Total Film's 50 Movies That Are Longer Than Should

Length: 187 mins

Why That's Too Long: The original 1933 film on which it's based is only half as long.

How We'd Fix It: There is an action-packed 100min film in there somewhere. And the eternally slow build-up would be first thing to trim right down.

Length: 194 mins

Why That's Too Long: It feels like we are embarking on the ship's doomed voyage in real time.

How We'd Fix It: Take out the present-day framing device. We don't need to see old Rose upset about losing Jack to know that Rose might be upset about losing Jack.

Length: 146 mins

Why That's Too Long: Spielberg has always managed to explore his parent issues in shorter films than this, and those tended to have other plots too.

How We'd Fix It: Just pick one ending and stick with it. Continuing the story after it seems that everything has been resolved makes this film’s final third draaaaaag.

Length: 134 mins

Why That's Too Long: It’s a light-hearted comedy which, while trying to encapsulate a middle class mid-life crisis, is really just an excuse for Paul Rudd to riff off his co-stars.

How We'd Fix It: Some improvised scenes may raise a few chuckles but there’s no need to include every single one when they do little to drive the ‘plot’. Cut down the off-the-cuff takes and get the film down to a snappy 90 minutes.

Length: 236 mins

Why That's Too Long: The near four-hour director's cut was released after the theatrical cut triumphed at the Oscars, which is really all the indication you need that the film doesn't need to be 'improved'.

How We'd Fix It: Take out the bits that Costner put back in, which mostly amount to an overlong hike with medicine man Kicking Bird.

Length: 169 mins

Why That's Too Long: This is the FIRST PART of a TRILOGY based on a book that’s just around 300 PAGES LONG.

How We'd Fix It: Tell the whole story in one film and stop trying so hard to make it tie in with the previous Lord Of The Rings films. We don’t need to see recognisable characters if they’re not relevant to the main plot of this film.

Length: 147 mins

Why That's Too Long: It's SUPPOSED to be short. That's the beauty of fast-paced, buddy cop action films.

How We'd Fix It: The final segment set in Cuba, when the film feels like it should end in Miami. Y'know, around the same time that the actual plot is resolved.

Length: 154 mins

Why That's Too Long: This should be first and foremost a fun comic-book movie, not - as Bryan Singer aims for - a two-and-a-half-hour tribute to the Kryptonian's earlier outings.

How We'd Fix It: Cut out all of Supes' wallowing in self-pity and his creepy stalking of Lois, and then ADD IN a few more action scenes, to help you believe that time can fly.

Length: 165 mins

Why That's Too Long: It may deal with the serious issue of slavery and follow one man’s journey to enact life-affirming revenge, but this is still Tarantino being typically slick and pulpy. A shorter running time would fit better with the film’s stylistic tone.

How We'd Fix It: Things slow way down when Django and Schultz arrive at DiCaprio’s plantation, and then our protagonist’s ‘journey’ loses it’s way a bit. These scenes should really make up the climactic final act, but instead they constitute half of the movie. This is where the movie can be a little leaner.

Length: 138 mins

Why That's Too Long: With the first film driven by mystery and action, this first sequel is an over-indulgent exploration of the nature of the Matrix, complete with over philosophising and Messianic symbolism.

How We'd Fix It: Even just editing down the Architect's speech would probably help the running time. And the rave in Zion. Oh God, the rave in Zion...

Length: 153 mins

Why That's Too Long: While Tarantino completely reimagines history, there’s no excuse for him not to imagine it a little more quickly.

How We'd Fix It: We know Tarantino is famous for his dialogue scenes. We LOVE his dialogue scenes. All of them. For every one of the 20 minutes that they each last. But – dare we say it – some of them could be cut down to serve the film as a whole…

Length: 150 mins

Why That's Too Long: It's a sequel to an unexpected hit that was only successful thanks to Johnny Depp's character-bumbling. So of course they should turn it into an epic trilogy.

How We'd Fix It: In this case, a sequence on a cannibal-filled island can be cut right out. It's only an excuse for even more character bumbling anyway.

