I have seen many movies over the years, including some downright terrible ones. A script is important––and there are few things that can take you out of a film more than bad dialogue. I like to bring up The Dark Knight Rises. Yes, I get it: Christopher Nolan is popular and he is very technically proficient as a director (but on the other hand, I find him way too workman-like). But what is up with that dialogue? Batman speaking to Bane––"I came here to stop you!"––is painful. Thalia's death sequence is cringe-worthy. A bad script could not save Oscar-winning actress Marion Cotillard from embarrassing herself.
People told us all about the worst lines they've ever heard on film after Redditor coolghost06 asked the online community,
"What's the stupidest line of dialogue you've ever heard in a movie?"
"That line..."
"I AM YOUR ULTRA-NIGHTMARE!"
Shouted by a character in the low-budget 'Doom Annihilation' movie as he shoots dead a couple of demon zombie imp stuff. The line is a reference to the hardest difficulty setting in the doom games, which is called 'Ultra Nightmare' difficulty.
That line and that reference just sound very awkward in that context."
"Like, are you kidding?"
""You know, the thing about trains... It doesn't matter where they're going. What matters is deciding to get on."
- Tom Hanks Nightmare from the Polar Express.
Like, are you kidding? Of course, it matters where the train goes!"
That movie is so nightmarish and so soulless. Those eyes still haunt my dreams.
"Such a lazy, stupid line..."
""You just don't get it, do you?" [Proceeds to explain plot that writers presume audience was too inept to follow, that script was too poorly structured to elucidate earlier, or that direction was too convoluted to let audience visualise.]
Such a lazy, stupid line, and it happens. All. The. Time."
That is truly Lazy Screenwriting 101. Clunky exposition is a big fat "no."
"Absolutely terrible..."
"Let's kick some ice!"
Absolutely terrible pun from a terrible film.
Batman and Robin should be forgotten for the rest of time. Alas, it is a cinematic tragedy and we are still suffering for it.
"Oh man!"
"Oh God! Oh man ! Oh God! Oh man! Oh God! Oh man! Oh God! Oh man! Oh God!"
Tough Guys Don't Dance isn't worth seeing––not even for that scene.
That's what YouTube is for.
"Now, I get..."
"If we believe there is even a one percent chance that he is our enemy, we have to take it as an absolute certainty!"
Now, I get what they're trying to say with this line. I think the point is that Bruce believes that Superman is so dangerous that all possibilities have to be taken seriously and accounted for, because the stakes are so high. But the articulation of this point is absolutely awful; you don't need to treat something as an "absolute certainty" in order to take it seriously. That's just a terrible way of expressing the point and makes Batman - supposedly one of the most intelligent people in the world - sound like an idiot."
Vin Diesel then stomps..."
"That's the thing about street fights, the street always wins."
Vin Diesel then stomps his foot really hard and destroys a parking structure."
"I had such high hopes..."
""Honestly, he's kinda hot."
Man of Steel, after Superman tosses a satellite out of orbit at the end of the movie. The dialogue is such @ss.
I had such high hopes for the DC movies but the only good one they've put out has been SHAZAM!"
The fact that people willingly pay money for DC films still hurts me. I can't sit through them.
"Craziest of all..."
"Imperial battleship, halt the flow of time!"
The line itself, delivered by the late, great Christopher Plummer in the cheap, Italian Star Wars rip-off Starcrash doesn't convey half of its full impact, which can only truly be appreciated by watching the film all the way through. Yes, it's one of the most inspiredly idiotic instances of deus ex machina you'll probably ever see, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. When this scene happens, we've only just rescued the crown prince (played by a young David Hasselhoff), and the Emperor (Plumber) has literally done nothing of use whatsoever throughout the entire film. All of this happens while the main characters are besieging the evil overlord's planet-lair, only for the overlord to skedaddle and set the planet to explode.
Craziest of all: this isn't even the climax of the movie! There's still a big, ridiculous final battle sequence before the thing finally reaches its conclusion!"
"She says it so smugly..."
"Little late to the party but for me, in Man of Steel, when Supes is fighting the woman Kryptonian in the small town and she says something like, "The fact that you possess a sense of morality and we do not gives us an evolutionary advantage and if history has taught us anything, it's that evolution always wins!"
She says it so smugly and condescendingly and everytime I hear it the biologist in me just gets so angry. That's not how any of this works! I just start angrily muttering. "If empathy was a disadvantage, then it wouldn't exist. Evolution doesn't win or lose, it just is."
There are wonderful films out there; they're beautifully realized works of art.
Then there's everything else, and the spectrum is vast.
But most films are not Tough Guys Don't Dance. I can at least admit that.
Have some suggestions of your own? Feel free to tell us about them in the comments below!
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