2007: Top 10 Dumbest Movie Moments

10. BRIDGE TO TERABITHIA – Ad Campaign
My problem here is with the ad campaign, which presented the film as a NARNIA style journey into a world of fantasy and magic. The actual movie was about coping with death when you’re young. The film was well-reviewed, but I deeply resented that it wasn’t the story they were selling.

9. OCEAN’S 13 – The Dice Trick
Nobody goes into OCEAN’S 13 looking for logic and realism. Still, everyone in the casino would notice dice that flip over after they’ve stopped moving.

8. RATATOUILLE – The Soup
I’m willing to buy that Remy can control Linguini by pulling on his hair. The film sells that. What bugs me every time, however, is that Remy takes Linguini’s disastrous spicy red soup and with very little room in the pot, add a ton of cream and chicken stock to create a wonderful new soup.

7. MICHAEL CLAYTON – The ‘Great’ Ending (spoiler-free)
I was not a fan of MICHAEL CLAYTON. (My good friend Humby nails it perfectly in His Review.) Many critics point out the final scene as a highlight, but everyone I know saw what was coming a mile away. It’s one of the oldest tricks in the book.

6. SUNSHINE – The Killer
SUNSHINE was a pretty excellent movie until the final act when they introduce a man exposed to too much sunlight. Rather than fry him into ash, it turns him into a murderer and the film becomes Jason in space (which I already saw 5 years ago.)

5. SPIDER-MAN 3 – Evil Peter Parker
Taken over by a symbiote, Peter Parker finds himself acting emo, asking for cookies (with nuts in them), and playing jazz piano while looking like K.D. Lang.

4. LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD – Cut and Paste Filmmaking
This felt like they shot 5 different movies and then tried to tie them all together. Ignoring the improbable, you’ve got stuff like McClane and his ward outside a high security building. We cut away for a beat and when we cut back they’ve somehow broken in undetected. McClane spends much of the final third without a gun, but in the last scene he shows up armed. Many scenes feature characters saying one thing while their mouth is clearly saying something completely different.

3. I AM LEGEND – The Rescue

(SPOILER WARNING)
When Will Smith attempts suicide, he’s rescued by a woman who says she was waiting all day for him. So, where the hell was she when he was setting up the dummy that lured the creatures?

2. 28 WEEKS LATER – The Underground Trap
When zombies invade the safe zone, the uninfected are herded into an underground parking garage and locked in (for protection.) Everybody starts to feel trapped and tries to break down the door. However, if any of them would just turn around they would see a door on the other side that is completely unlocked. (Anybody want to guess what happens next?)

1. PIRATESOF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD’S END – Killing the Kraken
After setting up the awesomeness of the Kraken in the 2nd movie, how do our heroes finally defeat it? They don’t. Instead we’re told that the creature was killed in between 2 and 3 as a sign of loyalty from Davy Jones to Lord Cutler Beckett. Why would Beckett have such a powerful weapon destroyed? This was the clearest example of writers backed into a corner with no idea how to get out.