But after all that goodness there's a second half in which the boys hop in a super tank and run, uh, I guess ... some sort of a mission? Remember that? No? Of course not -- no one remembers that, because Stripes completes its story arc when Bill Murray and the cadets finish basic training. His character goes from being out of shape and undisciplined to highly trained and fit. It just happens too soon, so enter super tank and a couple of wacky Russian border patrol guards, and you have all the parts of the movie you don't remember. It's almost like we had Stripes and its subpar sequel combined in one movie.

With Elf, the problems happen in the third act -- and if you think about it, it makes sense. In most movies, there's a "good guy" and a "bad guy" -- even if they're not literal. A bad guy would be a shark like in Jaws or a disease like in The Fault In Our Stars (I guess? I walked out of the theater before it started when I suddenly realized I wasn't an eighth-grade girl). But even though Elf is a delightful comedic romp, deservedly beloved by millions, there isn't much of a bad guy. It's a fish-out-of-water story, so the "bad guy" is the challenges of the society, or perhaps James Caan's character, who is initially resistant to his son. By Act 3, however, those have been mostly resolved, and you sense the filmmakers felt compelled to raise the stakes. Enter ... THE CENTRAL PARK RANGERS!!!

New Line Cinema

Suddenly, the whole point of the movie is a giant reindeer-based car chase with enemies that simply didn't exist until this point, and they go away just as quickly. There's a very famous beat sheet in Hollywood by Blake Snyder, who wrote the screenwriting book Save The Cat. It's a great guide for telling a story, and I've even used it in my novels, but Elf suffers from adhering to it too tightly. Snyder calls Act 3 "Bad Guys Close In"; almost all movies have it. But typically, it's an escalation of existing problems in the film, not completely new ones. Going back to Jaws, that's why the shark comes up on the boat in Act 3 and eats Quint. If Act 3 of Jaws dealt with a bunch of water-skiing accountants from the IRS surprising Brody with a tax audit, that would make a lot less sense.

Quick! What do you remember about Cast Away? Is it the super well-filmed and compelling plane crash footage? Or maybe it's fat Tom Hanks dancing around a fire or thin Tom Hanks spearing a fish from 20 feet out. Odds are super good your memories include his best friend, Wilson the volleyball. Yep, Cast Away is a memorable movie, and it's especially memorable if you shut it off after he gets off the island.

But nothing compelling happens in the real world. And why would it? It's not a story about adjusting to life after isolation and struggle. It's a movie about man versus the elements. Once Hanks' character is rescued, there simply isn't enough steam to sustain anything memorable. Indeed, the only things I remember about the post-island stuff are scenes that are memorably bad. Like Helen Hunt doing the equivalent of a spit take in fainting from surprise that her lost love Hanks is still alive.

Of course, there's the scene where Hunt runs out into the rain, abandoning her family and beseeching Hanks to drive her away, until she says, "No, wait. Never mind." See? Hunt, like the movie, literally doesn't go anywhere in the third act.

But despite its title, most of the scariest scenes have implied gore and play more on a feeling of helplessness in the face of evil. Nothing scares me more than the inbred, hick hitchhiker who cuts only himself in the first 30 minutes of the movie. And yes, Leatherface hitting you on the head with a hammer, hanging you on a meat hook, and then going to work with a chainsaw is terrifying, but virtually nothing is actually shown. It's all very subtle and very real.

Until Act 3, where again everything goes to hell. Suddenly, the movie is no longer content to be a realistic portrayal of insanity and evil gone unchecked in the backwoods of a small Texas town. It goes supernatural with a dead/mummified/vampire grandpa up in the attic who comes to life with a little blood. Why? That's Van Helsing-level stupid. That's I, Frankenstein. It's a level of stupid so stupid that I have no idea how all the non-stupid came before it.