Which cult classic film was a huge disappointment when you finally saw it?

Napoleon Dynamite. The main thing I got from the movie was that know I know where a meme comes from.
- I've never understood the fascination people had/have with this movie.
- When this came out I went to the ends of the world to get a copy after missing out on all of the references... And then it was fine. I think it's kinda funny know but I don't understand how it blew up the way it did

I tried twice to watch The Godfather and fell asleep both times. Nothing about it caught me at all.
- So i'm not the only one.
- It bored me. Tried the second one, didn't get better.

I'm afraid to watch the Princess Bride because everyone I know loves it and begs me to watch it and I'm afraid it will be terrible and when they ask me how it was I'll have to lie
- Speaking as someone who also loves the movie: I won't hate you of it's not your jam, but give it a try nonetheless! Worst case you just lost some time, but you at least gave it a shot.

I may get a lot of hate for this, and I wouldn't say it was a huge disappointment because I actually really liked most of the movies but, Star Wars.
I thought they were great moviees, but when watching them after years of everyone telling me to and all the hype I was kind of disappointed even though I enjoyed watching them all. For me they just didn't live up to the hype I guess.

The first Mad Max movie, just feels like a slog at times to get through and when you finally finish it there's no resolution it's just a cliffhanger into the next movie.

Synecdoche New York. Every one of my friends who’ve seen it think it’s brilliant. I tried watching it and felt like I was losing my mind. I know that’s the point, but that doesn’t make it a good movie!

Mean Girls is ok. It has some good meme quotes, but it isn't really a good movie.
- Heathers is better for that kind of movie

Donnie Darko.
Not a terrible movie, just an extremely odd film of which I have never understood the cult following.
- No way. Maybe it depends on when you see it. Saw it early teens and was my favorite movie.
- Nah, it was at least a little terrible.
- I always recommend watching the director's cut. It's like a totally different movie and gives more context.
  
  How is the sequel?

The Big Lebowski is extremely boring and nonsensical.

I had a little personal crisis when I watched The Big Lebowski for the first time and just hated it. I was so bored.
I'll have to give it another go and hope I get it .

Repo! The Genetic Opera. I could not get into it at all.

Maybe not a cult classic but the highly praised adaptation of Little Women (2019). It did not have the positive flow and feel compared to the 1994 version. Also, having a 22 year old actress playing the young version of Amy was not a good choice, her sitting between the other girls at school looked ridiculous.

I always get hate for this but Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
For years I heard it be revered as the best comedy film of all time, it was hyped up so much, then I finally saw it.... And didn't even laugh once.
That taught me that hype is a powerful thing (look at Cyberpunk for instance), because whatever our mind comes up with, will never live up to the actual final product.
- I like it a lot but can totally understand this.

Pulp Fiction

Rocky Horror has one of the weakest 3rd acts I've ever seen.
Ive never seen the live show so it might just be pains trying to fit a 2 act musical into a traditional 3 act movie
- The whole move goes downhill after they serve meatloaf for dinner.
- I have watched it a bunch. But saw it first a live cast and with people who were really into it. So any re-watch brings me back to that time. Being high helps lol

Airplane! It's okay just not my cup of tea
- Not a cult classic. It's a mainstream hit.
  "Jim never has a second cup of coffee at home..."

Faces of Death (1978)
The first viewing was full of shock value.
After that it was not my cup of tea. Repulsive on many levels.
Now that subject matter is just a normal Tuesday on Reddit.

Jupiter Ascending. It's just all around terrible, and not in the it's-so-bad-it's-good way. I don't get the appeal.
- Does anyone really think its a cult film? I think it's just a bad movie.

I'll be honest. WarGames. I'm a big fan of 80s movies, but when I saw WarGames, it was very much meh.

A Clockwork Orange. I read the book first and was excited to see the movie but ultimately I found it really slow and boring. It's not a great adaptation in my opinion.

Clerks. Couldn't get over the shitty forced acting.
- Clerks is easily one of my favorite movies.

goonies

The Shining. I've seen so many parodies and homages before seeing the original, that I just kept laughing and couldn't get into the horror part of it whatsoever.

