Thursday, May 16, 2013

11 Awful Scenes (That Ruined Otherwise Good Films)



It’s very rare that once great scene can redeem a bad movie.  The only example I can think of is in Wizards, in which the protagonist subverts a magic duel by shooting the villain with a Luger.  That pretty much made that pretentious film worth sitting through.  However, it is common for a good movie to be ruined by one terrible scene.  It can’t really be just a boring or irritating scene, either.  It has to be ideologically offensive, something that renders the heroes unlikable when they’re not supposed to be or something that ruins any conceivable suspense.  Another surefire way to ruin a good movie is with a bad ending, since the ending is everything.  WARNING: I do get political on a couple of these things, but you know where I stand on gun control.  Also, I do touch on the abortion issue, but I mostly concern myself with how the movie treats the issue rather than my opinion.    


11. ROCK’S DEATH (AND EVERYTHING AFTERWARD)
The Boondock Saints
The majority of Boondock Saints was a fun romp that didn’t seem to take itself more seriously than it needed to.  However, once the lovable David Della Rocco died and Il Duce revealed himself to the boys as their father, the movie got way too serious.  The lovable bantering duo of heroes came off as self-righteous crazies from then on out.  This might be justified if the movie was meant to be a deconstruction of vigilantism, but apparently Troy Duffy seemed to be behind this the whole time.  The movie ends with a pretentious and absolutely unbearable closing sequence with streetside interviews.  This is also a bit of a cheat because it’s actually multiple scenes leading up to the end, but I think the movie jumped the shark close enough to the credits to mention.

10. JOHN McCLANE UP AND MURDERS SOMEONE
Live Free or Die Hard
Unlike most people, I thought Die Hard 4 was actually pretty fun.   I would include it on a list of Movies I Like That Everyone Else Hates if not for this one scene.  No, I don’t mean murder in the typical internet critic who clearly doesn’t know what the word murder means way.  I mean John McClane actually kills an unarmed man in cold blood.  McClane may be a badass, but he’s not a dark antihero.  And yet, everyone else complained about how he didn’t get to drop any F-Bombs.  Sometimes I just don’t understand other people. 

9. HOW DO YOU ACCIDENTALLY BURN DOWN A TRAIN FULL OF PEOPLE?
For Greater Glory
This movie, although arguably lackluster, could have been a solid film if not for this transparent attempt at whitewashing.  Father Reyes Vega’s intentional murder of a trainload of people was true atrocity of the Cristero War, and the movie attempts to pass it off as an honest mistake.  What literally happens is that he hastily orders an underling to burn the train after quickly asking if it’s empty.  When he hears screams coming from it, he’s like “Oops” and doesn’t do anything to stop it.  It’s so unconvincing that I smelled bullshit even without knowing of the incident.  If you’re going to tackle such a serious subject at least acknowledge the ambiguity or else risk insulting everyone.

8. ANTI-GUN NONSENSE
Road to Perdition
This would have actually been a solid period movie if not for a scene in which attempts to pass off this trope as a good thing.  When Tom Hanks’ son is confronted by Jude Law’s character, who seems intent on murdering him, he cannot bring himself to pull the trigger, and Tom Hanks has to do it himself.  When the boy says that he couldn’t do it, Hanks smiles and says, “I didn’t think so,” because, you know, killing a dangerous psychopath in self-defense is TOTALLY THE SAME THING as murdering people for the Irish mob.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not judging a child for unable to kill, I’m judging the movie for its peevish treatment of the event.  And then the closing narration twists the knife by having the grown up version of the boy say that he never handled another gun again.  UGH.  I know this was based on a graphic novel I haven’t read, but what do you expect from the director who gave us American Beauty?  I guess it wasn’t until Skyfall when we’d get a Sam Mendes movie without any political buffoonery. 

