Best thriller movie stupidity of all time

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The Net picture

Stupidity: When Angela goes back to her house and finds that it's being sold, why are the cops letting her busybody neighbor hang around, ask her questions, and give opinions about her answers? If this were to happen for real, I think they'd ask the neighbor if she could identify her and then send her home.

Ingabritzen

More The Net stupidity
Mission: Impossible - Fallout picture

Stupidity: After the team break Solomon Lane out of custody, they drive around Paris with him in the front seat of their car. Lane is still wearing a straightjacket, bound in chains and has a black bag over his head. The IMF team drive him through crowded streets, past multiple police cars in full view of everyone just minutes after an armoured convoy transporting a dangerous prisoner (who everyone is now looking for) has been attacked. None of the Parisian police seem to notice this and none of the IMF team questions the tactical soundness of this approach.

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Suggested correction: What's stupid about this approach? The IMF team is trusting that with their skills and experience they can easily evade any police that spot them. Which of course they do. Placing Lane in the trunk would have kept him out of sight but that doesn't really matter because they weren't planning on sneaking him out, they were planning on a quick escape.

BaconIsMyBFF

More Mission: Impossible - Fallout stupidity
The Mummy picture

Stupidity: It's stated that Imhotep will fear cats until he has fully regenerated and two different scenes show him fleeing in terror at the sight of a cat. Despite this, none of the characters that Imhotep is trying to kill that are fully aware of his weakness even think to have a cat with them at all times.

Phaneron

More The Mummy stupidity
Scream 2 picture

Stupidity: Ghostface ambushes Sidney and her friend with the two detectives protecting her while in the car. Ghostface busts out of the driver window, and slashes the throat of the driver detective and then assaults his partner, kicking the crap out of him. Ghostface is obviously going with the intent to kill and has a weapon. He just killed one of the detectives and threw the other in the street in front of the car. When Ghostface jumps in the car to take off, the living detective, beaten, jumps up with his gun trained on Ghostface. But rather than do anything smart, he just yells at the killer, the cop killer, to freeze and get out of the running car that he's standing in front of. He just saw the guy kill his own partner and knows he is intending to kill the girls in the back. His gun is pointed at Ghostface who is about to drive over him, but he just yells at him instead of shooting.

Quantom X

More Scream 2 stupidity
Drag Me To Hell picture

Stupidity: When Christine is told that to remove the curse, all she had to do was give an envelope with the button inside to somebody else and that individual would go to hell. She decides to go to the cemetery where Ganush is buried and places an envelope into her mouth. Had Christine actually bothered to check inside the envelope first to see if the button was inside, she would never have gone to hell.

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Venom: Let There Be Carnage picture

Stupidity: Shriek is being taken to a new facility for superbeings, after a medical exam established that her sonic powers that she has been using since she was a kid are too strong to keep her at the correction house. So "naturally" for this transport she is not gagged, sedated, not even bound, and there's just one guy with her, not even wearing earplugs. It couldn't possibly be any more comically unsafe.

Sammo

More Venom: Let There Be Carnage stupidity
Under Siege picture

Stupidity: If Jordan was inside the cake and the cake was right there in the room when the takeover began how did the bad guys forget she was still inside?

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Along Came a Spider picture

Stupidity: You'd think that Jezzie would have been a little smarter as a secret service agent. You know, like once they acquire Megan, to delete all the incriminating evidence sitting back on an unattended computer. Aside from the fact she also used quite a stupid password, a single password isn't very secure at all. And then the content, displayed instantly when you get in, might as well say things like "hey look, we know what the kidnapper looks like" and "wow, here's the boat he's in too" and "wow, a cabin for sale. Why don't we go hang out there with all the evidence." Come on....they might as well have left a trail of breadcrumbs, because they sure were asking to get caught.

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Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark picture

Stupidity: When Ruth catches Chuck fishing for turds in their toilet, he yells at her and asks for privacy and then slams the bathroom door shut. He should have closed the bathroom door in the first place if he didn't want anybody to see what he was doing. It's not like anybody would think he was weird for going into the bathroom and immediately closing the door.

Phaneron

More Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark stupidity
The Matrix Reloaded picture

Stupidity: When the Keymaker is closing the door to the room that leads to the Source, he stands in the doorway resulting in the multiple Agent Smiths gunning him down. He could have easily closed the door without standing in the doorway and consequently would have lived.

