It's official: movies have gotten too damn long. If we wanted to spend four hours in a dark room with strangers, we'd commit a felony. Worst of all, most of these excruciatingly protracted cinematic rock piles don't have to be half as long as they are. In an effort to get us out of the theater and on with our lives, here are some essential guidelines for trimming these bloated theatrical pigs into lean digestible bacon. 


Bad Boys II
Running time: 147 minutes
If you want to call yourself a "fast-paced buddy cop movie" make damn sure you honor the "fast-paced" part. When all you're doing is retooling Beverly Hills Cop, you have no right to entertain delusions of an epic film.
What to cut: Cuba. Didn't the movie resolve itself in Miami? Cutting out the trip to Castro's playland would also have saved the movie from its embarrassing "Hummer smashing poor people's homes" symbolism. Thanks, Michael Bay. Why don't you grab a rifle and head to Tikrit and earn some of that bravado, ya douchebag. 

The Matrix Reloaded
Running time: 138 minutes
Where the first movie was all mystery and action and one WTF? moment after another, Reloaded was long, ponderous, and took itself more seriously than Sean Penn waist-deep in Katrina sewage.
What to cut: The Zion rave. We've been to actual raves that didn't last as long as this remixed Benetton ad. If that's what the future holds, we're shaving our heads and prepping our spines for fuel pumps, because being a living battery for robots can't be worse.

Pearl Harbor
Running time: 183 minutes
It's bad enough that the "human drama" being built up for the first hour of the movie results in nothing more than Hallmark card sentiment delivered by the three most talentless and uncharismatic people on the planet. We've heard History Channel voice-overs with more convincing emotion.
What to cut: Nearly everything. Make this a brisk, 45-minute, painstakingly detailed account of the invasion, and we'd pop in that DVD whenever there was some time to kill between Law & Orders. If we need to know anything more, we'll ask our own shell-shocked grandpa.

Superman Returns
Running time: 154 minutes
Even though it was brought to you by the guy who made the awesome (read: first two) X-Men movies, Superman Returns was the equivalent of a venue touting a Black Sabbath reunion only to usher people in to watch a bad tribute band.
What to cut: All of the Super-moping. Forgetting that Superman has returned from a five-year hiatus looking 20 years younger than when he left, this is a two-and-a-half-hour comic book movie with one fucking action sequence amid scene after scene of of comics' greatest superhero hover-weeping outside a girl's window like a maudlin stalker. 

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
Running time: 150 minutes
What do you do when a movie destined to tank becomes a huge hit? Rush a sequel into production without a script and try to make up a $200 million summer blockbuster as you go!
What to cut: The cannibal island sequence. There are a lot of smaller trims that can be made throughout, but this particular sequence was nothing more than a showcase for Johnny Depp's pratfalling. That would be fine, if the entire Pirates franchise weren't already a showcase for Johnny Depp's pratfalling.

Titanic
Running time: 194 minutes
We applaud Titanic for stealing the Most Adored Teen Chick Flick mantle away from Dirty Dancing, because it at least has more death, more nudity, and more Billy Zane. But we don't appreciate James Cameron taking us on a movie that lasted longer than the actual voyage itself.
What to cut: The framing device. Do we need to see elderly Rose, stock footage of the sunken Titanic, or Bill Paxton? The answer to all of these, all the time, is no.