Princess Bride
So dull, nothing funny, no redeeming feature

Almost all of them when I had read the book first.
The Hobbit
The latest (The Hobbit) I got my son to read the book, then watch the movies and he's like 'Whaaaaaa???' because they tried to amplify it into a blockbuster.
So yes, Great movie - but sucked after reading the book.
- I had friends who actually preferred the Hobbit to LOTR because of more action (according to them) But then I slowly told them all the shit that they just added for no reason and now they hate me

The inglorious bastards. It treats a very serious subject matter with too much quirky humor.
Also the Nazi slaughter group is basically like an Einsatz Gruppe, but for slaughtering German soldiers. Literally locking people in a building (often a church) and then setting it ablaze was a technique used against Jews.
Just reversing the roles doesn't make it an act that's worth cheering for, like people did in the cinema when I saw it. I couldn't detach myself from that, hence why I did personally not enjoy it.
- Inglorious Bastards ain't your average war flick or history lesson, it's Tarantino doing his offbeat thing. The humor's not mocking the war, but poking at the villains. The Basterds are soldiers, not a hit squad against innocents. The cinema cheers? That's just folks enjoying seeing the Nazis get some comeuppance. If you didn't dig it, cool. But remember, Tarantino's all about pushing buttons and sparking chatter. If it got under your skin, maybe it hit the mark.
  
  Inglorious Bastards ain’t your average war flick or history lesson, it’s Tarantino doing his offbeat thing
  I can understand that, I like his style ususally. But that's point of my disappointment. As a historian I cannot see it apart from the historical events. But the crowd reaction is what really freaked me out, it's scary if you think of it.
  But remember, Tarantino’s all about pushing buttons and sparking chatter. If it got under your skin, maybe it hit the mark.
  It may have. I think the true brilliance of the movie is how the audience, due to framing, can be induced to condone the killing of innocents. I sincerely hope that wasn't actually Tarantino's intention.
  For instance the soldier killed by the bear jew refused to give up military secrets under threat of death. He chooses te respectfully refuse and is then killed. Framed differently in lots of war movies this is a heroic act.
  But here people then cheer when te bear jew comes out and finishes him off.
  All of this is an actual war crime.
  That’s just folks enjoying seeing the Nazis get some comeuppance.
  Indeed and I know, it's all a bit of good fun. I just can separate it from the very real and very deadly seriousness of this part of history. That was what the main question of this thread was about.
- "German soldiers"
  
  Listen. It is one of the hardest cases to discern guilt in wartime situations. Membership of the nazi parti or being a german soldier is not per se a sign of guilt. Just like just being a jew is no reason to be killed, too. I'm all for sentencing war criminals, but the soldier killed by bear jew nor the people sitting in the cinema (aside from Hitlers direct circle) have been proven to be guilty of war crimes.
  If you applaud them burning, you're basicly using the same system of dehumanising a group of people as the nazi party and the SS used for making people belief sloughtering jews, gypsies, gay people is ok. That is very, very wrong.

Breakfast club. It doesn't age well. Bender commits sexual assault, and he's the hero.

Rocky Horror Picture Show was dumb as fuck.
- Is supposed to be, it’s the essence of camp.

No country for old men. I get that it's supposed to be bleak and not resolve at the end. I still hate that it's bleak and doesn't resolve at the end. I didn't really get the "amazingness" of the coin flip scene either.
I also thought Blade Runner was ok, but the whole "tears in the rain" monologue is so hyped on the internet that it was a bit meh when it actually happened.
- No country for old men. I get that it's supposed to be bleak and not resolve at the end. I still hate that it's bleak and doesn't resolve at the end.
  Yes! I was expecting more, and was left feeling cheated at the end with no resolution. It felt like wasted time.

