Movie Cliches We Love and Hate

[That guy]

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Torture porn movies.
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Couldn't help but notice how prettysenshi slid that one in and kept on going. What's on YOUR movie rack?

[Killbert-Robby]

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Torture porn movies.
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Couldn't help but notice how prettysenshi slid that one in and kept on going. What's on YOUR movie rack?

Enough torture porn for it to be a cliche apparently.

[NakedElf]

I think I must not watch enough movies to have hated cliches...

I mean, cute animal movies/cute talking animal movies tend to be *bad*, but it doesn't have anything to do with them being cliche. Even if I'd never heard of a cute animal movie before, "Air Bud: World Pup" would still sound like a bad movie.

I guess what really annoys me about movies is the way everyone is just the *same* in a lot of them. Movie-makers try to pretend their characters are original, but often they aren't. They're all* white-bread middle/upper class highly neutral people.

*hyperbole

A good example: In the movie <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117247/">"One Fine Day"</a>, where Michelle Pfeiffer plays a bland successful single working mother (she has kids and she's competent! How original!) and George Clooney plays a predictably bumbling single working father (men are stupid and don't know how to take care of kids!), and predictably after they clash personalities and their kids switch their cell phones, wacky hijinks ensue and they of course fall in love.

Anyway. At one point in the movie, Clooney's character is talking to his psychiatrist/relationship therapist/whatever. He's got his kid with him because he's incompetent*, so he's trying to speak 'discreetly' to the psychiatrist so that the kid won't figure out the content of their discussion. So he tells the shrink that he wants to find a woman who can handle his 'deep dark chocolate side'.

Excuse me.

Chocolate? This man DOES NOT HAVE a deep dark chocolate side. This man is so vanilla he doesn't even know what vanilla is. He probably thinks doggy style is 'new' and 'exciting' and that Playboy is scandalously naughty.

No, Hollywood, you can't convince me that you've made a deep and interesting character simply by having him state that he has a dark side. He has to ACTUALLY HAVE it.

*When I was a kid and got dragged to therapist meetings, my mum just left me in the lobby with a book. Real people can fucking deal with kids.



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Gods, let's not get started on porn cliches... if 95% of everything is crap, then 99% of porn is crap.

[Kisai]

I have a general dislike cop-out endings, the ones that just let you down at the end by having the deus ex machina either reset it (it was just a dream), undo it (time travel), or destroy everything (...and everybody died)

While I do like exploring new ideas, I profoundly hate it when they are reset at the end, which is why the ending of "The Butterfly Effect" felt cheated (the directors cut moreso.)

Another dislike is Sequels to sequels/live-action-version-of-something-that-was-animated-or-a-game

Pretty much Disney has done this a lot, they make a relatively great movie, and then make a really poorly done sequel with few or none of the original voice actors, little original music, and pretty much nonsense that retells the first part only with different characters, etc.

While I believe Disney can do better and make sequels worth seeing, It's obviously a ploy to get as much money out of a series as possible. Let's see what Steve Jobs/Pixar does. The cliche is prettymuch "rehash the plot of the first movie, only do it with *fillintheblack*, have the same ending"

Another example of the live-action movie of something I previously enjoyed in it's original form, go back to some pre-CGI adaptations of video games. Now adays, you can get a slightly respectable movie out of a game, but you can't get the slightest respectable game out of a movie tie in. It's worse when they make game sequels of the movie. The cliche being that the movie adaptations take the most superficial aspects of the game and apply it to a (crap) movie script. Worse when the game didn't have an active plot from game play.

And last but not least...

Movies that are nothing more than a commercial for some product. Like TV series only meant to sell product, I hate the movies with so much product placement that you don't know if you are watching a commercial or a movie anymore. The cliche being that the hero must be a consumerist, and you must be to, or you aren't cool. Combine this with video game adaptations and 'american wins' you have the tri-fecta of bad.

The worst Cliche is 'America is under attack, America uses N-bomb, America win' Howwwwww many movies use this? If you said 'too many' you're right. While we most certainly know the devastation caused by the N-bomb, every movie that uses it tends to gravitate to 'no devastation' and instead 'convienent deus ex machina'. There has got to be a list of these somewhere. There is newer, more destructive stuff than N-bombs, but I guess the genius writers don't know that.



There are also some common annoying points in a bunch of movies that are cliches.

Black guys with shitty grammar. Wan me to cap yo ass?
White sports players with white 'hottie' cheerleaders. I don't give a C-R-A-P?
Lispy gay dudes.
Near-future technology that is profundly mis-predicted popularity (like everyone on segways... whoops that didn't work.) I think some writers need to rethink about using buzzword-of-the-day technology unless it's viable. (They cost 6K's and go 20kph, I don't quite see them replacing anything, they are slower than a bike and significantly heavier and costlier.) And bonus cliche points for those that not only mispredict the popualarity, but the function. Ask total strangers what a Quantum Computer is supposed to do.

[NakedElf]

Quantum computers clearly make quantum underpants.

I think I am thankful that the only movie I can remember seeing which involved nuclear weapons was Dr. Stragelove.

