10 Exact Moments Recent Movies Lost Us
CGI Egon was a step too far for Ghostbusters: Afterlife.
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00:00 It's extremely important for any movie to get the audience's attention in its opening moments
00:04 and then continually offer up enough entertainment to sustain interest through to the end.
00:09 It's certainly much harder said than done though, and there are virtually unlimited number of things
00:14 which might cause viewers to start flagging and ultimately tune out.
00:18 With that in mind, I'm Josh from WhatCulture.com and these are the 10 exact moments recent movies lost us.
00:25 Number 10 - The Thieves have sympathetic motivations - Home Sweet Home Alone
00:30 Now admittedly, Home Sweet Home Alone lost a lot of people the second the direct-to-Disney+ reboot
00:35 of the beloved comedy franchise was announced. But its patent misunderstanding of the original's
00:40 appeal was proven beyond any doubt as soon as the film introduced us to the reboot's new thieving duo.
00:46 Rather than simply redo the beloved wet/sticky bandits from the first two Home Alone movies,
00:52 Home Sweet Home Alone reimagines the thieves as Jeff and Pam McKenzie,
00:56 an all-around nice couple who have simply fallen upon hard times.
01:00 They soon discover though that a unique doll in their possession is valuable enough to let them
01:04 keep their home, and when it goes missing they suspect that a young boy who visited their house,
01:09 Max, has stolen it. Now while it obviously transpires that Max didn't steal the doll,
01:14 it's incredibly easy to accept their suspicions and thus sympathize with their desperate attempts
01:19 to pay him a visit and get the doll back. Was trying to break into Max's home wrong? Sure,
01:25 but it's certainly not an act worthy of the violence that they're ultimately subjected to
01:30 by Max's traps throughout the film. While there was definitely potential in flipping the original
01:34 concept on its head, that clearly wasn't the filmmakers intent, and so this is ultimately
01:40 just a case of a remake that probably should have stuck to rehashing the original. Given that
01:44 audiences are far more likely to cringe than laugh at these basically good people being repeatedly
01:50 injured, it just doesn't work conceptually or tonally.
01:53 9. Evil Dies Tonight - Halloween Kills
01:57 Like, for real, take a shot every time someone says "Evil Dies Tonight" in the most recent
02:02 Halloween movie. Halloween Kills may boast some of the most brilliantly gnarly violence of the
02:07 entire series, but it's also got a rotten core that clumsily attempts to make genuine commentary
02:12 about the dangers of mob mentality. Much of the film is focused on Haddonfield's residents,
02:18 led by Tommy Doyle, forming a mob to try and kill Michael Myers once and for all.
02:23 Unsurprisingly, the mob is an unorganized fleet of local morons, who in the film's very worst scene,
02:29 end up mistaking an escaped mental patient for Michael Myers. Despite the protests of Karen,
02:34 the mob rabidly chases the man onto the hospital roof, where he jumps to his death,
02:39 before Sheriff Brackett hilariously ponders who the real monsters actually are. Yeah, subtle.
02:45 And that's not even the end of it. When the mob's plan to ensnare Michael finally plays out,
02:49 he responds by simply slaughtering the lot of them.
02:52 8. Deepfake - Catherine Keener - The Adam Project
02:56 For the first two-thirds of its runtime, Netflix's The Adam Project is a pretty fun time travel movie
03:01 focused on the giddy joy of Ryan Reynolds hanging out with his 12-year-old self and also
03:05 their late father. Things go spectacularly off the rails in Act 3 though, when villain Mare,
03:11 played by Catherine Keener, makes contact with her much younger self. 32 years younger in fact.
03:17 As stunning as digital de-aging tech has become over the last few years, especially in the Marvel
03:22 Cinematic Universe, the CGI work to make Catherine Keener look effectively half her age isn't even
03:28 remotely convincing. Rather than smooth out the wrinkles and so on, it appears that the VFX team
03:34 has effectively deepfaked footage from Keener's old movies onto a body double, and the result
03:40 just tumbles immediately into the uncanny valley. Given that young Mare is present for a huge chunk
03:46 of the third act as well, it becomes extremely difficult to focus on what's actually happening
03:51 for the rest of the movie. This creepy, off-putting and very distracting CGI abomination was a huge,
03:58 huge mistake. 7. Morpheus Is Dead - The Matrix Resurrections
04:02 The Matrix Resurrections is admittedly a massively divisive movie, though one of the chief complaints
04:08 from fans was the absence of two of the series' most prominent actors, those being Hugo Weaving
04:14 and especially Laurence Fishburne. Even so, many fans did hope that Fishburne would appear for a
04:20 surprise cameo as Morpheus, or in the very least, that the door might be left open for him to return
04:25 in a possible sequel. Well, Lana Wachowski unfortunately bummed everyone out by revealing
04:31 midway through the film that Morpheus died many years prior during a conflict with the machines,
04:36 and a statue has since been erected in his honour in the new human city of Isle. For fans who were
04:42 already on the fence about the movie at this point, this might have been the punch in the
04:45 gut that caused them to turn against the flick for its equally baffling remainder. Morpheus is such
04:51 a fantastic character, and considering that the story found ways to conveniently resurrect Neo
04:56 and Trinity despite 60 years passing since the events of Revolutions, it did feel like a copout
05:02 to just kill Morpheus offscreen and replace him with a new machine counterpart.
