Plot devices that ruin any movie

[Unia]

Strangely enough my searchbar test brought no proper match, so my apologies if a similar thread exists. What ruins a promising movie is a matter of taste, of course, but I've noticed a few obvious mistakes that movie makers keep repeating. These include

Making a horror movie of some unknown, supernatural evil. Then explaining the phenomenon to death.

Making a thriller about serial killings etc. and dropping so many hints the viewer guesses who the culprit is about 5 minutes in. (I'm looking at you, Saw. I think. I was too annoyed to finish that one tbh.)

Time travel. Okay, it doesn't ruin a movie but it does guarantee plot holes that are hard to plug even in the context of the movie. Take Terminator, for instance. Without the whole time travel ordeal John Connor wouldn't even exist!
Then there's the paradox of time travel: if you go back in time to fix something and succeed, you no longer have a motivation for going back in time and thus never did.
Ah, I'm just being too serious with this one.

Dear Escapists, what, if anything, do you think is a bad turn of a plot that makes an initially good movie turn sour?

 

[Reqviemus]

Well, the number one must be
"And it was all a dream!"

 

[Cherry Cola]

Starring Ben Affleck

Uuuugh...

Seriously, I've yet to see a film where I haven't gotten annoyed the instant his face shows

 

[Archer147]

Starring Ben Affleck

Uuuugh...

Seriously, I've yet to see a film where I haven't gotten annoyed the instant his face shows

dogma, mallrats, chasing amy...

religion. i know, i know, but i loved "knowing"... up until the end

 

[Premonition]

The moments where they are trying to hard to keep it dramatic or to keep the plottwists coming.

 

[Kermi]

I'm trying to think up bad movies I've seen lately and all I can think of are M. Night Shyamalan movies, so I'm going to say "plot twists you see coming from about the first ten minutes in but dismiss because they're too stupid, only then it turns out you were right all along and you realise you just wasted 90 minutes of your life". For references, see The Village and The Happening. Sixth Sense and Unbreakable get a pass because most people didn't see Sixth Sense coming and Unbreakable was enjoyable to watch with a genuinely interesting idea behind it.

 

[BuchalBainne]

That "Girl" who falls in love with a "Guy" only to find that "Guy 2" was the guy of her dreams. So "Girl" leaves "Guy" at alter and runs off with "Guy 2".

I hate romance movies, so that doesn't count.

My biggest gripe has to be Green Rocks (ie some magical substance that does stuff to advance the plot). I understand that it has to be used sometimes but at least try to explain why it does what it does.

 

[Cherry Cola]

Starring Ben Affleck

Uuuugh...

Seriously, I've yet to see a film where I haven't gotten annoyed the instant his face shows

dogma, mallrats, chasing amy...

religion. i know, i know, but i loved "knowing"... up until the end

Besides Clerks and maybe Clerks 2, I don't care much for Kevin Smith's films.

 

[imnot]

falling off a cliff, bieng held onto by other guy, saying"LET GO!" not bieng let go,pulled up.

 

[natural20]

I'm trying to think up bad movies I've seen lately and all I can think of are M. Night Shyamalan movies, so I'm going to say "plot twists you see coming from about the first ten minutes in but dismiss because they're too stupid, only then it turns out you were right all along and you realise you just wasted 90 minutes of your life". For references, see The Village and The Happening. Sixth Sense and Unbreakable get a pass because most people didn't see Sixth Sense coming and Unbreakable was enjoyable to watch with a genuinely interesting idea behind it.

A friend of mine pulled a "Village" in our Wild West RPG once. We got on a train, headed into the desert, and discovered it was the 23rd century, complete with flying cars. He got dice thrown at him. Come to think of it, most of these plot devices ruin games, too.....

OT: Magic starts happening, out of nowhere.

 

[Kermi]

That "Girl" who falls in love with a "Guy" only to find that "Guy 2" was the guy of her dreams. So "Girl" leaves "Guy" at alter and runs off with "Guy 2".

I hate romance movies, so that doesn't count.

My biggest gripe has to be Green Rocks (ie some magical substance that does stuff to advance the plot). I understand that it has to be used sometimes but at least try to explain why it does what it does.

Oh man, you're gonna send me off to tvtropes, I can feel it.

