Around The World In 80 Days (2004)
What it tries to do: An international production team and Walt Disney Studios hoped to recreate the light, anything-can-happen feel of Michael Anderson's 1956 Jules Verne adaptation, complete with cameo appearances by major stars.
Why it failed: The movie's real stars—Steve Coogan and Jackie Chan—are kind of hard to spot in the shadow of guests like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Kathy Bates. The movie seems to be beyond the talents of director Frank Coraci, who falls back on clatter when he can't figure out what to do.
Why it's worth seeing: Coraci also finds an appealing, fanciful tone, most evident in the inventive animated transitions between balloon stops. The genuinely sweet love-hate relationship between the harried Chan and the smug Coogan brings resonance to their slapstick antics, and scene-stealing performances by the likes of Jim Broadbent and Mark Addy make the film entertaining in a please-pay-no-attention-to-our-ginormous-budget kind of way. Around The World In 80 Days also gets bonus points for its cleverest cameo, when Chan's stranded in the American West and runs into his Shanghai Noon co-star Owen Wilson, driving through with his brother Luke.
The Last Tycoon (1976)
What it tries to do: Elia Kazan's Harold Pinter-scripted adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's unfinished novel aspires to be a bittersweet, epic elegy for a lost era of Hollywood glamour, bringing together the giants of the past (Kazan, Tony Curtis, Ray Milland, Robert Mitchum) with the brash new turks of the film-brat world (Robert De Niro, Jack Nicholson).
Why it failed: The Last Tycoon's meticulous recreation of old Hollywood and its once-in-a-lifetime cast fight a losing battle against a leaden central romance between De Niro and the android-like Ingrid Boulting. Also, the film's immersion in Old Hollywood probably didn't appeal to audiences enthralled with the brash rebelliousness of New Hollywood.
Why it's worth seeing: De Niro's lead performance is a marvel of hyper-efficiency. He doesn't waste a gesture or a word in his masterful take on a man locked in perpetual forward motion. A historic, riveting late-movie scene in which the conservative, sober De Niro gets tanked and battles physically and mentally with Marx-loving union man Jack Nicholson makes the film worth catching, as does the bravura "Makin' Pictures" sequence, in which De Niro delivers a succinct, indelible lecture on storytelling to a cantankerous screenwriter.
Pinocchio (2002)
What it tries to do: Following up Life Is Beautiful, Roberto Benigni attempts to bring the spirit of a Fellini carnival to Carlo Collodi's much-loved 19th-century fairy tale.
Why it failed: Putting aside the last-minute cuts and dubbing before its American release—which left Breckin Meyer standing in for Benigni's unmistakable voice—Pinocchio suffers from Benigni's decision to cast himself as the puppet who wants to be a real boy. Benigni was 50 at the time, and he comes off as more creepy than whimsical, especially in the scenes where he can't control his famous nose. The casting of Benigni's real-life wife Nicoletta Braschi as the stern, motherly Blue Fairy only adds to the ick factor.
Why it's worth seeing: And yet, like so many films on this list, Pinocchio features a weird integrity that makes it difficult to forget. Benigni creates a storybook world and fills it with mad ideas and the crisp visuals of cinematographer Dante Spinotti. And while casting himself in the lead was a bad move, Benigni throws himself into the man-child role. When Braschi catches him misbehaving, the scared, heartbroken look on Benigni's face—a perfect, wordless expression of the way a child learns right from wrong—almost rescues the whole endeavor. Almost.
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