35 Illogical Movie Tropes That Shatter Audiences’ Investment In The Story
Movies are all about escaping from our own reality and immersing ourselves in a different world. We live vicariously through the characters on screen, so it’s a vital part of the experience that they are believably depicted. So it can be extremely frustrating when illogical details ruin the realism for the audience.
People get pulled right out of the storyline as they end up rolling their eyes in disbelief at the impracticality of it all. These little artifices may be minute, but they happen way too often in movies, so Reddit’s cinephiles have banded together to call out these little unnatural moments that turn off viewers immediately, but can easily be avoided.
#1
When someone is being chased by a car. Why the f**k do they ALWAYS continue running on a straight road?! You obviously cannot outrun a car.
#2
People with ‘normal’ jobs (waiter, teacher, etc) having a cool, large apartment in one of the most expensive cities in the world (NY, LA, London, etc).
#3
Girl falls in love with a crazy ae and the more she loves him the less of a crazy ae he becomes. Newsflash, in real life loving a crazy ae doesn’t fix him, it turns him into a crazier ae.
#4
Going to any famous landmark and being the only ones there.
#5
When they “enhance” a photo in order to get the information they want. YOU CANT ENHANCE THAT S**T LIKE THAT, A GRAINY PHOTO WILL STILL BE A GRAINY PHOTO, YOU’VE JUST BLOWN IT UP IN SIZE.
#6
When people just like show up unannounced. Especially romantic movies. The girl always looks flawless. If a guy just showed up at my doorstep. The most likely result would be me in men’s sweats with a bun on top of my head eating Cheetos out of my belly button.
UPDATE: to answer all of your questions, I have a really deep belly button.
#7
When the characters don’t communicate. Seems like there are a lot of movies/stories where there is some sort of dilemma but if they just sat and talked for a minute and explained what happened it would be fine. Seems like lazy writing sometimes.
#8
The “ugly girl” in movies is actually super hot but just wearing glasses and has her hair in a bun.
#9
When someone tries to figure out a password. They’ll look around the room and be like, “Paris! Her favorite city – that must be her password!” And it works. F**k all y’all.
#10
No one ever finishes a meal or their drinks. They always leave half full plates on the table or open a beer, take one sip, and leave it on the counter never to touch it again. Wasteful bastards.
#11
Drinking from obviously empty cups.
#12
How everyone in highschool is in their late 20’s.
#13
When people are pretending to play instruments and they clearly have absolutely no idea what they are doing. The prop department could at least teach them how to hold the f*****g things, it makes me so angry.
#14
No one says good bye before they hang up. How many times do you say good bye and the other person still has more to say? How do movie characters always know the conversation is over??
#15
Cars don’t explode when shot at. That’s lazy filmmaking.
edit
TIL, people like their cars exploding, gawshdurnit.
edit edit
Also, I call it lazy filmmaking because, well, it f*****g is. If you want to build excitement or intensity, do so with a better plot or with better pacing. Not random, arbitrary explosions. Unless, you are looking to make just a stupid action flick, it’s a silly thing to waste the money on shooting.
#16
When two people want to talk privately and they casually step like 5 feet away in the same room, like nobody else in the room wouldn’t be able to hear them.
#17
Covering someones mouth in duct tape. S**t don’t stick to wet, humid surfaces. Breathing causes humidity. Might not fall clean off, but it wouldn’t stifle speech.
Edit: Too many of you know too much about how many times to wrap tape around someone’s head lol.
#18
When one character says, “Quick, turn on your TV!” and the other character just happens to be on the right channel. Ugh. No. There’re like 800 channels with basic cable.
#19
When a car has no headrests so we can see the people in the backseat, once you notice it, you can’t un-notice it.
#20
Unemployed actors living in huge Manhattan lofts.
#21
All the bad guys are horrible shots and the heroes never miss.
#22
In a dystopian future where water and resources are scarce, everyone has the magical ability to shave their legs, chest and armpits and groom their eyebrows.
I’m willing to forgive well kept hair, but the whole “waxed body” thing is dumb.
#23
When people smoke weed in movies and react as though they are under the influence of some seriously psychoactive hallucinogens and act like complete fools.
#24
It really grinds my gears when a character pulls another character up to safety with one arm from the edge of a cliff.
#25
Defibrillators – They don’t bring back people from the dead. Edited – as in they are not used to re-start a stopped/flatline/ asystole ) (my new word of the day) heart.
#26
Teachers giving one motivation speech and suddenly all kids turn into saints.
#27
Drastic age differences between couples for the sake of casting a young hot actress in the role over one that’s realistically more the equal to the actor.
#28
People being “knocked out” by head trauma without ill effects. I’m sure there are people who think that’s how it actually works, and that’s a dangerous misconception. It’s important to take head injuries seriously.
#29
Binoculars. Fg binoculars. You know that st you see when a character is using binoculars and you see their POV and then there’s two circles? That’s not how fg binoculars work. You see one gn oval. Yet every time you see someone use binoculars you see some venn diagram bt. It’s like no one in Hollywood has used a pair of f**g binoculars before.
#30
Bombs that are defused at 1 sec mark, jesus Edit: rip my inbox, biggest comment so far!
#31
Inaccuracy in portrayal of pregnancy. Like oh 10 weeks and the baby is kicking. Or when “it’s time” the woman is rushed to the hospital and goes through a birth in a few minutes. All LIES!!!!
#32
It gets to me when people are driving and they move the steering wheel way to much for driving on a straight road. Do that in real life and you’re all over the road.
#33
How everyone being interviewed by the police at their job – keep working as though they couldn’t be bothered to stop, you know… for a murder investigation.
#34
Socially awkward people magically obtaining a vibrant social life with no effort because cool people for some reason find them valuable and want them as friends.
#35
Characters picking up obviously empty suitcases. I know it’s dumb of me to get so annoyed, but the prop guy couldn’t put a sand bag in there? It immediately takes me away from the story when I see actors lifting giant bags like they’re King Kong picking up a matchbook.
Shanilou Perera
Shanilou has always loved reading and learning about the world we live in. While she enjoys fictional books and stories just as much, since childhood she was especially fascinated by encyclopaedias and strangely enough, self-help books. As a kid, she spent most of her time consuming as much knowledge as she could get her hands on and could always be found at the library. Now, she still enjoys finding out about all the amazing things that surround us in our day-to-day lives and is blessed to be able to write about them to share with the whole world as a profession.
