of action sequences and explosions but instead there was only one action sequence. There was far more Marlon Brando monologuing that I thought there would be

- Saturday Night Fever: I expected a fun, dance flick kind of like Grease that would have a cool soundtrack and a lot of fun humor. Well aside from the soundtrack it turned out to be nothing like Grease, it was a dark, urban street Drama that was far from fun or family friendly.

- Batman Begins: I legitimately thought it was a prequel to Tim Burton’s 1989 film, well it turned out it wasn’t and it had a very different tone from the Burton/Schumacher films.

- Dracula (1992): I thought it would more like a horror film and not so much of a romantic drama. I saw Dracula: Dead and Loving It and I thought that this version was the version that was primarily spoofed in the Mel Brooks film. While the over the top blood and sex were spoofed in Dead and Loving It that turned out to mostly be a parody of the Bella Lugosi Dracula

- Star Wars: The Force Awakens: I expected this movie to be good or at least better than the prequels, oh boy was I wrong on that one.

Edit: Aside from The Force Awakens I think all of these are great films, they just didn’t turn out to be what I thought they would be.