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Worst Movie Adaptations of Books

21 items ranked

The top 20 worst movies based on (good) books.

Rated 1 point - posted 14 years ago by missdeweydecimal in category Movies.

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1.

The Lightning Thief

This YA novel by Rick Riordan tells the thrilling tale of young Percy Jackson who finds out that is a demigod, descended from the Greek God Poseidon. This book is filled with exciting action sequences, funny jokes, and clever little details about Greek mythology. However, everything that makes this book magical was completely lost in the film. How you can take something that is inherently interesting and make it so blah is beyond me.

32 points - added 14 years ago by missdeweydecimal - 1 comment

Comments:

They left out important characters for the sequel!

Added 12 years ago by guest, 0 points

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2.

Harry Potter

15 points - added 13 years ago by guest -

3.

Bonfire of the Vanities

This social satire by Tom Wolfe is a scathing account of 80s excess is a brilliant novel, however somehow it got lost in the translation to film. But maybe this 700 page book is unfilmable, what with so much of the novel being analysis of New York City class politics are Wolfe's spot-on descriptions of stockbrokers, social activists, tabloid reporters, and civil servants.

13 points - added 14 years ago by missdeweydecimal -

4.

Bicentennial Man

10 points - added 14 years ago by missdeweydecimal -

5.

American Psycho

There's probably a lot of people that will disagree with me on this one, but I really hated this film. And I had such high hopes for it. Christian Bale was an excellent choice to play Patrick Bateman, but his performances during the murder scenes was so over-the-top it seemed almost like a caricature. One of the greatest things about the book was the social critique of the world of the wealth in 80s New York City, who's lives center around restaurant reservations, business cards, and doing cocaine. However, that edgy look at this portion of society is as good as lost in the film.

10 points - added 14 years ago by missdeweydecimal -

6.

How The Grinch Stole Christmas

The problem with adapting books into movies is that so often there is so much material in a book that it's impossible to tell the whole story in 90 minutes. The opposite is true of picture books. While picture books tell great stories, they are extremely short. The only way to make it into a movie is to add more characters, plot lines, sub plots, details, etc. And as we see in this film, it usually isn't good. While Jim Carey did a decent enough job as the Grinch, although many of his jokes felt forced, the movie on the whole was a garish over-done nightmare, with all the subtle nuances of the book completely lost.

10 points - added 14 years ago by missdeweydecimal -

7.

The Da Vinci Code

9 points - added 14 years ago by missdeweydecimal -

8.

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

9 points - added 14 years ago by missdeweydecimal -

9.

The Human Stain

9 points - added 14 years ago by missdeweydecimal -

10.

Bram Stoker's Dracula

While Gary Oldman gave a fine performance, I cannot forgive Keanu Reeves for his (bad) English accent