Length: 161 mins

Why That's Too Long: At this stage, this is still a film for kids. We haven’t even got to the juicy Voldemort stuff yet – this is all just magical monsters and Grint gurning.

How We'd Fix It: Sometimes not adhering so strictly to the book is a good thing as we don’t need to see the Hogwarts kids entire school year played out exactly as written. Oh, and a little less silliness from Dobby, please.

Length: 162 mins

Why That's Too Long: As is plain to see, Avatar is a thinly veiled sci-fi take on a classic tale similar to that told in Pocahontas - which is, by the way, 81 minutes long.

How We'd Fix It: There’s too much time spent on Sully becoming part of the tribe, only to then spend too much time on Quaritch’s relentless attempt to destroy everything in sight.

Length: 150 mins

Why That's Too Long: Again, we’ll say it: THIS IS A FILM ABOUT ROBOTS WHO TURN INTO CARS AND FIGHT EACH OTHER.

How We'd Fix It: All of the nonsense in Egypt where the Fallen is explained. Whatever happened to this being told from a relatable human perspective?

Length: 146 mins

Why That's Too Long: It may have serious themes, but this is still a comedy at heart. And no one wants 146 minutes of Adam Sandler. Not even Rob Schneider.

How We'd Fix It: Apatow just needs to yell ‘Cut’ a little more regularly rather than see how each scene turns out through improvisation. If we trim a minute off of every single scene, it probably wouldn’t make that much of a difference.

Length: 154 mins

Why That's Too Long: After the successes of Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction no studio would dare suggest edits to Tarantino. Hence we are left with a flabby, familiar crime thriller that could have been told in 100 minutes.

How We'd Fix It: Simplify the plot and cut down on the stylish homages.

Length: 175 mins

Why That's Too Long: Oliver Stone himself thought it was too long, releasing a director’s cut that was 8 minutes shorter. Oh, but then he released a final cut that was 214 minutes long and then a 206-minute ‘ultimate cut’. Hint: It’s ALL too long.

How We'd Fix It: The battle scenes are the best part of this film, so we’d focus on the action and maybe cut down the pseudo incest storyline with Angelina Jolie.

Length: 166 mins

Why That's Too Long: In a fascinating story about a man who grows younger with age, we really don’t need to see his entire life to ‘get it’.

How We'd Fix It: Focus on the love story between Benjamin and Daisy, leaving out the huge middle sections of his life where he is off doing his own thing.

Length: 157 mins

Why That's Too Long: The hunt for Osama bin Laden is a story that we all experienced in real time through the media. Plus we know how it ends.

How We'd Fix It: We could have done with less shots of Jessica Chastain looking frustrated at some paperwork.

Length: 149 mins

Why That's Too Long: Where Pirates Of The Caribbean kinda earned the right to get bigger and bloated with its sequels, the Lone Ranger is a new character for young audiences and this doesn’t do a great job of immediately capturing their imagination.

How We'd Fix It: Focus on the adventure-driven plot and keep the sideshow antics of Johnny Depp’s Tonto to a minimum.

Length: 150 mins

Why That's Too Long: Historical biopics are already fighting an uphill battle to keep our interest. There, we said it.

How We'd Fix It: Perhaps a few less scenes of old men talking? There’s a reason why Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter seemed so enticing…

Length: 150 mins

Why That's Too Long: It’s a harrowing tale of Holocaust-era tragedy. Powerful it may be, but we can only take so much…

How We'd Fix It: Adrian Brody’s Szpilman spends so much time in a big almost-empty house hiding from the outside world that it starts to feel like… um… nothing much is happening.

Length: 169 mins

Why That's Too Long: This was a franchise based on a Disney theme park ride – it was never meant to be an epic saga.

How We'd Fix It: The surreal scenes at the start portraying Sparrow trapped in the Purgatory-like Locker of Davy Jones can be first to go.

