At what point do you walk out of a movie you aren't enjoying?
Asked by
filmfann (
52515
)
June 15th, 2015
Have you given it a proper chance at 10 minutes?
If there is only 10 minutes left, do you feel you might as well finish it? When is the point of no return?
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22 Answers
If I’m not invested within the first 20 minutes, I take my popcorn and leave. I think 20 minutes is plenty of time to hook an audience.
If I have only ten minutes or so left and I’ve figured it all out, I’ll stay til the end. I’ve been sitting that long, 10 more minutes won’t kill me.
I’m with @chyna – 15–20 minutes. If it hasn’t grabbed me in that time period, I’m out of there.
Most recent early departure: Solaris link
I’m with them ^^^^^. 15–20 minutes to pique my interest or I’m out. If the effects or costuming grab me, maybe 30 minutes.
It needs to be REALLY bad, I’m not that picky.
Obviously it depends completely on if you’re on your own or not. I used to sometimes grumble and roll around in my sit when I was with my former husband and not liking a film. For me what also matters is how I’m reacting. If I am really disturbed by it, I’ll walk out faster than if I’m slightly bored. I walked out of Leviathan recently after close to an hour because I didn’t like the characters and it wasn’t going anywhere – but it was o.k., Traffic I walked out of when the daughter was shooting up and then came back in an hour later (I was with someone.) Dirty Harry I walked out pretty early when it got messy and waited for my friends outside.
I’ve never done it. I guess I tend not to go to films that will be so bad that they force me to walk out. At least, I haven’t found the threshold yet.
Of course, I’m the person who can hardly bear to stop reading a book I don’t like. There have been very few books I’ve abandoned partway through, mostly due to bad dialogue.
@dappled_leaves – not me. I give any book the 50 page test. If it hasn’t grabbed me in 50 pages, it’s gone.
(The most recent Grisham book was gone in 35)
When it becomes so stupid that it starts to insult me.
Like the last Ninja Turtle movie.
When I decide to see a picture I watch it through to the end. I have only walked out of a movie once. After about 20 minutes I know whether I like the film or not.
30 mins max and I am out!
It hasn’t happened for awhile, but it’s one of those things that varies from bad film to bad film. I suppose it’s at the point where I decide ” nothing to come is capable of redeeming what I have suffered through already
Never happened to me, I choose wisely the movies I see at the kinema, not been let down once. I have fantastic taste see, unless you count Yogi Bear, but that was my daughter’s fault.
Wow. I’m pretty snobby about many things, but I’ve almost never left a movie theater. I did at least think about it during Mad Max: Fury Road, though. I can’t wait for overblown silly CGI nonsense-taken-seriously and total BS action antics to stop being popular.
For movies on Internet/DVD, though, I will stop watching stuff. It’s not so much a matter of time limits, as it is the nature of my dissatisfaction with what I’m watching. It has to be pretty obviously bad in a bad bad way (or clearly something I will continue to hate) for me to give up before 10 minutes if I thought there was something that had me interested enough to choose to start watching it.
Hmm, I guess I do have checkpoints at about every 5 minutes for the first 20 minutes. But it’s about how bad it is and in what ways. I have watched the enitre Birdemic: Shock and Terror even though it is unbelievably bad in a shocking number of ways, but it’s amazingly bad in surprising and often funny ways, so it was entertaining. Meanwhile Snakes on a Train I found hatefully bad and boring, and couldn’t make myself even last to where there was any sign of a train (maybe 15 minutes in).
I have rarely endured anything to 10 minutes from the end and THEN deciding to quit – I’ve considered doing that though when the ending is going to be something horrible that I don’t like… but even then, I’d probably stick with it to see if I’m wrong due to some last-minute reversal.
I never walk out. Sometimes I fall asleep though.
I have never done it. Probably because I always go to the cinema with someone and if I want to leave that person has to agree to follow me too. I remember watching movies I consider completely crap while the other person enjoyed themselves so much, so I just had to sit there suffering.
Another reason: movie tickets are quite expensive, so leaving the cinema is like throwing some money out the window. That’s partly the reason why I prefer watching movies at home and only accept invitation.
I’ve never done it. I’ve only wanted to maybe two or three times ever, but I stayed to the end, partly because I was with someone else, and partly because I clung to a slim hope that there might be something good about it before the end.
Like @dappled_leaves, I’m not much of a ‘walk out’ type of person. I can only remember walking out on two films. One was a porn film when I was about 14 (there’s a long story behind how we ended up in a cinema watching porn at that age) and the second was Carrie after one of my girlfriends freaked out right at the start and ran out.
I see a lot of films but I’m pretty selective about which ones I go to see. I read reviews and look at things like IMDB before I go and I know what I like and what I really don’t like. So it’s very rare I end up in a cinema watching a film that’s so bad I have to leave.
I’m ma gonna get my money’s worth one way or another. If the movie is a stanker I will sit and heckle quietly and make disgusted noises. I’ve been known to yell at the screen when they make unforgivable science errors.
@Zaku
The effects in Mad Max Fury Road were almost all practial.
@ragingloli Really? Wow, ok that’s interesting. I find that pretty hard to believe… now I have to go find some “making of” material to see what you’re talking about.
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