Movie/TV cliches that need to go away
in Not Football
Does anyone have movie/TV tropes that are pet peeves for them? Here is a list of some that always make me roll my eyes, and need retiring right away.
- Theatrical villains calling crimes "elegant".
- Theatrical villains eating all alone in a large space. Hero comes in, villain dabs mouth with large napkin, offers food and a seat, hero refuses. Because standing is heroic, I guess?
- Someone is speaking about someone else in a mocking tone, not realizing they are in the room until they see expressions on faces. "He's behind me, isn't he?" This has been done thousands of times and stopped being funny around 1954.
- Characters not staying dead. This affects even movies where characters do stay dead, as you never really know.
- Hero finally corners villain, but instead of handing over to police, is tempted to kill them. Conflicted villain walks up to the gun and says "do it" implying they need the pain to end. Hero's buddy says "don't do it - this is not you!" Hero's hand shakes and they grit their teeth, before dropping their arm with a big sigh.
- Hero has confrontation with villain, whose plan is succeeding. Villain makes illogical "join me and we will be unstoppable" speech. Hero refuses.
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It always annoys me, in Bond movies, that when given the opportunity to just shoot Bond dead the villain instead ties him up/locks him in a room. Thereby allowing Bond the opportunity to escape and ultimately defeat the villain.
Films that are too long.
Wouldn’t it be more annoying though if they did just shoot Bond dead and the film ended abruptly?
(Although I do fully agree with you)
If Spycatcher is anything to go by, Bond would spend the majority of his time in the office, either doing the Times crossword or trying to figure who else in the office is working for the Russians.
People with bloody superpowers.
Soviets*
I would have no issue with Bond films ending after 5 minutes!
A few more:
It's also surprising how many punches both villains and good guys can take to the face without showing any sign of bruising.
Funnily enough I was thinking this the other day. Mrs Ital was watching quite a new CSI (An American crime show if you’re not familiar) and this particular episode had a fake psychic medium who gets caught up in a bigger conspiracy and I think I’ve seen that in pretty much every US series I’ve ever seen Magnum PI, Columbo, Ironside, Murder she wrote and so on .
Oh and another one is the doppelgänger of the hero who gets up to no good.
American woman arrives in a European country with a name like Molvania. Said country has a lot of castles and towns that look like the best bits of Bruges. There is usually some snow that looks remarkably white. All locals speak perfect English.
American woman who works as nanny/teacher/lawyer and really wants to be a writer/artist/designer of pretty things meets handsome man of indeterminate means and falls out with him. Within 75 movie minutes later he turns out to be the Crown Prince of Molvania and they are betrothed.
Why Hallmark is still churning these potboilers out beats me. I have to watch at least three every Christmas.
Villain makes the "We are more than alike than you care to admit" speech (usually in tandem with the "join me" speech above).
Here is one I hate: the supervillain kills one of his henchmen on the spot (usually shooting him without looking) instead of the hero, because the henchman made a tiny mistake. It's supposed to show how ruthless the villain is, but just looks like horrendously bad HR, as it just means they'll have to go back on henchmen.com to hire more baddies after the hero departs the scene.
In martials arts films the "hero" managing to fight off multiple assailants at the same time rather than just getting battered as in real life.
Guns that never seem to require a reload/have an endless supply of bullets.
WW2 films using M4 Shermans, M24s or even worse M48 Pattons as German tanks.
You're getting confused with what Rob Couhig said to Lomtadze at an Airport bar.
One of my biggest movie peeves is space operas where, when approaching a planet, the goodies try to sneak their craft past a few baddie ships instead of, you know, approaching the fucking massive planet from a different direction.
It’s up there with landing on the planet and being a few miles or less from the place/person/alien thing whose whereabouts on the planet you do not know. Unless the planet is the planet of the Clangers, the odds of that happening are laughably small because, again, planets are fucking massive.
Also sound in space.
But I do love Event Horizon. And the Soup Dragon.
Spot on. Similarly, pathetically under-guarded hostages/assets based on resources. In one of the Mission Impossibles, a villain (played by Phillip Seymour Hoffman) has enough clout to get black helicopters filled with SWAT-type mercenaries to land on a bridge and forcibly extract him from the government agency's grip.
At the climax of the movie, he has Tom Cruise's squeeze held hostage with two half-hearted guards in a small building on a Chinese side street, making the rescue pretty easy.
I'd have gone with guarding her with the SWAT army.
But then there would be no John Wick. And my life would be a little less rich.
Also no Raid and Raid 2. The latter I had to watch in instalments as the overwhelming carnage became too much for one sitting.
Side note: I have gone my whole life without ever seeing a car carrier by the side of the road with it's top level helpfully left down to create a ramp for any motorcycle-riding hero to use.
Generally I’d agree but Supacell on Netflix recently was quite a fun watch though.
Hero and supervillain have huge array of henchmen and weapons but end up in hand to hand combat…viz all USA made action films since Die Hard.
Characters, usually "goodies", clinging on to things - planes, ropes, trees, cliffs - by their fingertips. No one has that kind of strength in their grip.
British actors having to put on an American accent.
More TV than films, but when one character knows another character's dirty little secret, they give the ultimatum ''Either you tell her, or I will''.
The writers of EastEnders have recycled that line many times.
He/she is a brilliant detective, but they have demons, whiskey being one of them. High functioning alcoholics in law enforcement is not a thing!
Ha! I bet it is
Remember when having a couple of pints at lunchtime was very much the norm. Happy times.
I’d hate a villain who used such sloppy language.
I prefer that comment to my own!
Teacher wins round group of unruly students after proving he/she is cool / with-it