Properly executed, a good plot twist can elevate a film to the next level. But some movies
just don’t know when to stop piling it on. From sci-fi flicks to mystery movies, these
are the plot twists that went too far. But be warned major spoilers are ahead.
Since Daniel Craig took over as James Bond with 2006's Casino Royale, 007 films have
tended towards becoming darker, more personal, and less pulpy in each installment. At least,
this was the case until 2015's Spectre. The film features the long-awaited return of recurring
franchise villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld , leader of the criminal organization SPECTRE. Near
the end of the movie, Bond discovers that Blofeld is not only behind all of the evil
plots that he's faced over the past three films, he's also responsible for every major
personal misfortune that Bond has ever suffered. This is because, get ready for it, Blofeld
is actually James Bond's long-lost and vindictive adoptive brother.
"Cuckoo."
We understand why this twist makes sense on paper. Conventional wisdom states that the
more powerful the villain, the more interesting the conflict, and also that villains should
have a personal relationship with the hero. The logical endpoint of this is to give James
Bond an evil brother who single-handedly controls all the crime in the world. Unfortunately,
this also means that the once large and indifferent world that Bond fought against has now been
reduced to a family squabble. There's nothing wrong with that but it's not what made the
Craig-era Bond films so great.
In the 2009 film Splice, cutting-edge geneticists Clive and Elsa are forbidden by their bosses
from using human DNA in their experiments, so they decide to ignore the orders and continue
their experiments in secret. In doing this, they create Dren, a near-human, multi-species
hybrid. Clive and Elsa take it upon themselves to covertly raise Dren as their own daughter,
and she starts maturing extremely fast, growing through childhood, adolescence, and adulthood
over the course of the film.
The twist in Splice isn't one moment where everything suddenly goes wrong. It's more
like a series of disturbing developments that culminate in a genuinely upsetting fiasco
of a climax. For starters, when Dren is a newborn, Clive attempts to drown her but it
turns out that she has amphibious lungs. Elsa eventually reveals that she herself donated
her own DNA to make up Dren's human half, not some anonymous donor. Once Dren reaches
adulthood, she and Clive begin to have a physical relationship. Then, towards the end of the
film, Dren spontaneously changes gender, becoming male, hyper-violent, and territorial. Finally,
Dren kills Clive and assaults Elsa, who is forced to bludgeon Dren to death with a rock.
And, as if that wasn't enough, the film ends with the reveal that Elsa is pregnant with
Dren's baby.
"What the f--- is going on?"
At times, the script of Splice seems to exist merely to violate every possible taboo that
the writer could think of, with no deeper meaning or philosophy at its core. It certainly
makes for a compelling film, but only because you're waiting to see what else could possibly
happen.
Released in 2009, Orphan tells the story of Kate and John Coleman, a couple who adopt
a child named Esther from a local orphanage. At first, their new daughter seems sweet and
innocent, but as time goes on, the Colemans begin to suspect that Esther might have a
dark side. In its first two acts, Orphan is a fairly competent execution of the classic
"evil child" horror story. And then it goes completely off the rails in act three.
Throughout the film, Esther seems to have a surprising amount of knowledge of and interest
in adult relationships, despite being ostensibly nine years old. This culminates with her unsuccessfully
attempting to seduce her father, which causes him and Kate to start digging into Esther's
past. Kate learns the truth that Esther isn't really a child. She's a 33-year-old woman
with a condition called hypopituitarism, which stunted her growth. She uses her childlike
appearance to take advantage of people, and she's also a homicidal maniac.
Many people found the plot of this film deeply offensive for multiple different reasons.
Some took issue with the way that it depicted hypopituitarism, a real-life condition that
this movie grossly misrepresents. Adoption groups also denounced the film for similarly
obvious reasons. The backlash was so strong that the home video release of the film even
felt the need to include a pro-adoption message as a way to counteract the toxic narrative
of the movie.
Released in 2019, Serenity tells the story of Baker Dill, a boat captain who lives on
the remote Plymouth Island. He spends his days trying to hunt down and catch an elusive
giant fish named Justice.
Out of the blue, Dill's ex-wife, Karen, shows up and presents him with an offer. She tells
Dill that her current husband, Frank, is abusing their son, the quiet and introverted Patrick.
Frank is planning on visiting Plymouth Island soon, so Karen offers Dill $10 million in
cash if he takes Frank out on a fishing trip and ensures that he never returns.
So far, so good but here comes the twist.
"Plymouth Island is a game."
That's right, Plymouth Island and all of its inhabitants don't really exist. This world
is actually a realistic video game that was created by and is being played by our true
protagonist, Patrick. His real father died a decade earlier. Baker Dill is a fictionalized
version of Patrick's dad that he's using to enact a cathartic fantasy of killing his stepfather.
And then, when Dill finally does decide to knock off Frank within the game, Patrick similarly
works up the courage to kill Frank in the real world.
While Serenity starts to fall apart after the twist, it's always fun to watch Matthew
McConaughey play an offbeat character even one who has a hard time expressing his emotions.
(weird yell)
(short yell)
(weirdest yell of all)
The Force Awakens was a promising start to a new trilogy, ending with an array of tantalizing
unanswered questions. Perhaps the most intriguing of all concerned the enigmatic Rey. Despite
being a poor orphan from a remote planet with no Jedi training, she has inexplicably strong
Force powers. Could Rey perhaps be the long-lost child of some great Jedi?