Big Lebowski .. I mean I enjoyed it but not enough to join the cult
- “That’s just, like… your opinion, man.
- Came here to comment this. I wanted to enjoy it but I just didn't. I can see myself having good fun with it if I watched it 10-15 years ago but when I did it just didn't hit where it should've
- Second this. Did not enjoy watching that
- Give it another try, I was also confused during my first watch, but now it’s one of my favorite movies
- Agreed! I don’t know if I need to rewatch or something, but I could not get into it nor do I understand the hype surrounding it online.
  This and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
  
  I love TBL now, but I really wasn't sure after my first watch, it all felt quite disjointed. Seen it many many times then though, and I really like it now, so I'd say it's worth another go.

2001 Space Odyssey.
It's just so bad. Objectively bad. And I rarely use that term, because movies and art are so subjective.
It feels like it was trying to be a showcase of 1960's film technology, and I've got nothing about that. It's shot well, and it's kinda cool seeing how they had to do things back then.
But the plot feels like it was written mostly during a bad acid trip that just wouldn't end. I'm fully convinced that its one of those things that people pretend to like so they can pretentiously chortle with their film buddies about "how the common man just doesn't have the attention span needed to appreciate it."
It's an hour too long and the plot is so basic yet so overly convoluted.
- I always interpreted it as Kubrick trying to give you a feel for how vast even just the solar system is, and how long space travel takes. It's slow and not much happens for long periods, because travelling to Jupiter is slow and not much happens for long periods.
  I agree that doesn't make it an easy watch, but if you get into the right frame of mind to watch it, it gives you a kind of uneasy existential dread at the vastness of the universe and our inconsequential smallness in it, that very little other sci-fi does.

I can't stand the Fifth Element. On paper, it should be perfect for me but I just find it really obnoxious.
- Same. So much non-sense. I remembered it epic. I watched a month ago and I regretted it to have wasted my time like that
- lmao, I just recently realised I've seen that movie so many times and have no idea what it's about.

I find there are few cult classics that can be found by future generations and maintain their cult status outside of the truly timeless greats like Rocky Horror Picture Show or similar. There's a nostalgia associated with most cult films. I can't imagine GenZ glomming onto Better off Dead or Ferris Bueller's Day Off or The Goonies because so much of the camp and humor is tied to a time they don't have a reference for.
- Funny you used Rocky Horror as a counter example when that is my answer to the post lol
- Agreed. There are many that are definitely generational. I think Office Space transcends well. When it came out I was probably 10, I didn't have an office job until I was in my late 20s. It was sort of funny when I saw it as an adult, but after working in a cube farm for the first time I saw it in an entirely new light. Rolling Kansas is a good one too. Just a weird-ass, slow paced comedy about some potheads looking for their parent's long lost pot farm and running into Rip Torn along the way lol
- I'm Gen-X and showed my Gen Z kids Better off Dead recently. They quite liked it. I think it's just so goofy anyone could enjoy it. I DON'T think they'd like Ferris Bueller's Day Off - too talky.
  
  My 13-year-old enjoyed Better Off Dead too. Especially "I want my two dollars!"

Pulp fiction.
- I think, like most of his work, you got to be really into characters, storytelling, and the interactions between characters.
  I didn't really like Kill Bill because of backstory. I like his films that just start and end. You know nothing about the characters, but by the end of the story you feel like you know a lot based on their actions and interactions. Reservoir Dogs and The Hateful Eight are my favourites for this. In-depth and complicated characters and story being told, but know little to nothing outside of the snapshot in time the film takes place.
  That's a very specific style of film to enjoy, so I can see why people praise Pulp Fiction while others don't or just pretend to.
  
  I dont know, characters and story were fine it also made me cackle a cuple if times. But all combined just didnt feel quite right, something was missing. I guess I should watch it againg, maybe I could pin point it better, but it just did not live up to the hipe it was and still is getting. Kill Bill is in my eyes more interesting because of cinematography

A Clockwork Orange. I read the book first and was excited to see the movie but ultimately I found it really slow and boring. It's not a great adaptation in my opinion.
- I don't understand this movie at all! Maybe I'm too dumb for it's high score on imdb lol.

The Hobbit