Could an entire film be brought down by a single line? From boring Batman to cringey
Bond and even a chatty dinosaur, when it comes to movies, there's no such thing as perfection.
Johnny Lawrence — the real hero of The Karate Kid — has his fill
of Daniel LaRusso in the movie. This new kid from out of town moves in on his girl,
Ali Mills, and has quite the mouth on him, too. Like any good '80s sports flick,
their conflict culminates in a karate bout where Daniel defeats Johnny with an illegal crane kick.
Before Daniel receives his trophy, Johnny grabs it. But instead of clocking LaRusso
over the head with the thing, Johnny hands it over and says,
"You're all right, LaRusso."
Really? These two have had beef throughout the entire film. Daniel kicked him in the face with
an illegal move, and Johnny suddenly wants to be friends? Has anyone checked Johnny for a
concussion? Also, this creates something of a plot hole, because Cobra Kai shows how Johnny
still harbors resentment towards Daniel, and he definitely doesn't think he's "all right."
While James Bond's on-screen adventures have brought action-packed adrenaline rushes to
generations of fans, the films have also featured questionable — and often sexist — dialogue.
007 has the dishonor of being a cringe-lord at the best of times.
However, he takes the proverbial cake in 1981's For Your Eyes Only. After
teenage figure skater Bibi Dahl tries to seduce him by lying naked in his bed,
Roger Moore's Bond turns down her advances due to her age, saying,
"You get your clothes on, and I'll buy you an ice cream."
He'll buy her an ice cream because she's an ice skater and she's young — get it? Yeah,
not many did. Another reason of why some of the Bond films haven't aged well in retrospect.
In Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Harry visits a zoo with the
Dursleys and has a chat with the boa constrictor behind the glass, saying,
"I've never talked to a snake before. Do you talk to people often?"
Harry, do you think this snake would be locked up in a zoo if it had the chance to state its
case to someone? This poor creature would probably be Chatty McChattens if anyone
would listen, explaining how it dreams of slithering around wide open spaces,
capturing its own food, and swallowing it whole. Fortunately,
the snake manages to escape and even thanks Harry for his inadvertent help.
Blake Lively's Nancy Adams goes through it in Jaume Collet-Serra's The Shallows. All she wants
to do is hit the waves, until she spots a whale carcass and a great white shark sinks its teeth
into her leg. To escape Jaws' younger cousin, Lively climbs on top of the whale carcass,
hoping someone will see her. At least she's out of the way of the shark, right?
Wrong. All of a sudden, the shark starts to pull the whale carcass and move her
along the water. Instead of screaming bloody murder, Lively asks the shark,
"Where are you taking me?"
No one's sure if she actually expects the shark to reply or to drop a pin to the coordinates on
Google Maps. Maybe she's thinking out loud, but — no. Forget it. Moving on.
Robert Rodriguez's Once Upon a Time in Mexico isn't afraid to get ridiculous. The 2003 film
is bursting at the seams with amusing dialogue and outrageous logic-defying action sequences.
However, there's one line early on in the film that stands out for all the wrong reasons.
As Agent Sands, played by Johnny Depp, walks into the restaurant to meet El Mariachi,
played by Antonio Banderas, Danny Trejo as Cucuy airs his concern
about the meeting. Without missing a beat, a straight-faced Sands turns to Cucuy and says,
"Are you a Mexi-can or a Mexi-can't?"
A decade earlier in a time when people spoke about Nintendo and Nintendon't, the line might
have been pure gold, but it's awful in this context, and not even Johnny Depp can save it.
As entertaining as MCU movies are, they also feature some atrocious,
eye-rolling dialogue. Consider Doctor Strange in the Multiverse
of Madness. While the movie features decent one-liners and genuine moments of levity,
there's a single line that turns Doctor Strange into a bona fide doofus.
Now, remember, he is the former Sorcerer Supreme. Someone who
knows about the multiverse, magic, and probably Mephisto,
too. Yet, when Baron Mordo tells him the Illuminati will see him, his reply is,
"The Illum-what-i?"
Seriously, how does Doctor Strange not know about the Illuminati? I mean,
he knows all about the Fantastic Four — and they hadn't even debuted in the
MCU — but he has no clue about a world famous so-called secret society? Not buying it.
There has long been a debate if there was space for Jack Dawson on Rose DeWitt
Bukater’s raft in Titanic. However, the real question should be: Why didn't she even try?
After Jack freezes to death and Rose realizes he's gone,
she begs him to come back to her. Holding his hand, she says,
"I'll never let go, I promise."
She then promptly lets go of him. While her words are a metaphor for her feelings and
how he will always have a place in her heart — like the Celine Dion song says — it's actually
pretty funny how she does the one thing she promised she would never do in a heartbeat. And,
inevitably, it takes a lot of the emotional punch out of the scene.
To be fair, Jack Reacher was never going to win an Oscar for its screenplay or contributions
to cinematic immortality. The film is all about watching Tom Cruise's Reacher kick the snot out
of people. But there's a moment when Jack Reacher tries to recreate the infamous phone scene from
Taken, and it's a lesson in why filmmaking needs to be more about showing than telling.
Reacher picks up the phone and dials Jai Courtney's
Charlie. Then a visibly seething Reacher says,
"You think I'm a hero? I am not a hero. I'm a drifter with nothing to lose."
Uh, doesn't that last part sound like the tag line for the DVD cover? Who
tells someone they're a drifter in the first place? It's just plain weird.
