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These recent movie plot twists left everyone scratching their heads.
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00:00It's incredibly easy for a plot twist to make or break a movie.
00:04Get it right and you'll have the audience eating out the palm of your hand.
00:07But screw it up and it risks derailing the entire film.
00:11Now some plot twists are divisive.
00:13And then there are those that simply fail to hit with the vast majority of viewers,
00:17leaving just about everyone questioning the thought process of the filmmakers.
00:21And that's absolutely true of the following plot twists,
00:24each of which landed with a clunky thud at best
00:28and dominated much of the discourse surrounding the film.
00:31Oh, and here is your spoiler warning.
00:33There will be spoilers ahead.
00:35So with that in mind, I'm Ellie for WhatCulture
00:36and these are 10 recent movie twists everyone hated.
00:41Number 10.
00:42Briggs is Jim Phelps Jr.
00:44Mission Impossible The Final Reckoning.
00:47The character of Jasper Briggs was introduced in the previous Mission Impossible film
00:51Dead Reckoning Part 1,
00:53a US intelligence agent tasked with chasing down Ethan Hunt and his team.
00:57In The Final Reckoning, however, we learn that Briggs is actually Jim Phelps Jr.
01:02As in the son of Jim Phelps, the duplicitous team leader who was the original film's surprise villain.
01:08While certainly a surprising revelation,
01:10this also ultimately felt like a half-arsed, groan-worthy slice of fan service
01:15that Christopher McQuarrie tossed into the movie in the middle of shooting,
01:18rather than something that was actually thought out from the beginning.
01:21Is it not enough that Briggs is chasing Hunt down because that's his job?
01:25The audience needs to believe that he has a personal vendetta for doing so,
01:29and one that has a contrived link back to the original film.
01:33It felt forced and ultimately added nothing of merit to the story.
01:37A rather ironic outcome given McQuarrie's own noted disdain for excess fan service.
01:42Number 9. Carver isn't really sick. Fountain of Youth
01:47Guy Ritchie's Fountain of Youth sees siblings Luke and Charlotte Perdue hired to seek out the mythical Fountain of Youth by Owen Carver,
01:55a wealthy man who is apparently suffering from terminal cancer,
01:59and who wishes to use the fountain to cure himself.
02:01Except there's something profoundly sus about Carver from the moment he first enters the movie.
02:07Enough that you'll most likely assume that he's lying about being sick,
02:11and simply wants the Fountain of Youth's power to exploit for himself.
02:15It's so obvious that it feels like we're being set up for a rug pull,
02:19where Carver really is just a sick rich guy who desperately wants to live.
02:23But no, it plays out exactly as you'd expect.
02:26In the third act, we indeed find out that Carver isn't sick,
02:29but just the most predictable of things, a greedy rich arsehole.
02:32Who didn't see this coming the moment he entered the movie,
02:35and then roll their eyes when it played out 90 minutes later.
02:39Number 8.
02:40Lena is Eve's sister, Ballerina.
02:43Hollywood blockbusters in general are obsessed with creating forced familial links between characters
02:49in an attempt to generate some lazy, unearned pathos.
02:52And that's precisely what happened in the recent John Wick spin-off, Ballerina.
02:56At one point, we're introduced to a high-ranking member of the central cult called Lena.
03:01And given that she's played by Oscar-nominated actress Catalina Sandino Moreno,
03:05it's reasonable to assume that she's going to be doing something of importance here.
03:10However, it's eventually revealed that Lena is actually the sister of protagonist Eve,
03:15a revelation that feels yanked out of nowhere to try and give the rather lacklustre narrative
03:20some additional emotional thrust.
03:22The twist is basically just randomly dropped into the movie's lap and lent no further context,
03:27enough that one could easily believe it was hastily added during the movie's many reshoots.
03:32The script does absolutely nothing worthwhile with this reveal,
03:35and Lena dies a totally unremarkable death a few minutes later anyway.
03:39What was the point of any of this?
03:42Number 7.
03:42It was all part of Moretti's plan, Opus.
03:46A24's new horror film Opus follows journalist Ariel,
03:49who is invited to the remote compound of a reclusive pop music legend Alfred Moretti
03:54to hear his hotly anticipated new album.