7. NEVER GO FULL SJW
Get Out
While creative, one line ruined it for me.  The low point is near the beginning when the villain is showing off his souvenirs from foreign countries to the protagonist.  When you’re rounding your eyes at this depiction of the “problem” of cultural appropriation, the character literally utters, “It’s such privilege to enjoy another person’s culture.”  I mean that’s actually a line a human being wrote into a movie.  Fortunately, the movie doesn’t top itself afterward.  It seemed to be a self-conscious attempt to chase away a misaimed fandom of conservatives who could have easily interpreted the movie to be about how the Left ideological enslaves minorities.

6. A NOT-SO-HAPPY HAPPY ENDING
Source Code
This movie pretty much had a perfectly bittersweet ending in the bag.  Jake Ghyllenhaal managed to save the day in the real world, make peace with his father, end a torturous “life” as mental antiterrorist weapon, and play out a fantasy in which he prevents the real-life destruction of a city and gets to kiss Michelle Monaghan.  If the movie ended at that kiss, it would have been perfect.  Instead, they make up some crap about how he gets to survive in a whole created universe, meaning that he’s possessing the body of an innocent man, and Chicago gets bombed with no clue as to who did it in an infinite number of universes.
   
5. PUBLIC RAPE IS OK IF...
Crank
This would have been a fun, original action comedy if not for this scene.  When Jason Statham meets his girlfriend on a crowded Chinatown street and needs a life-sustaining jolt of adrenaline, he bafflingly concludes that raping his girlfriend in front of everyone is the only solution.  But she eventually starts enjoying which totally makes it okay, right?  Moral Event Horizon aside, it’s pretty counterproductive.  When you’ve been given a toxin that makes your life dependent on constant adrenaline flow, you’d think risking an orgasm would be the last thing you’d want to do.

4. WHO NEEDS CONFLICT WHEN YOU CAN JUST TURN BACK TIME EVERY TIME THINGS DON’T GO YOUR WAY?
Superman/Superman II
I already complained about this cop-out in the above review, but it’s even worse in Superman II.  Superman and Lois just had an understanding where she promises to keep his secret identity intact.  This would have been a great ending which would have resulted in the characters maturing organically.  Instead of trusting her Superman kisses her memory away.  Afterwards Superman enjoys Lois’ imposed ignorance, because we’re all just toys in his game, right?  The Donner cut is worse because he turns back time again, this time negating the whole damn movie.  It’s funny how both the producers and the director thought that the mature and intelligent ending wasn’t an option, because we had to have that “endearing” dynamic between Clark and a suspicious but hapless Lois.

3. GOOD, OLD-FASHIONED HERESY
Prince of Darkness
An otherwise masterful horror film from director John Carpenter features a short scene of exposition revealing that Jesus was a space alien who tried to warn humanity about the Anti-Christ, but the Catholic Church hijacked his message for its own agenda (which I suppose included the Golden Rule).  The funny thing is, this is never acknowledged throughout the rest of the movie, and no one ever acts in accordance with its ramifications.  No crisis of faith or whatever.  The scene could have been easily cut out without losing anything.

2. DEAD CHILDREN ARE JUST HILARIOUS
Planet Terror
This would have been a fun movie if not for the one scene were Dakota irresponsibly hands her child a gun with tragically predictable results.  Just because you’re making an homage to tasteless midnight movies doesn’t mean you have to completely sink to their level.  Don’t get me started about Dakota’s Karma Houdini act throughout the movie.

1. WHAT ARE FRIENDS FOR?  WHY, SACRIFICIAL RAPE LAMBS, OF COURSE.
Death Proof
Despite the opinions of virtually everyone else, (including Tarantino himself), I believe that this would have been one of the best of his movies.  It had a clever premise, great violence and one of the most epic pro-gun moments in film history.  The problem is when Rosario Dawson’s character concocts a plan to leave one of her friends as “collateral” to a shady redneck while purposefully implying that he can have sex with her (all without her consent).  Dawson’s performance in this scene is funny, but Moral Event Horizon renders the subsequent chase scene meaningless, since I cannot really root for these people any more.  It’s ironic that the first group of girls were killed off just for being a little annoying and vapid, but the heroines who arguably deserve it more prevail.

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