Your green rocks comment has me thinking about Unobtanium, which was the actual name of the element in Avatar... it's like James Cameron forgot to do a find+replace on the script to insert the real name of the element before sending it for printing. It would be like Arthur Conan Doyle sending Sherlock Holmes to a bar called The Red Herring, only to SHOCKINGLY come up empty handed.

 

[Kermi]

I'm trying to think up bad movies I've seen lately and all I can think of are M. Night Shyamalan movies, so I'm going to say "plot twists you see coming from about the first ten minutes in but dismiss because they're too stupid, only then it turns out you were right all along and you realise you just wasted 90 minutes of your life". For references, see The Village and The Happening. Sixth Sense and Unbreakable get a pass because most people didn't see Sixth Sense coming and Unbreakable was enjoyable to watch with a genuinely interesting idea behind it.

you saw the plot twist to The Village coming, i am impressed.

Dude, I haven't even seen the whole movie. I saw it coming from the trailer.

 

[HeavyMetalHamster]

Related to a point in the original post:

I really hate it when there is some kind of really freaky monsters killing people and then it turns out it was something like a cult or just guys in disguises (I think I'm mainly thinking of The 13th Warrior and The Village...though I've never seen the latter).

Anything where there is something epic going on and it turns out to be just something mundane.

"Sweet the world isn't going to end in a bloody, firey apocalypse, it was just a conspiracy"
*moan*

 

[Celtic_Kerr]

That "Girl" who falls in love with a "Guy" only to find that "Guy 2" was the guy of her dreams. So "Girl" leaves "Guy" at alter and runs off with "Guy 2".

I hate romance movies, so that doesn't count.

My biggest gripe has to be Green Rocks (ie some magical substance that does stuff to advance the plot). I understand that it has to be used sometimes but at least try to explain why it does what it does.

Oh man, you're gonna send me off to tvtropes, I can feel it.

Your green rocks comment has me thinking about Unobtanium, which was the actual name of the element in Avatar... it's like he forgot to do a find+replace on the script before sending it for printing. It would be like Arthur Conan Doyle sending Sherlock Holmes to a bar called The Red Herring, only to SHOCKINGLY come up empty handed.

I don't like how every single comedy nowadays coming out is a "Romantic Comedy" which just means it's a romance with a few jokes tossed in. I don't like when a girl mentions a perfect situation and the man always somehow manages to put that situation together despite overwhelming circumstances.

I remember watching (and I'll kill those who laugh) pretty woman with the family, and Julia Roberts says she's always had a dream of a knight coming on his white horse, climbing the tower she's trapped in and proposing to her. So what happens? He drives up in a white limo, climbs a fire escape and proposes...

OH! And I think the unobtainium was because it couldn't be obtained on Earth

 

[DalekJaas]

I'm trying to think up bad movies I've seen lately and all I can think of are M. Night Shyamalan movies, so I'm going to say "plot twists you see coming from about the first ten minutes in but dismiss because they're too stupid, only then it turns out you were right all along and you realise you just wasted 90 minutes of your life". For references, see The Village and The Happening. Sixth Sense and Unbreakable get a pass because most people didn't see Sixth Sense coming and Unbreakable was enjoyable to watch with a genuinely interesting idea behind it.

you saw the plot twist to The Village coming, i am impressed.

Dude, I haven't even seen the whole movie. I saw it coming from the trailer.

Haha agreed I saw that twist coming in the first 5 minutes of the film, that movie was ridiculous.

 

[Kurokami]

Strangely enough my searchbar test brought no proper match, so my apologies if a similar thread exists. What ruins a promising movie is a matter of taste, of course, but I've noticed a few obvious mistakes that movie makers keep repeating. These include

Making a horror movie of some unknown, supernatural evil. Then explaining the phenomenon to death.

Making a thriller about serial killings etc. and dropping so many hints the viewer guesses who the culprit is about 5 minutes in. (I'm looking at you, Saw. I think. I was too annoyed to finish that one tbh.)

Time travel. Okay, it doesn't ruin a movie but it does guarantee plot holes that are hard to plug even in the context of the movie. Take Terminator, for instance. Without the whole time travel ordeal John Connor wouldn't even exist!
Then there's the paradox of time travel: if you go back in time to fix something and succeed, you no longer have a motivation for going back in time and thus never did.
Ah, I'm just being too serious with this one.

Dear Escapists, what, if anything, do you think is a bad turn of a plot that makes an initially good movie turn sour?

Uhh...

If you're talking about Saw 1 I call bullshit.