05:07 Number 6 - Mark Wahlberg as Sully - Uncharted
05:10 The Uncharted movie may not be completely terrible for the subterranean standards of
05:14 most video game adaptations, but it's also not really a great movie. And a big part of the
05:20 problem is in the casting, as while Tom Holland did feel like a strange casting choice for Nathan
05:26 Drake, it still makes a lot more sense than hiring Mark Wahlberg to portray his mentor Sully. There's
05:32 not a moment in this film where Mark Wahlberg feels like he's doing anything but playing Mark
05:37 Wahlberg, not even when a fake moustache is slapped on his lips during the post-credits scene.
05:43 From his very first scene it's clear that Wahlberg isn't making any effort at all to actually
05:47 inhabit the video game Sully, but instead bending the character to the same generic action hero
05:52 archetype that he plays every damn time. It's clear that Wahlberg was cast for cynical commercial
05:58 reasons, being a box office draw and all, rather than because he was remotely well-suited to play
06:03 a younger version of this character. And given the many capable actors who could have surely
06:08 embodied Sully with real gusto, I mean hell, Nathan Fillion anyone, his phoned-in presence
06:14 throughout helps sink the entire enterprise. Number 5 - Leon is a total loser - Resident
06:19 Evil Welcome to Raccoon City When it comes to video game adaptations butchering characters
06:24 from the source material though, Uncharted is thoroughly one-upped by the wretched Resident
06:29 Evil Welcome to Raccoon City. Now this is admittedly a film with many issues coming out
06:34 the wazoo in pretty much every direction, but it's true cardinal sin was the decision to treat beloved
06:39 franchise hero Leon S. Kennedy like an absolute chump. And with this one it's like, where do I even
06:44 begin? The first time we see him, he's boozed up, hungover and a complete mess of a rookie cop.
06:51 And throughout the film pretty much just serves as the butt of everyone's jokes in the Raccoon
06:55 City Police Department. Falling asleep at the RPD front desk is one thing, but it's also mentioned
07:00 that he accidentally shot his partner prior to the events of the film, yet was spared of firing
07:05 due to his father's connections on the force. Leon then ends up doing almost nothing useful
07:11 throughout the entire film except for firing a rocket at a mutated William Birkin in the finale.
07:17 While Leon was certainly a wet around the ears rookie in the Resident Evil 2 video game,
07:21 this is just something else entirely. Something bordering on character assassination, which sucks
07:26 because the actor playing Leon is clearly very good and could have done the original version
07:31 of this character justice. Ugh, it's just, in a movie skating on thin ice with fans already,
07:37 this was the last straw for many. 4. Leatherface Kills Sally - Texas Chainsaw Massacre
07:43 Netflix's recent Texas Chainsaw Massacre sequel was basically fashioned as a shameless rip-off
07:47 of 2018's Halloween, to the extent that it similarly reintroduced its franchise heroine
07:52 as a battle-hardened badass ready for one last fight with the murderous villain.
07:57 The survivor of the original 1974 Texas Chainsaw Massacre is Sally Hardesty. Sally, now in her
08:03 late 60s or early 70s, works as a Texas Ranger and heads out to do battle with Leatherface once more
08:09 after apparently spending almost 50 years looking for him. Yet, this movie is no Halloween 2018,
08:16 and beyond the fact that Sally has a rather meagre supporting role in the flick,
08:20 her showdown with Leatherface doesn't go how anyone expected, and in a totally bad way.
