I’m a sucker for a good twist ending . When it’s done correctly, it can leave an indelible mark not only on the moviegoer but on the culture as a whole.
On the other hand, nothing can make a great movie tank quicker than a bad twist ending .
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See for yourself and check out these 10+ plot twists that ended up ruining the movie.
Dylan Rhodes is really a great magician after all in *Now You See Me*.
Are we seriously supposed to believe that the FBI agent who has been chasing these four magicians the entire time, was really just playing puppet master from the sidelines?
If so, what was the point of the entire movie?
Billy’s mother did it in *Scream 2*.
In the first Scream film, Sidney’s boyfriend Billy Lumos confesses that his motivation to begin killing stemmed from his mother abandoning him.
Isn’t it a titch convenient that upon learning of her estranged son’s death, Mrs. Lumos picks up the knife and mask in his honor?
Discovering that Will was the killer all along in *I Still Know What You Did Last Summer*.
I’m willing to believe that Will was really Ben Willis’ son all along.
But why on earth would he arrange for an all-expenses-paid trip to the Bahamas just so that he could exact his bloody revenge?
It was all a dream in *Jacob’s Ladder*.
This is the most overdone, trite, and lazy twist ending that any writer, director, etc. can possibly maneuver.
What’s more likely: that this brilliant psychological thriller was all playing out in Tim Robbins’ mind or that the creative team had no idea how to wrap things up? I’m thinking it’s the latter.
Nothing is what it seems in *The Village*.
So not only are the monsters a complete fabrication but the setting is also in modern times — not the turn of the century.
And all of these people are bound by what, again? Some shared collective tragedy? Yep. Makes total sense.
Discovering the frailty of the human psyche in *Identity*.
Identity could have been a middle-of-the-pack thriller, and I would have been fine with that.
Instead, we learn that all of these ‘people’ are really just different personalities inside one deeply troubled mind? I give this an A for effort and an F for execution.
Why did Tyler Hawkins have to die in *Remember Me*?
I can’t stand when I’m being emotionally manipulated by a movie and that is Remember Me in spades!
Be honest, did you see the 9/11 connection coming? Was it necessary at all or did it just make the entire viewing experience up to that point all for naught?
Discovering that Miranda Tate is really Talia Al-Ghul in *The Dark Knight Rises*.
I don’t have enough time to really get into all the things that Nolan got wrong with Batman.
But reducing Bane, one of the greatest rogues of all time, to nothing more than a lovesick puppy for Ra’s al Ghul’s daughter was criminal.
Esther isn’t a child in *Orphan*.
OK, I’m not saying this isn’t at least plausible on some deranged level because hypopituitarism is in fact a real thing.
However, the film is not only insensitive and insulting to anyone who may be living with the disease but it also treats its audience as if they were idiots.
Life is just a game in *Serenity*.
This movie is just one ridiculous plot twist after another.
Matthew McConaughey is nothing more than a computer game character, whose programming is slowing being altered so that the user can live out his real-life fantasy of killing his own stepfather? Makes total sense to me.
Emperor Palpatine is Rey’s grandfather in *Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise Of Skywalker*.
The Star Wars franchise is perhaps the greatest example of the dangers of fandom and sequels. Not only was the latest trilogy nothing more than a poor rehashing of the original Skywalker saga, but the idea of Palpatine as a clone (and Rey’s grandfather) was just ludicrous.
Discovering the truth about Topsy Kretts in *The Number 23*.
As if the name wasn’t ridiculous enough (say Topsy Kretts out loud).
But the idea that Jim Carrey had a psychotic break, killed someone, wrote a book about it, became sane, forgot everything, only to rediscover the same book he wrote years later in a random store? Come on.
When or where is Mark Wahlberg in *The Planet Of The Apes (2001)*?
The original movie The Planet of the Apes has arguably the greatest twist in cinematic history.
All that the Mark Wahlberg remake managed to do was raise more questions and offer even less insight.
I love Tim Burton but he butchered a classic.
Pikachu is really Tim’s father in *Detective Pikachu*.
I’m so confused about this one. So was Tim’s father dead all along? Does this mean he’s once again alive, and if so — how did that happen?
Can there be a sequel if there’s no talking Pikachu?! I have to know!
Teddy Daniels was a patient all along in *Shutter Island*.
I’m not as much angry about the twist as I am about the path left untaken.
Had they committed to the idea that Teddy wasn’t insane, that it was, in fact, the hospital who was trying to erase him from existence in order to cover up a murder — now that’s a movie I’d want to see!
