2015 was a rough year for America, but it ended up being a pretty terrific year for film. Still, there were a group of movies that ended up disappointing me because I didn’t think they fully lived up to their potential. I suspect your list won’t look exactly like mine since we all go into movies with different expectations and different levels of anticipation, but here, in no particular order, are my six biggest movie disappointments of this year in film.
I’ve voiced this concern elsewhere on the site already, but to me, Avengers: Age of Ultron marked a major turning point in the history of Marvel Studios. It was the first time I thought there was simply too much going on at once — too many characters, too many story beats, too many side quests — to the point where it made me almost completely check out of the film. I grew up loving this stuff, and I’ve been a big fan of almost all of the Marvel Studios films up to this point (sorry, Thor franchise), so when someone who is super excited to see a movie like this walks out disappointed, there might be something wrong. I really like the idea of Tony Stark creating a program that becomes sentient and tries to wipe out the planet, but Age of Ultron often felt more like a studio-mandated checklist than a well-told story, and we all know how the stress and behind the scenes back-and-forth essentially broke Joss Whedon. On paper, Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War sound really cool in that “Oh yeah, we’re getting to see these awesome characters fight with each other and then reunite to bring down Thanos!” kind of way, but after seeing how many characters were shoved into Ultron and knowing that even more are going to be in future films, I find it hard to believe that there’s going to be enough time to give fans enough of the characters they want to see when there’s perpetually so much set-up that has to be done for upcoming films. I’d love to be proven wrong about that with those movies, but Age of Ultron doesn’t have me particularly optimistic about the future of the MCU.