03:57But it turns out that Moretti is actually running a cult from the compound,
04:01leading to a finale where he urges his followers to partake in a mass suicide ritual
04:05by drinking poisoned champagne.
04:07Ariel is almost forced to drink until a follower decides to free her, allowing her to escape.
04:12We then cut to an epilogue set two years later,
04:15where Ariel has written a book about the cult and visits a still-alive Moretti in prison.
04:20Here, Moretti reveals that the mass suicide was actually a hoax,
04:23and the dead followers were all still alive,
04:25having vanished and blended into society at various levels,
04:29where they plan to keep spreading his teachings.
04:31More than this though, Moretti always planned for Ariel to survive the night,
04:35so she could write her book and unintentionally contribute
04:38to spreading the cult's message to millions of people.
04:42Now, while the movie is clearly trying to say something about the media's complicity
04:46in championing monstrous people,
04:48it's ultimately way too contrived for its own good.
04:51Transforming Moretti from a vile cult leader
04:53into a genius moustache-twirling criminal mastermind.
04:57Number six, Emily's triplet is still alive.
05:00Another simple favour.
05:01The big twist in a simple favour is that Emily isn't actually dead.
05:05Despite her drowning death being unambiguously shown to the audience,
05:09we learn that she actually had a twin sister, Faith,
05:12who she drowned in order to stage her own demise.
05:15It's an amusingly bonkers twist.
05:17And when sequel Another Simple Favour was announced,
05:19many wondered how it could possibly one-up such a wild turn.
05:23But when the first trailer dropped,
05:25some joked about the prospect of the sequel doubling down on the original twist
05:29by confirming that there's a triplet in play.
05:32After all, a simple favour did confirm that Emily originally had two twin sisters,
05:36but one of them, Charity, died in the womb.
05:38Lo and behold, Another Simple Favour does the exact thing people expected,
05:43revealing that Charity is indeed alive and has been behind the growing pile of bodies
05:47due to her unhinged obsession with Emily.
05:50None of it makes even a lick of sense.
05:52And while topping the original twist was always going to be tough,
05:55just repeating the same thing again ensured massively diminished returns.
06:00Number five, Anais is the mother, The Accountant 2.
06:04The Accountant 2 features a plot twist so outrageously absurd
06:07that it upends the movie's entire tone,
06:10turning it from an amusing buddy action flick into a genuine cartoon.
06:14At the start of the film, we're introduced to an assassin, Anais,
06:17who is asked to help locate a Salvadorian family shown in a photograph.
06:21But we eventually learn that Anais is the mother featured in the photograph.
06:25The big convoluted truth of the matter is that the woman, Edith,
06:29was involved in an accident, lost her memories,
06:31and woke up with a case of acquired Savant syndrome,
06:34allowing her to quickly develop combat skills
06:37and basically become a self-trained assassin.
06:39Oh, and Edith also had reconstructive facial surgery,
06:42ensuring she looks absolutely nothing like her regular self.
06:45It's just an avalanche of ridiculous revelations
06:48that the audience is asked to buy with a totally straight face.
06:52And yet not a single shred of it is even remotely convincing.
06:55Had the movie demonstrated a little more self-awareness
06:58about how credibility-straining this was,
07:01it might have worked.
07:02But it's dropped on the audience like it's extremely clever,
07:05interesting, and logical.
07:07Number four, Demi and Mike are the killers.
07:10Hell of a summer.
07:12It's a golden rule of the horror genre,
07:14that if we don't see a character die on screen,
07:17then they're almost certainly not dead.
07:19And there's a good chance that they actually are the killer themselves.
07:22And so it's always frustrating when a horror film
07:24underestimates the audience's ability to sniff this out.
07:28As is the case with Finn Wolfhard's directorial debut,
07:31Hell of a Summer.
07:32When influencer Demi is butchered in her cabin,
07:34we never actually see her get killed.
07:36And after Jason discovers her corpse,
07:38he returns with the other campers to find her body suddenly missing.
07:42Gee, do you think she maybe isn't really dead
07:44and is probably one of the killers?
07:46And then there's Mike,
07:47another counsellor who is grabbed from behind
07:49by the masked killer a little while later.
07:52And yet he simply vanishes from the movie
07:54without his death ever being shown.
07:56So you can surely see where this is going.