Jurassic Park III gets an unnecessarily bad rap. While it might not have the same
lightning-in-a-bottle effect of the first film or the dialed-up terror of The Lost World, it still
had dinosaurs chasing humans and is, therefore, excellent entertainment. Unfortunately, most
people remember Jurassic Park III for the single moment when it jumped the shark — or velociraptor.
Of course Dr. Alan Grant would have trauma from his first trip to Jurassic Park after
nearly being eaten alive several times. As he falls asleep on the plane ride back there,
he dreams that the pilot disappears. As the terror engulfs him, he looks to his
side where a velociraptor stares back at him. The raptor opens its mouth and says,
"Alan."
Dr. Grant snaps out of his daze and realizes someone else is calling him.
While it's clear director Joe Johnston was going for comedic effect here, it completely
undercuts the threat of the raptor from here on out. How do you top the talking raptor?
Regardless of Leonardo DiCaprio's highly inaccurate Zimbabwean accent in Edward
Zwick's Blood Diamond, the 2006 film is fondly remembered for its intense action
and phenomenal performances. However, there's one cringe-worthy line in the
film that screenwriter Charles Leavitt should never have committed to print.
When DiCaprio's Danny Archer meets Jennifer Connelly's Maddy Bowen at the bar,
they talk about the state of the world and their place in it. Maddy
asks Danny if he's a smuggler — which he is — and he responds,
"You know, in America, it's bling-bling. But out here it's bling-bang."
While it's intended to be clever wordplay, no one in Africa speaks that way. Besides,
it's cheesy. "Bling-bang" — it sounds like a new spicy corn chip flavor.
Dom Toretto and pals have never mastered the art of witty banter. Instead, they're more than
happy to put the pedal to the metal and rejoice in being "family" and all the nonsense it brings with
it. While 2001's The Fast and the Furious isn't exactly a Shakespearean sonnet to begin with,
there is one extremely puzzling line spoken by Dom's sister, Mia, describing her brother:
"He's like gravity. Everything just gets pulled to him. Even you."
At first listen, it sounds like a deep and thoughtful metaphor about the way her
brother attracts people, but it's technically nonsense. The Earth's gravity pulls everything
toward the center. So it follows that, according to Mia's theory, Dom drags people to the ground,
not to him. Again, this isn't entirely wrong in the grand context of the story,
but Mia's definition of gravity has a fundamental flaw in terms of basic logic.
The Dark Knight Trilogy showcases some fantastic writing and iconic one-liners. That said,
The Dark Knight Rises is often considered the weakest entry in the series, and for good reason.
Bane has all the best dialogue in the film, while Batman's appears to be an
afterthought. Nowhere is this more evident than in the scene where the Dark Knight,
recovered from his broken back, returns to Gotham City to face off against Bane. Bane
asks him if he came back to perish with the city, and Batman replies,
"No. I came back to stop you."
Wow. That's so boring. Does the Dark Knight need to speak here? He could
have just slugged Bane in his silly mask and let his fists do the talking..
Star Wars fans know the conclusion of the Skywalker saga was riddled with studio
problems and numerous changes. After the fan outcry in response to The Last Jedi,
Lucasfilm chose to appease the fanbase rather than stir up more controversy with its original
plan. It's no surprise, then, that Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker suffers as it tries to retcon
the previous film and close the trilogy. For the most part, the movie asks the viewer to simply go
with it. However, one of its worst lines clearly illustrates the overall chaos behind the scenes.
After two films where there was no inkling that Palpatine was back,
the evil emperor appears in The Rise of Skywalker with a paper-thin explanation.
But nothing is quite as bad as when Poe Dameron tells the others:
"Somehow, Palpatine returned."
Hey, no one can fault his honesty here. Poe seems to be in the same
boat as the audience and probably the filmmakers,
too, since no one understands how or why this happened. Just go with it.
Fans know to expect the eccentric from a Paul Verhoeven film. If he isn't having
RoboCop shoot a criminal in the nether regions, he'll have Arnold Schwarzenegger's eyes bulging
out of their eye sockets. In Total Recall, though, it isn't Schwarzenegger who gets
the most bizarre moment in the movie, but the villain Vilos Cohaagen, played by Ronny Cox.
In a typical third-act scene, Vilos points a gun at Schwarzenegger's hero
and monologues away about his master plan, saying,
"In thirty seconds you'll be dead, and I'll blow this place up and be home in time for cornflakes!"
Wait, what? Out of all the things the bad guy is looking forward to doing after he succeeds,
it's eating cornflakes. Now, look, a villain needs to eat,
but one would expect him to be excited for caviar, shrimp,
a big 'ol steak, or even mac and cheese — but cornflakes? The man really is a monster.
Oh, Twilight is the gift that keeps on giving. Even star Robert Pattinson couldn't believe
the books were actually published. In a cruel twist of fate, he ended up spouting more than
a few winners during his time in the franchise. One gem that inevitably elicits a chuckle is,
"You better hold on tight, spider monkey."
However, there's another, even more awkward comedy moment.
After Edward Cullen exposes his sparkly secret to Bella Swan,
she tells him how beautiful he is. Disgusted, Edward replies,
"Beautiful? This is the skin of a killer, Bella."
Okay, yes, that's factually correct,
but come on. It's amazing Pattinson was able to keep a straight face long enough
to get the words out. Even Kristen Stewart must have been in stitches when he said it.