Minor plot holes in great movies may not necessarily ruin them in the eyes of the fans that love them. However, when they contain illogical inconsistencies, they can often affect the entire trajectory of how a movie ought to have gone.
It seems no matter how solid a script is, no film is truly immune from having plot holes when they’re truly scrutinized from every logical angle. So saying that some of these great films were “ruined” may be a little harsh but, then again, it depends on how much you believe a particular plot hole negatively affects that film as a whole.
Here’s a list of great films where gaping plot holes caused some unforgivable outrage for how they either exposed lazy writing, how they affected the storyline in general or as a whole, or ultimately, how they ruined great movies by tarnishing them in some way.
15Wonder Woman
TheWonder Womanfilm starring Gal Gadotwas a huge hit among audiences throughout the world. However, as amazing as the script, effects, and everything else might have been, there were also moments of seemingly lazy writing that made the rest of it seem a little unsatisfactory as a result. For instance, if Diana’s mother didn’t want her to learn about her actual identity, why would she tell her about Ares and the God Killer. Also, if it’s the Amazons' duty to protect mankind, it’s ridiculous that they don’t know about World War I. One particular scene, though, has really annoyed audiences.
In the scene where Diana wears a blue dress, we later see that she had her costume underneath it the entire time. However, before it’s pulled away and the costume is revealed, if you look at the dress in the previous scene, the neckline is clearly too low for the costume to have not been visible beneath it the entire time. Of course,Wonder Woman 1984was a mess, and almost too easy a target, so that’s best left unmentioned.
14Captain America: The Winter Soldier
At one point, the MCU seemed to have a golden touch and everything from it that hit screens during this period was always a massive hit both critically and commercially. That didn’t mean these films weren’t immune to criticism, though they’re hardly theworst superhero movies ever made. As a whole, the entire concept of the MCU is predicated on audiences' ability to suspend reality and delve into a universe where all the fantastical things and characters from there are possible.
However, since superhero fandom is such a hugely popular space around the world, even the smallest inconsistencies can often make for some hotly contested debates among super fans of the genre. InCaptain America: The Winter Soldier, one such inconsistency was plain to see and rendered much of what came before it illogical.
The point here is that Captain America’s shield is supposed to be so strong it can withstand the force of blows from unearthly objects such as Thor’s hammer by seemingly absorbing all the energy. Yet, when the Winter Soldier punches it, it seems a lot weaker since the blows cause Steve Rogers to be pushed backwards. Does this mean Bucky’s punches are stronger than a blow from Mjölnir when wielded by Thor?
13The Shawshank Redemption
Based on Stephen King’sstory,The Shawshank Redemptionwas a highly acclaimed film featuring Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman as two convicts. The entire movie revolves around Robbin’s character trying to escape prison.
By the end, we see that he actually manages this by digging a tunnel in his cell wall and covering it up with a poster of Rita Hayworth. Yet, once it’s discovered, there’s one glaring plot hole. After he gets into the hole in the wall and escapes via the tunnel, how did he reach back into the cell from inside the tunnel and reattach the poster so neatly that it escaped detection?
12Man of Steel
So Superman is, of course, a character where all realms of rational possibility need to be suspended to enjoy his films. With armies of fans around the world, the iconic character has certainly achieved this. However, that just leaves most of his exploits up for debate among the passionate circles of comic book nerds anyway.
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InMan of Steel, Clark Kent is seen in some scenes sporting a beard and clean-shaven the rest of the time. However, as the Man of Steel, what earthly razor is capable of shaving his hair — the same hair that can survive fires, explosions, and all manner of other more powerful physical forces?
11The Rock
The Rockwas a perfectly good action movie that teamed up Nicolas Cagein his hey dey with thethe legendary Sean Connery.It featured an exciting plot that made for a compelling film which centered on an ex-con trying to help a special agent stop some baddies from using weapons of mass destruction.
However, to do this, they have to break into the infamous Alcatraz prison where the baddies were holding hostages. Connery’s character was the only man in history that ever managed to break out of Alcatraz in the film, so he’s recruited to help with the operation. In the famous furnace scene, Connery manages to roll between blasts of fire with precision timing because he’s memorized the patterns of when they fire.
This enables him to roll into the furnace and reach the other side, where he opens a door from the inside to let the others in. This begs the question, when he escaped the first time, he would have been coming out from the other end. So why would he need to memorize the timing of the furnace blasts to roll out when he could have just left through the door?
10Black Panther
This iconic entrant into the MCU was seen as a triumph against racism and discrimination in pop culture. The main character ofBlack Pantherhailed from a fictional African nation known as Wakanda where rulers may be challenged for the throne. Why is the most supposedly advanced nation in the world still stuck in bloodlust, family feuds, and fights to the death? Additionally, where does Killmonger go for most of the movie? And in the film’s final epic fight, the Jabari tribe shows up at just the exact moment to help in the final battle for some reason.
In that final conflict, the main hero is nearly killed in a fight witha new challenger known as Killmonger. He ends up surviving and winds up in a river, where he’s later dragged out of the water by a fisherman. Subsequently, we find out that the fisherman is from a tribe that is supposedly vegetarian. But if they’re vegetarian, why did they even have a fisherman living there?
9The Karate Kid
In the 1984 classic,The Karate Kid,a young karate student must fight for his honor against a rival whose skills prove practically unbeatable. In the end, the kid has to perform a spectacular kick to the head while balancing on one injured leg to win.
However iconic this moment was, it effectively kills the entire film since it’s said at the beginning of the fight that head kicks are not allowed. The move was therefore an illegal one and “Daniel-san” should have been disqualified for using it — a fact that was even made fun off in the hit spinoff show,Cobra Kai
8The Day After Tomorrow
As far as disaster films go, 2004’sThe Day After Tomorrowwas a pretty cool one. When a “superstorm” develops it sets off a catastrophic chain ofnatural disasters throughout the world. By the end, groups of survivors make it to New York where they congregate on the rooftops of skyscrapers.
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Thankfully, helicopters arrive and rescue them from there. However, the state of the city at that point is like a hellscape and every inch of it is covered with under massive tracts of ice and snow. So, given those conditions, how exactly did the survivors get up there?
The iconic director M. Night Shyamalanhas made some truly thought-provoking and spine-tingling films over the years. WithSigns,he took a stab at making an alien invasion one. While the movie wasn’t as highly rated as many of his others, it was still pretty good overall.
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However, the film did seem to fall apart due to one inexcusable plot hole. The aliens are susceptible to water yet have a scene where they run through a dew-soaked corn field. Also, if water is their apparent weakness, it makes zero sense that they would have chosen to invade a planet where 70% of its surface is covered in it.
6The Hangover
The popularity and success ofThe Hangoverled to two sequels being made. The hilarious movies are definitely a firm favorite among fans of crude comedies. However, in the first film, the main characters spend mot of it searching for their other friend named Doug. Eventually, at the end of the film, Doug is located on the rooftop of Caesars Palace in Vegas, where the group had been staying.
Despite how funny their antics were throughout the film as they bumbled around searching for him, the whole thing made no sense really. Everyone knows that hotels and casinos in Vegas have virtually every square inch of their premises covered by CCTV cameras. Surely one of them could have been used to figure out where Doug had been lost all that time.
