Not a movie, but the music video “Smack My Bitch Up” by someone. Prodigy, I think. I saw it coming about sixty seconds in, but my friends were all agasp and avowed.
Terminator 2.
You may be wondering what twist. The twist is Arnie is the good guy this time. The idiot producers gave this away in the trailers.
Watch the movie and you will see Arnie and the other Terminator are searching for John Connor. The tension builds becuase we are not meant to know which is good and which bad. Except it does not build becuase everyone knew already. I found this really annoying first time I watched T2
Even if it hadn’t been given away in the trailers, anyone with a half-decent understanding of Hollywood dramaturgy would have spotted it the instant T-1000 knifed the cop in the stomach. They just wouldn’t let a hero do that. Note that the T-800 doesn’t kill anybody when getting his clothes, and in fact gives his victim a chance to surrender them willingly.
About half an hour into the movie Identity I had it figured out. The group of people who were also watching it didn’t believe me so my husband volunteered to hear my “plot Killer” and he had an “OMG how did you figure that out!?!” moment. I usually just enjoy movies and don’t treat them as puzzles but that time it just became obvious to me.
For me, the twist in The Usual Suspects isn’t the identity of Keyser Soze but that
he made the entire story up after glancing at the bulletin board and coffee mug.
Excellent point, and one that has puzzled me all along, especially when I get in discussions about the “real story” being told. We only have the scenes outside the room (where Verbal is being interrogated) that can be relied on for “facts” in this movie. We have to discount the ones that are either flashbacks or dramatizations of things Verbal is saying. That leaves precious little, as I see it. The drawing that they get from the burn victim, while having a decent hairline, looks so little like Spacey that it could be anybody. In any case, that victim’s fear of Keyser Soze is about all we have to suggest there’s even a real KS.
For me, it was something completely different. Odd that it’s screenwriting vs. storyboarding that gives this away, but…
We’d discussed the week before the introduction of minor characters. The give-away? If a minor character who seems insiginificant to the plot appears twice, it will be his third appearance in which something major will either happen to him, or a big reveal will be made of him. Guy appeared twice, and walks in the third time right before the ‘big climax’.
My brother and I saw the preview for The Recruit, looked at each other, and said at the same time
“Al Pacino’s the mole”
We were correct, as it turned out.
Could you share some of your insights (in a spoiler box)? I liked the film but much of the plot still mystifies dumb ol’ me.
Black Widow.
Movie reviewers who talked about the “plot twist” at the end need a lesson in what constuitutes a Plot Twist.
I Hated, Hated,. Hated this movie.
OK, RealityChuck, what is the “Rule of Conservation of Characters?” A quick Google confirms it exists, but does not explicitly state it.
Minority Report
The second he came on screen I knew that
Max von Sydow
was the “surprise” villain.
The Bourne Supremacy
I groaned when I realized that they were making
Brian Cox a “surprise” villain, because I liked his character in the first movie.
I forgot the stupid “surprise” villain in Strange Days. They pretty much telegraphed the crap out of that one, though.
For me it was a couple of things - when he was late for their anniversary dinner and she just totally ignored him (cut him dead you could say !) not even a glance; the grown ups at the wedding not noticing him or reacting to his presence, then the piece of furniture in front of the door down to his basement room. The time he broke the window of her shop by jealous thoughts was too obvious.
Roger Ebert’s Law of Conservation of Characters:
“Every individual, no matter how brief their initial appearance, will have some crucial role to play later in the proceedings.”
That’s probably a paraphrase, and I’m guessing it’s from Ebert’s “Bigger” Little Movie Glossary.
Basically what you said, but when people asked me how I got the twist, I just told them “Hmm. The kid sees dead people. The guy gets shot. NO ONE in the entire movie talks to the guy *except * for the kid. Do the math.”
I think you are getting the chronology wrong
In the James Bond film Goldeneye I figured out who the surprise villain was going to be about 5 minutes into the movie.
Let’s just say a character that seemingly gets killed very early in the movie was played by an actor who even then was too big a star and had too high billing to be gone that soon.
Ironically, Twisted had terribly predictable twists. Awful movie.
I figured out Inside Man right away. It kind of took some of the enjoyment out of it.
I figured out the ending to The Life of David Gale about halfway through the trailer for it (never actually saw it; checked to confirm that I’d guessed right when it occurred to me to do so).