Phaneron

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Suggested correction: Who says the door was bullet proof and the Keymaker couldn't have been shot through the door?

Having just viewed the scene on YouTube to verify, the door is definitely bulletproof, as the bullets only produce dents in the door and there are no visible holes from the other side of the door when it is closed.

Phaneron

The point of the stupidity is that he shouldn't have been in the doorway at all, even if the door wasn't bulletproof, there was no need for him to even stand behind the closed door. He could have pushed the door closed from the side.

Bishop73

It seems to be a heavy door, he simply couldn't close it with just his arm, thus he had to move his body forwards in order to close it. In that brief moment he got shot before the door closed. He could have for example kicked the door shut but he simply didn't think of that at that moment, also not knowing the Smiths were about to fire a volley of bullets at them.

lionhead

More The Matrix Reloaded stupidity
Scream 4 picture

Stupidity: Jill wasn't thinking too clearly when she plans her story. She only wiped the fingerprints off the gun but they would be all over the tape on Trevor's body. Then she wipes off the knife yet touches it again to slide it across the floor. She was thinking that Trevor and Charlie were going to be thought of as the killers but their fingerprints weren't on either of the weapons.

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The Abyss picture

Stupidity: Monk steals the magazine from Coffey's SIG. However, I don't see how he could have jacked the slide to eject the round in the chamber without being noticed. Someone as paranoid as Coffey was at this point would not have left the chamber empty. (Just FYI, when you load an automatic pistol with a magazine, you have to pull back and release the slide to load the first bullet in the barrel.)

Grumpy Scot

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Suggested correction: Since we are never shown that Coffey did chamber a round, we cannot assume that he did based on his personality alone. Therefore this isn't a plot hole. However, it is ridiculous that he is threatening people with a gun without a chambered round. This entry should be listed as "Stupidity."

BaconIsMyBFF

SEALs don't carry weapons without a round chambered. The "maybe" here falls much more on the side of the round being in the chamber. And "Stupidity" wasn't an option available when this entry was originally submitted. :).

Grumpy Scot

More The Abyss stupidity
Bird Box picture

Stupidity: When Greg volunteers to watch the security monitors to see if the creatures can affect people through a screen, no-one even thinks to remain in the room with him to cover up the monitors with a blanket, towel or something similar in case the creatures' power can be transmitted that way. They tied him to a chair to reduce his chances of committing suicide, so they certainly thought there was a possibility that he would be in danger.

Phaneron

More Bird Box stupidity
Goldfinger picture

Stupidity: Oddjob brings the crushed cube of the Lincoln back to the stud farm so that Goldfinger can "separate my gold from the late Mr Solo." Oddjob could have simply removed the gold from the trunk of the Lincoln before having it crushed.

More Goldfinger stupidity
Starship Troopers picture

Stupidity: When the invasion of planet P begins, we see the Rodger Young get hit. In the explosion sequence, we are treated to people sitting around tables in what can only be described as a mess hall exploding. In a military environment, this would be a time where everyone would be at their "battle stations". Nobody would be having chow or off-time when the ship is expecting combat. In this case, it was a planned troop landing.

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Suggested correction: Yes, it was stupidity, but it was an intentional depiction that supports the plot. During the landing, the Captain is completely surprised by the bombardment and says something like, "This isn't light uncoordinated resistance." The fleet's lack of preparedness at Planet P is a major plot point that later results in the replacement of the Air Marshal in command.

No, you are talking about a different sequence. When they are unprepared, they are doing an invasion of Klendathu, the Bug's home planet. This is earlier in the movie and the Rodger Young was only slightly damaged in that. The stupidity is about the invasion of Planet P at the end of the movie, where the Rodger Young is cut in half.

lionhead

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Spider-Man 2 picture

Stupidity: Early in the film, Peter Parker desperately wants to see Mary Jane's performance, but he is turned away at the theatre doors because he is a few minutes late. Defeated, Peter shuffles away and sulks. Seriously? Why couldn't Peter simply enter the theatre through a side door or the roof? He's Spider Man.

