Spencer Thew
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Matt Lovell
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Barry Scott
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Just like every one of our ex-lovers, some movie characters have to keep secrets if they know what's good for 'em. When done well, a character with a secret builds drama, drives the plot forward, and occasionally wears the hell out of a sinister mustache. Most times, though, movie characters refusing to be honest and open with each other results in nothing but pointless filler and frustrated audiences. For example ...
The Toy Story series posits that all toys are secretly alive, and only pretend to be inanimate objects in the presence of humans. This interestingly also includes the spaceman action figure Buzz Lightyear. Uniquely, he doesn't think he's a toy, yet he still acts lifeless when his owner Andy wants to play with him.
Hmm.
Pixar
Maybe he's shy?
Why It's Stupid:
Throughout all three movies, Andy proves himself to be a considerate, loving human being. There seriously should have been a point where his toys said "Screw it" and revealed themselves to him as sentient beings.
Pixar
"So did you guys watch me ..."
"Yes, every night."
They could have been even better friends! But more importantly, Andy's neighbor Sid takes great joy in destroying and "rebuilding" his toys, yet none of them have ever cried out in pain and/or horror at any of it. They played dead "just because," and let a mad god transform them into Cronenberg masturbation material. Why? Honestly, the only answer seems to be that the plot called for it. And because Toy Story is secretly a love letter to nihilism.
Sector Seven is a shadowy government agency that popped up in the first live-action Transformers movie. They possess the frozen body of Megatron, which is the source of all modern technology, and had been hiding him away behind the Hoover Dam for decades.
Paramount Pictures
"We've been using him to chill our beers." -- Sector Seven, probably
Obviously, Megatron's minions eventually infiltrate the base, unfreeze their boss, and allow him to escape. That's what good minions do.
Why It's Stupid:
According to a Sector Seven top honcho, Megatron wasn't guarded that well because he didn't pose a serious security threat. But the movie starts with a military base being attacked by robots that look a lot like the guy they have in their giant fridge. The secret agent people should have taken one look at those reports, connected the dots, and bunkered down like their name was Archie, because something was obviously looking for their alien popsicle.
And keep in mind, Sector Seven isn't only being kept secret from civilians. The regular military, the Pentagon, even the president have no idea it exists, meaning they cannot help defend it in any way when the time comes. For example, perhaps they could have told Sector Seven not to bring random, unvetted civilians into the base. Because that's exactly what they did, and it turned out that a Decepticon infiltrated the base inside Megan Fox's bag, allowing Megatron to break free and the Transformers franchise to keep going for four more, excruciatingly bad movies.
Paramount Pictures
This is on you, Sector Seven, you monsters!
Amanda Seyfried wins first place for first-world problems in Mamma Mia. She lives on a Greek island paradise and is getting married to a man she loves ... but she doesn't have a father to walk her down the aisle. Naturally, she steals her mom's diary to find out who her father is, only to discover three possible candidates.
Universal Pictures
"Damn. Go, mom."
Seyfried decides to invite all three men to her wedding and spend time with them in order to discern which is her real dad ... somehow? The investigative protocol is unclear. And of course she has to keep the whole thing a secret from her mom, because ...
Why It's Stupid:
Because nothing! To keep their possible daughter's stupid secret, all three men make up lame stories to explain why they're on the island, and none of them involve the wedding. It's just a coincidence, albeit the biggest coincidence in history. One claims to be writing a travel log, one says he's having a spontaneous vacation, the other is ... lost? On a top-secret mission? Was hiding there the whole time? Who knows.
The mom doesn't buy it, but spends an uncomfortably long chunk of the movie racking her brain as to who could have invited these men to the island. When at the end her daughter tearfully admits that she was behind the whole thing, her mom actually gasps in disbelief. At least we know where you didn't get the brains from, Amanda.
Martin Lawrence is a devoted husband with a stable family life, but his partner Will Smith is a hard-partying bachelor. It is the law of buddy cop juxtaposition. It must not be violated. So when a woman witnesses a murder linked to the theft of $100 million in heroin, the pair have no choice but to work together. Because the witness will only tell her story to Smith's character Mike, whom she's never met, Lawrence's Detective Marcus must pretend to be his partner in order to solve the case, save his precinct, and shout one-liners while shooting explosions at bad guys.
Columbia Pictures
It's a Michael Bay movie, after all.
Why It's Stupid:
When Julie, the witness, first meets Marcus, she doesn't believe that he's Mike ... but she still puts her life in his hands after he saves her from assassins sent by a vicious drug lord. And in that moment, right after he had risked his life to protect her, Marcus could have absolutely sat Julie down and said, "Hey, you know how a couple of minutes ago I said I was that guy and you didn't believe me? Yeah, I'm not really him. He'll be with us shortly. Sorry for lying to you, but as you can see, people clearly want you dead and it was the only way to save your life."
Columbia Pictures
"Also, I'm sorry, but you won't land a decent leading role again until 2014."
Instead, Marcus and Mike are forced to keep up the unnecessary and elaborate charade, chock-full o' wacky situations. Marcus is forced to bunk with the witness in Mike's house, a place that is packed full of his pictures, while ladykiller Mike moves into Marcus' house, completely messing up his family life. In the end, all it amounts to is adding 40+ minutes of filler to the movie's runtime. In a Michael Bay movie, that feels like an eternity.
The Rescuers and The Great Mouse Detective both boil down to the same inexplicably specific premise: There are incredibly intelligent and crafty rodents out there who've managed to build a shadow society right under our very noses.
Why It's Stupid:
The Rescuers tells the story of a secret society of mice from all over the world whose sole job is to help out kids in trouble. Cool. How about letting humans in on that racket? Due to their small stature, the mice are excellent infiltrators, and they are amazing at gathering intel. But there comes a time when having a big human, preferably one with a gun, would have saved some time -- time that they shouldn't be wasting when there is, say, a missing child to find.
Basil is a rodent who lives in the same flat as Sherlock Holmes in The Great Mouse Detective, and like Holmes, Basil is as big a jerk as he is a genius. And yet it never once occurred to him to reveal himself to Holmes and ask him for help in dealing with his nemesis, Professor Ratigan. And who knows? In Holmes' drug-fueled state, he might even listen to a talking mouse. Then it's a simple matter of blasting that top-hat-wearing rat with a shotgun. Problem solved! Leaving the remainder of the film free to explore what happens when a mouse/detective duo do insane amounts of cocaine together.
Barry Scott is a new contributor to Cracked and has a blog for all his petty thoughts. Check it out at https://www.therantgent.com/.
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