Length: 165 mins

Why That's Too Long: We realise that Australia is a huge country that deserves an epic movie to do it all justice, but really a lot of it is just open country with nothing much to see…

How We'd Fix It: There’s really a lot of set-up in this film establishing the relationship between the “whites” and the Aborigines, let alone Lady Sarah’s relationship with Drover. Surely this can be chopped down and we’d all still get the subtext?

Length: 143 mins

Why That's Too Long: Supes may be gritty and sad in this film, but he’s still a comic-book character who needs to deliver fun and excitement and little else.

How We'd Fix It: Cut the final showdown with Zod right down. Not only would it shave about 20 minutes off the total running time, it would save the lives of thousands of Metropolis residents in the process.

Length: 160 mins

Why That's Too Long: Do we really need to say? Even the title can be trimmed to at least half its length.

How We'd Fix It: The opening act of the film establishing the dynamic between Jesse and Bob can be cut right down to get straight into the thick of the plot.

Length: 158 mins

Why That's Too Long: As complex as Stieg Larsson’s novels are, for a film this story works best as a murder mystery whodunnit. And there are huge chunks of Larsson’s text that be ditched to make that happen.

How We'd Fix It: Cut out all the scenes referring to the Millennium publication and the business side of keeping that magazine afloat, and you’ll end up with a leaner, meaner movie. In fact, you’ll end up with the original Swedish film, which did it just right.

Length: 178 mins

Why That's Too Long: This is just the introduction of a story covering three films – we don’t need to get to know every single character in the Shire THAT well.

How We'd Fix It: Cut down most of the Shire scenes. If this is a trilogy about a lot of walking, it’s almost an hour before Frodo even takes his first step.

Length: 172 mins

Why That's Too Long: Granted, this is a film that concerns itself with the very nature of life and destiny so you’d expect that it can’t all be wrapped up in 90 minutes. But when the film is made up of cleverly edited short stories, you’d think that one of them could get cut along the way without making too much of a dent.

How We'd Fix It: Easily accomplished by cutting out just one of the storylines, and we’d opt for Jim Broadbent’s camp OAP-centred comedy.

Length: 143 mins

Why That's Too Long: In the recent tradition of making Bond a more relatable, grittier secret agent with problems and concerns, we really just want to see him back at his best badass self.

How We'd Fix It: A little too much time spent at Bond’s Scottish home for the Home Alone-style ending. Given the spectacle of some of the earlier stunts, this ending already seems a little anticlimactic anyway.

Length: 169 mins

Why That's Too Long: We get that war epics are, by their very nature, long but, for a mainstream audience, 169 minutes is a little “bum-achey”.

How We'd Fix It: There are so many famous faces in this film – all of whom would now be considered cameos had the movie been released today – that it makes you realise just how many characters there are. We reckon that the cast, and therefore some of the dialogue, can easily be trimmed.

Length: 154 mins

Why That's Too Long: It’s a film about robots who turn into cars and fight each other. There’s not a whole lot of epic existential themes that need to be explored to make this a fun movie.

How We'd Fix It: Trim down all the battle sequences. We’ll let you in on a little secret, Bay – we can’t tell what’s going on anyway.

Length: 189 mins

Why That's Too Long: There was a time when most Stephen King adaptations were just 90-minute horror flicks.

How We'd Fix It: The framing device featuring an aged Tom Hanks can be cut out almost altogether (we’d keep his age reveal) with little effect on the overall story.

Length: 158 mins

Why That's Too Long: That’s a whole lot of shouty-cry-singing.

How We'd Fix It: We’re just going to say this: Do ALL of the songs need to be in there? Really though? No, but really?

Length: 177 mins

Why That's Too Long: It’s just cruel asking Mel to keep up his accent for that length of time.

How We'd Fix It: The story really ends with Wallace’s fate. We don’t really need the tacked-on epilogue scene featuring Scotland’s new king.

Length: 144 mins

Why That's Too Long: We were all expecting a film exploring the question “Why Scientology be crazy”? and we figured there’d be a simple answer like: “Because all Scientologists be crazy”.

How We'd Fix It: The film really only hits its stride when Freddie meets Lancaster Dodd, so all of the scenes at the start establishing his fragile state of mind can be cut down. It’s already immediately obvious that he’s not quite stable.