Charles Austin Miller

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Suggested correction: There's two things to consider here. First, a major theme of the film is Peter struggling with keeping his Spider-Man and Peter Parker lives separate. Peter makes every attempt to get to the show on his own, as Peter by riding on his scooter. Simply breaking into the theater after he has been turned away would ruin the idea that keeping his two lives separate is a struggle. It would instead imply the opposite, that Peter can simply use his powers to solve his problems whenever it's convenient. Secondly, the usher makes it clear that no-one is to be admitted after the show has started as this would disturb the guests and possibly the performers as well. Sneaking into the theater could very well ruin the performance and Peter obviously wouldn't want that.

BaconIsMyBFF

If there's one thing we know about Spider-Man, it's that he is incredibly stealthy, often coming and going without any detection whatsoever. He could have easily accessed the building and watched the show from a secluded vantage and even met Mary Jane backstage afterwards. Certainly in this case, using his powers would be justified, given that it was more important for Mary Jane to know Peter attended the show, rather than simply giving up.

Charles Austin Miller

He doesn't want to do any of that, though. He wants to go to the show as Peter, with a ticket, sit in a seat with the rest of the people, enjoy the show, and see Mary Jane afterwards. He stops the car chase as Spider-Man after his scooter is wrecked and instead of web-swinging to the theater, which would have been much faster, he chooses to change back into his regular clothes and drive the criminal's car. Sure, he certainly could have used his powers to get into the theater but the point is he doesn't want to. The fact that he chooses not to use his powers and instead deal with the consequences of hurting Mary Jane's feelings is the entire point.

BaconIsMyBFF

And besides he'd probably get kicked out of the theater if he was caught.

More Spider-Man 2 stupidity
Batman Returns picture

Stupidity: Batman finds the Ice Princess on the edge of the roof, standing on the wall. If she's no longer bound, why didn't she just jump down onto the roof and negate the risk of falling to her death, which she did?

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Die Hard picture

Stupidity: Hans keeps a major part of his plan secret from his own team: that the electromagnetic lock will be disabled if the FBI shuts down power to the building. The mercenaries hired as muscle don't need to know the minutiae of the plan, but it seems ludicrous that Theo wasn't told. Theo states on more than one occasion that he can't proceed past a certain point and that he hopes Hans has a plan for the final lock. Evidently, Hans was keeping this information secret simply to amuse himself, which makes little sense considering how much planning went into the heist.

BaconIsMyBFF

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Suggested correction: Or because he simply doesn't trust anyone with that kind of knowledge. He neither trusts them or cares about them, it's all him.

lionhead

So he trusts that Theo would be on board with all the murder and mayhem, open all the other locks, be in a tactical lookout position when the police try to breach, and drive the getaway vehicle. But he doesn't trust Theo enough to tell him the last lock will open when the power goes out?

BaconIsMyBFF

It's not about trust; Hans needs Theo to do what he is there for and that is all you mention up to the final lock. He has a plan for the final lock and so there's no need to discuss it with the team, since it won't be any of them responsible.

kayelbe

The more people that know the plan the more chances of someone talking. Especially when they are hired mercenaries.

Ssiscool

Theo was already on board with taking hostages and committing murder. Him knowing that the power needed to be shut off to open the last lock doesn't appear to be particularly important information you would need to keep from someone to keep them from talking.

BaconIsMyBFF

If he's the only one that knows the final step to get the money, then at least up until that moment he is absolutely indispensable to the plan and ensures no-one would double-cross him. In any case I'm not sure being more cautious than necessary really qualifies as "stupidity."

TonyPH

More Die Hard stupidity
The Silence of the Lambs picture

Stupidity: Lecter fires the first bullet to alert the police that something is up, and the lift goes up, then comes down. Now in all this, only 6 or 7 go up the floor where Lecter was. Why aren't police sent in groups to investigate every floor? Lecter could have been anywhere, instead there are about 30 police huddled on the lobby floor.

kh1616

More The Silence of the Lambs stupidity
Knives Out picture

Stupidity: Marta is shown to barf whenever she lies, and Blanc knows this. He should've asked her who did it right away. The entire plot of this movie is rendered unnecessary.

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Suggested correction: That would only work if Blanc knew that Marta had knowledge of who killed Harland and if he came to the conclusion that Harland actually killed himself. Blanc doesn't know that Harland killed himself to protect Marta until Marta confesses. Also, this wouldn't have solved the "who done it" anyway, since Marta had no idea that Ransom switched the vials.

BaconIsMyBFF

More Knives Out stupidity

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