07:57The killers are indeed later revealed to be Demi and Mike.
08:01In an outcome so disappointingly predictable,
08:04it seemed like we were being intentionally misled.
08:07Number three,
08:08Worth is working with the terrorists, G20.
08:12Amazon's junkie action thriller G20
08:14stars Viola Davis as Danielle Sutton,
08:17the ass-kicking president of the United States,
08:19who is forced to fend off terrorists
08:21who assault the G20 conference venue.
08:23In one of the movie's first scenes,
08:25we're also introduced to Joanna Worth,
08:27the US Secretary of the Treasury.
08:29And the film goes out of its way to mention
08:31that Joanna was one of Danielle's rivals
08:33for the presidential nomination,
08:35implying that it created a rift in their friendship.
08:37And at this point,
08:38if you've seen more than a few die-hard knockoffs
08:41in your time,
08:41you should probably instantly peg
08:43that Worth is almost certainly going to be revealed
08:45to be an accomplice to the terrorists.
08:48And of course, that is exactly what happens.
08:50In the third act,
08:51Joanna is revealed to be the terrorist's inside man,
08:54motivated by losing the presidential nomination to Danielle.
08:57An outcome most surely saw coming a mile away.
09:00Number two,
09:01the henchman is the meter reader,
09:03Drop.
09:04Drop's central reveal
09:05that the person terrorising Violet
09:07with airdrop messages
09:08is a man, Richard,
09:10who intends to assassinate her dinner date, Henry,
09:12is basically fine.
09:13But then there comes the matter
09:15of the henchman Richard has hired
09:16to kill Violet's son, Toby,
09:18and sister, Jen,
09:19if she refuses to comply.
09:21While this henchman could just be some random dude,
09:24In the film's climax,
09:25as Violet rushes home to fight the masked man,
09:27we get an unveiling scene
09:29that falls totally hilariously flat.
09:31The man removes his ski mask,
09:33and the film lingers on his face
09:34as though we, the audience,
09:36are supposed to be shocked by his identity.
09:38As it turns out,
09:39this is actually the meter reading guy
09:41who appears at the start of the movie
09:43for a solid 10 seconds,
09:45and who viewers almost certainly forgot about
09:47the moment he vanished from the film.
09:49Given that this reveal doesn't flash back
09:51to the meter reading scene,
09:53and the henchman honestly looks like
09:54three or four other characters
09:56we encounter during the movie,
09:58it's totally on the film
09:59for overestimating how memorable
10:01his face would be to the audience.
10:04Number one, Sir Jimmy Crystal,
10:0628 years later.
10:08It's safe to say that just about nobody
10:10saw the shocking twist ending
10:12of 28 years later coming,
10:13where after young Spike says a tender farewell
10:15to his late mother, Isla,
10:17and delivers the uninfected baby back home,
10:19he heads out to the mainland on his own.
10:22In an epilogue set 28 days later,
10:24Spike is attacked by a group of the infected
10:26only to be suddenly saved
10:27by a gang of tracksuit-wearing gangsters
10:30who are very clearly styled
10:31after disgraced TV presenter
10:33and sex offender Jimmy Savile.
10:35In a tonally dissonant scene,
10:37the gang members acrobatically eliminate the infected
10:40while a heavy metal cover
10:41of the Teletubbies theme blurs out.
10:43Because why the hell not?
10:45The leader of the gang
10:46then introduces himself to Spike as Jimmy,
10:49with his cross necklace revealing him
10:51to be the very same Jimmy
10:52we briefly encountered
10:53in the film's 2002 set prologue.
10:56It's certainly a provocative ending
10:57that's gotten people talking,
10:59and the implications of a gang
11:00styling themselves after a pre-allegation Savile
11:03are absolutely wild.
11:05But also, many understandably found it
11:07to completely upend the movie's tone,
11:10ending it on a gratingly goofy note
11:12which arguably undermined the emotion
11:14the previous scenes had mustered.
11:16Now, there's a solid argument
11:17that this scene should have been a mid-credits tease
11:19for the next film instead,
11:21which probably would have worked better.
11:23to be a by Teletubbies.
11:24We'll see you in the next film.
11:25So, let's take it.
11:26Look at that.
11:26So, let's see what they look like.
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