Length: 157 mins

Why That's Too Long: When you have a crime drama between two people on opposite sides of the law, the lack of other main characters usually means that there’s not a lot of other things to explore.

How We'd Fix It: We’d end the film on Lucas’s arrest. As enjoyable as it is to see Crowe and Washington go head to head in an interrogation scene, by this point, Roberts has already ‘won’.

Length: 149 mins

Why That's Too Long: Dan Brown’s book is such a page turner, you could probably read it in less time.

How We'd Fix It: The whole final sequence in Scotland feels a lot like overkill, especially as there's no real adventure left.

Length: 165 mins

Why That's Too Long: Ok, so Christopher Nolan’s take on Batman is as far removed from ‘comic-book’ as you can get, but c’mon - kids are still going to see this film too.

How We'd Fix It: It takes almost an hour before we even see Batman on screen and that’s far too long in our book. Maybe the film should just start from there?

Length: 157 mins

Why That's Too Long: Based on real events it may be, but this is still a very simple murder mystery at heart.

How We'd Fix It: Focus on the mystery and cut down the personal lives of the people involved. It IS sad that Jake Gyllenhaal’s wife leaves him over his obsession but really, we just want to know who did it. And quickly.

Length: 110 mins

Why That's Too Long: From the moment the prosthetics come on, the whole exercise goes from bad to distastefully terrible worse.

How We'd Fix It: Well, for starters, we wouldn't have introduced the whole cross-dressing, racial-stereotyping thing…

Length: 144 mins

Why That's Too Long: We never thought we’d say this but there’s only so much sword-swinging we can take.

How We'd Fix It: The battle scenes are exciting but… a little too long? Scott could have probably cut a huge chunk of these down without changing the story one bit.

Length: 170 mins

Why That's Too Long: To be honest, we always felt that the interesting Howard Hughes story to be told is his battle with depression and his inner demons. Something that is only really explored fully towards the end of this extensive running time.

How We'd Fix It: We’d cut down Hughes’ early life to concentrate on him at the height of his fame.

Length: 143 mins

Why That's Too Long: We love Tom Hanks, but this is an awfully long film for any one man to shoulder completely by himself.

How We'd Fix It: End the film as he gets off the island. That’s the real story after all – we don’t need to see the aftermath.

Length: 139 mins

Why That's Too Long: It’s an oddball romantic ‘dramedy’. Not a war-torn love story.

How We'd Fix It: Tighten up the plotting and keep things snappy. Everyone gives great performances but the film ambles along at too a leisurely a pace to ever be smart and snappy.

Length: 145 mins

Why That's Too Long: Global warfare or not, this is still a sci-fi flick about alien invasion. Most manage to tell that story in around 90 minutes.

How We'd Fix It: Edit out some of the character backstories. We don’t need to get to know Randy Quaid and we certainly don’t need to give two hoots about dog Boomer.

Length: 485 mins

Why That's Too Long: Andy Warhol's silent black-and-white film is eight hours and five minutes of continuous slow motion footage of the Empire State Building. And, well, that's it.

How We'd Fix It: Admittedly, he was probably going for more of an art experiment than coherent narrative, but surely *SARCASM ALERT* four hours would've served as perfunctorily as eight?

Length: 167 mins

Why That's Too Long: It was a passion project for Scorsese over many years and you have to wonder whether the story got padded out a little along the way.

How We'd Fix It: Focus on the fascinating chemistry between Day-Lewis and DiCaprio and ditch the Diaz romance.

Length: 119 mins

Why That's Too Long:Pitch Black succeeded so well because it was lean, mean and focused. The Chronicles of Riddick did the complete opposite, pumping so much space opera, melodrama and superfluous characters into the mix that it drastically missed the point of why fans had loved Riddick in the first place.

How We'd Fix It: Remove all the additional characters and sub-plots who brought nothing to the table (Judi Dench, as much as we love you, we're looking at you). So, in other words, a movie that looks pretty darn similar to forthcoming threequel Riddick….