[Jesusabdullah]

The cliche is prettymuch "rehash the plot of the first movie, only do it with *fillintheblack*, have the same ending"

That's pretty much how they explain it in the trailers too. The guy's always like, "Your favorite characters are back, only THIS time..." [insert hilarious and whacky clip here, usually with dialogue] "...it's a whole 'nother ball game." Naturally, "whole 'nother ball game" is some sort of sad attempt at a pun related to the new twist.

I agree that it's lame in actual movies, but I think it's funny to see this sort of thing in trailers.

[NakedElf]

Trailers are way better than movies. Even a bad movie generally contains enough awesome bits to make a 4-8 minute trailer...

[Jesusabdullah]

Shit, I just realized, "It's a whole 'nother ball game" totally applies to the Air Bud sequels. The inserted clip would be, like, a team of football-playing golden retriever puppies or something.

I agree about trailers. I can't think of a bad trailer off the top of my head. I bet the ones for really bad chick flicks are kinda boring though.

[NakedElf]

The Princess Bride trailers were actually pretty bad.

[Brynnie-chan]

This whole trend of reviving stuff from the 80s in order to make a few more bucks off the franchise. In short, Hollywood raping my childhood.

THANK you!

Stereotypes in general bug me. Oh, and here's another good one: Movies that try to be random, but aren't. Not everyone can direct a Monty Python, much less another Rocky Horror Picture Show. SO STOP TRYING.

I am noticing surprisingly few cliches that everyone likes.

Here's one: A Twist in the End that actually works, that actually leaves you with your jaw dropped going "HOW did I not see that?!"

GOD, that's an awesome feeling. Let's recap awesome twists:
The Sixth Sense. I think this should be the standard for perfect twists. How many people here actually saw it coming? If there are any, I commend you.
Saw. After seeing that one, I was stunned silent. And for once in my life, after I'd just seen the whole movie, I wanted to watch it again, just to make sense of things.
Silence of the Lambs. Before you say "Hey, there was no twist", remember the phone-call scene right at the end. Every time I watch that movie, I still smile when I see the ending and try to follow Hannibal in the crowd until he disappears.

Anyone else got any GOOD cliches?

[Prettysenshi]

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Torture porn movies.
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Couldn't help but notice how prettysenshi slid that one in and kept on going. What's on YOUR movie rack?

I'm a huge fan of all the Saw movies, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Hills have Eyes, etc.

I hate how predictable they all are...everyone dies in the end, pretty much. Tons of blood, gore, body parts, whatever. Terrible films to watch at night, but after that first showing, I'm immune.

They're soooo cliched that they came, became the default type of horror film and then became played out within...3 years? That's pretty bad.

[Shishio]

Damn straight, Shishio

I think you misunderstood me. I was supporting the cliche, because happy, lovey-dovey endings are much, much worse.

[Tellurider]

I think my favorite movie cliche ever is Morgan Freeman playing badass detective guy. He is THE DETECTIVE MAN. He's like an average joe batman. Special awesomeness goes to "Kiss the Girls" and "Seven"

Cliche I hate is when the loser guy gets the really hot girl. What I hate is that the hot girl is *always* dating an asshole. That's why I like "Wet Hot American Summer" for the ending of, "it's not that I don't like you, but I'm 16 and he's really hot."

Also I'm tired of action movies trying to be like Die Hard. That movie is perfect, accept no substitutes. Also, no one pulls off an action-movie one-liner like Arnold Schwarzenneger, so stop trying.

[RobertBlake]

Not everyone can direct a Monty Python, much less another Rocky Horror Picture Show. SO STOP TRYING.

Oh god. If they try to remake Monty Python or RHPS, there will be blood. Oh yes. There will be LOTS of blood. And death.

[Killbert-Robby]

I just saw a cliche I hate. How the tough guy has to, when something emotional happens at the end of the movie, let that one tear roll down their face. I just saw Cheaper By The Dozen 2, and they had to CGI it in, for God's sake!

[Yeahduff]

It's been at least a decade since I've seen a trailer that actually makes me wanna see the movie. They're abyssmal.

[EvilChihuahua]

The "300" trailer was totally awesome in every way.

[IVstudios]

Today I saw Rush Hour 3.


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The things on this list pale in comparison to it's badness.

It made me physically uncomfortable it was so bad.

[Kisai]

Quantum computers clearly make quantum underpants.

I think I am thankful that the only movie I can remember seeing which involved nuclear weapons was Dr. Stragelove.

So Quantum Underpants is the superposition of wether someone is wearing underpants, that only by stripping the clothes off would wavefunction collapse happen... I don't know if I just made a dirty joke out of that.

[Orinocou]

The cliche I hate the most is when the hero is introduced to some ice queen that he has to work with. This woman is usually a hardened and highly intellectual doctor/secret agent/whatever, and usually starts the movie with glasses and her hair pulled way back. She makes it clear that she has no interest in the hero and wants to be respected for her abilities, not her looks. Halfway through the movie, though, she lets down her hair, casts off her glasses, and uh, falls for the hero. For the rest of the movie she's a hot action babe.

It's like, what happened here? Where's the consistency? This has happened way too often in movies. Right now the only movie I can think of that has this cliche is "I, Robot"...

And as for the cliche I love the most? Who cares, it's so much more fun to hate on things than to find their good qualities.