08:26 Hilariously, it ends with Sally wasting a blatant opportunity to just kill Leatherface,
08:31 and then being abruptly run through by his chainsaw. As a result, the younger heroes are
08:36 left to fend for themselves, and surprise, they don't fare much better either. As an attempt to
08:40 circle back to the original movie, this was an absolute, absolute failure, simply serving a
08:46 beloved heroine up to Leatherface like she's any other hapless victim. 3. That Totally Insane
08:53 Car Chase - Deepwater Adrian Lyne's new film, Deepwater, is truly one of the most deranged,
08:58 head-scratching works of cinema released over the last year. The story basically revolves around a
09:03 man, Vic, played by Ben Affleck, who agrees to let his wife Melinda, played by Ana de Armas,
09:08 have affairs in their marriage. Though the men she consorts with have a habit of going missing
09:13 or turning up dead. There's a single scene near the end of the film that's basically the tipping
09:17 point at which Deepwater becomes impossible to take even remotely seriously. After Vic murders
09:24 Melinda's former college flame, Tony, Vic and Melinda's friend Don catches Vic attempting to
09:29 submerge Tony's body underwater. Are you still with me? Well after this, a chase ensues with Don
09:35 getting into his car and Vic pursuing on a bike, like a push bike. Somehow Vic is able to keep up
09:42 with Don throughout the car chase, all the while Don's attempts to text his wife and inform her of
09:47 Vic's guilt are ruined by his phone's damn autocorrect feature. Ultimately, Don ends up
09:52 accidentally driving his car off a cliff, killing him instantly and conveniently offering the only
09:57 witness to Vic's act. It's at this point the audience is just left to consider how anyone
10:02 was supposed to watch Deepwater as a serious erotic thriller, rather than an absolute farce.
10:08 I mean no wonder it festered on a studio shelf for two years before being sent straight to
10:13 streaming. Number 2 - CGI Egon - Ghostbusters Afterlife
10:17 Now this one might ruffle some feathers, but Ghostbusters Afterlife's bombardment of nostalgia
10:22 touchstones reached an unbearable crescendo during its saccharine finale, where director
10:27 Jason Reitman made one wildly misjudged creative choice. Though the film begins with Egon Spengler's
10:33 death, we never clearly see his face, and a body double has evidently been used to respectably
10:39 impress his presence in the story, what with Egon actor Harold Ramis passing away back in 2014.
10:45 Many observers pre-release suggested that the most obvious manipulative thing that a Ghostbusters
10:50 sequel could do was resurrect Egon as a ghost with state-of-the-art VFX, and that's precisely
10:57 what this movie does. And while the CGI visage of Egon does look totally fine from a technical
11:02 standpoint, it does rather feel like one step too far in a movie that shamelessly regurgitates
11:08 almost everything good about the original Ghostbusters film. Even beyond the ethics of
11:12 bringing a dead actor back to life without their permission, his estate clearly gave the okay in
11:17 this situation. Using Ramis as an emotional anchor to tug the audience's heartstrings just feels...
11:22 it, well, it feels a little bit too much for some parts of the audience, even if the intentions
11:27 were no doubt sincere and earnest, and it is easy to understand why this didn't work for everyone.
11:34 Okay, now before we get to our number one pick, I want to note that there are major spoilers to
11:38 follow for Morbius if you haven't seen that, and if you care. Number one, the nonsensical credit
11:44 scenes Morbius. It isn't remotely controversial to say that Morbius is a bad, bad movie. An
11:50 agonizingly retro piece of work that was clearly chopped to pieces by Sony during post-production
11:55 in an attempt to ride the Spider-Man no-way-home coattails all the way to the bank. At least it's
12:01 short though, with the end credits rolling at roughly the 90 minute mark, such that it's tough
12:05 to get all that worked up about how utterly pedestrian and forgettable it all is. But then
12:11 those credit scenes happened. The mid-credit scene shows the MCU's Adrian Toomes, aka The Vulture,
12:17 played by Michael Keaton, being flung into the world of Sony's Spider-Man universe,
12:21 appearing through the same multiversal rift that we saw in No Way Home. This, though,
12:26 immediately raises a number of inconsistencies with the established facts. For one, why would
12:32 Toomes end up in this universe at all? Why doesn't he seem to care about his family back in his
12:37 universe? And why are we told that there's no record of Adrian Toomes in this one? I mean,
12:42 are variants not a thing here? Things get even stranger in the post-credit scene,
12:46 though, where Toomes, now inexplicably wearing a full Vulture getup,
12:50 meets up with Morbius and invites him to join his team, implied to be the Sinister Six.
12:55 And again, here, for one, how did Toomes manage to build a Vulture suit without the Tinkerer,
13:00 and in a universe where the Battle of New York never happened? And why would Morbius,
13:05 who the last time we saw him was acting with distinct heroism, even be remotely interested
13:10 in what Toomes has to say? It's at this point that Morbius went from being a bad,
13:14 but relatively harmless movie, to a generally cynical and mind-boggling piece of work.
13:20 Outro So that's our list, what did you think about these scenes? Did they break the movies for
13:31 you the same way they did for others? While you're down there let me know, could you please also give
13:35 me a like, share, subscribe and head over to wotculture.com for more lists and news like this
13:39 every single day. Even if you don't though, I've been Josh, thanks so much for watching,
13:43 and I'll see you soon.