The next Stars Wars film, The Last Jedi pulled the rug out from under audiences by answering
the question of who Rey's parents were in the most shocking way of all: by saying they
were nobodies who sold their daughter into slavery.
Then The Rise of Skywalker was released. In this film, Rey learns that she is, in fact,
the long-lost granddaughter of Emperor Palpatine, a reveal that most found equal parts confusing
and unnecessary. Some fans think that this new twist was added just to appease those
who disliked the reveal in The Last Jedi. But it was so poorly executed and nonsensical
that it seemed more like a clean-up job than a genuine plot point.
"What a dreadful situation."
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them opens with a montage of news headlines, telling
us that the evil wizard Gellert Grindelwald is still at large and could be anywhere. The
segment is brief but important info for the upcoming twist. Then the film proper begins.
Our hero, Newt Scamander, is a magizoologist who's just arrived in New York City in 1926
with a suitcase full of rare magical creatures. Scamander soon runs afoul of Percival Graves,
a high-ranking official in the magical government of the United States. Graves asserts that
one of Scamander's creatures is responsible for the death of a local politician, but in
truth, Graves is attempting to frame Scamander to cover up his own crimes.
Once Graves is exposed and defeated, Scamader discovers that Graves has magically disguised
his appearance. After dispelling this magic, Scamander reveals that Percival Graves is
actually in a shockingly underwhelming twist Gellert Grindelwald.
"What are the odds of that?"
To be fair, Grindelwald is an important figure in larger Harry Potter lore, but up until
now, within this particular story, he did not matter at all. Sure, we technically got
a bit of a tease about Grindelwald at the very beginning, but he was barely mentioned
throughout the rest of the film. When he finally appeared, many viewers had totally forgotten
about him. While some die-hard Harry Potter fans thought this was a cool reveal, others
thought it was a bit confusing, or even worse, laughable.
(quick laugh)
When a dangerous patient named Rachel Solando mysteriously vanishes from a maximum security
mental hospital, U.S. Marshal Edward "Teddy" Daniels arrives on Shutter Island to solve
the case. As he digs deeper, Teddy begins to suspect that Andrew Laeddis, the man who
is responsible for his wife's death is also somewhere on the island, and he vows to find
him as well.
After a series of surreal visions and frightening encounters, Teddy makes a horrifying discovery.
In truth, he is Andrew Laeddis, a patient at this facility. He killed his own wife,
and this entire investigation was an elaborate role-play therapy staged by his doctors to
give him a chance to confront his demons. The big kicker? "Edward Daniels" is an anagram
for "Andrew Laeddis," and "Rachel Solando" is an anagram for his wife's name, "Dolores
Chanal."
When Shutter Island hit theaters, it received a lukewarm response from critics and audiences.
The plot device of "a man investigating a homicide only to discover that he is the killer"
has been done much better in other movies. Shutter Island is still a decent film, so
it's hard to get too worked up about this one, but did we really need another movie
where "it was all in his head"?
"Excuse me?"
In the 2018 film Upgrade, Grey Trace and his wife are attacked by mysterious assailants.
Grey ends up paralyzed and his wife is killed. Shortly after, tech mogul Eron Keen offers
Grey a chance to walk again by installing a prototype A.I. chip named STEM into his
spine. He accepts, and after the procedure, Grey finds that not only can he walk again,
he can also temporarily gain superhuman reflexes by giving control of his body to STEM. Grey
then uses these abilities to get revenge on the people who attacked him through a series
of thrilling and brutal action sequences.
In the end, Grey discovers that his friend Keen hired the goons that attacked him. But
it wasn't Keen's idea it was STEM's. After Keen invented STEM, the A.I. forced him to
participate in a plan to give itself a human body, which ended up being Grey's.
So, how does our hero win the day? Well, unfortunately, he doesn't. There's a moment where we think
he's won. Grey awakens in a hospital bed, alongside his still-living wife, but this
is, in fact, just a fantasy world that Grey is trapped in. STEM has now taken full control
of Grey's body, permanently.
Between "the rich benefactor is evil," "the A.I. is evil," and "the happy ending is actually
a dream," Upgrade has three fairly tired sci-fi cliches woven into its plot. Taken together,
they end this almost great movie on a gratuitously bleak note.
"I'm not proud of that."
With a little more restraint, Now You See Me could have easily been a fun and glamorous
crime romp à la Ocean's 11 or Catch Me If You Can. The film is a globetrotting cat and
mouse chase between FBI investigator Dylan Rhodes and a group of Robin Hood-esque criminal
magicians called the Four Horseman. That premise alone could be more than enough for a cool
heist film, but this movie just doesn't know when to quit. Layered on top of that, Rhodes
discovers that the Horsemen have ties to an ancient order of wizards called The Eye with
real magical powers.
But that's not all. The final twist is that, although Rhodes has been attempting to catch
the Horsemen, he's secretly their leader and a member of The Eye. Presumably, Rhodes' entire
multi-decade FBI career was a long con so that he could serve as the group's inside
man for a single heist. This idea is so inconceivably elaborate that it completely shatters the
reality of the film, even more than the actual magic does.
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