10 Movies That BRILLIANTLY Avoided Huge Cliches

once you've seen hundreds or even thousands of films it can become tough for a movie to surprise you there are only so many things a movie can do to skirt the ordinary and in the interest of delivering a safely fun time which a lot of movies prioritize these days most films will cling to tried and tested tropes and cliches and so it's great fun when a rare movie dares to break the firmly established mold a Nimble sidestep and massively played out genre CLE I'm youan you're watching War culture and here are 10 movies that brilliantly avoided huge cliches number 10 K isn't the chosen one Blade Runner 2049 from fairly early on in Blade Runner 2049 it seems like it's going to do the incredibly boring and obvious legacy sequel thing of making the new protagonist replicant K played by Ryan Gosling the child of Prior protagonist decet played by Harrison Ford and of course lover Rachel who was portrayed by Sha Young And if Kay were indeed the first child of a human and a replicant it would basically make him an extremely important Chosen One likee figure in the resistance movement for replicant freedom but in the third Act of Blade Runner 2049 Kay learns that decard and Rachel's child is female and more to the point they're a relatively minor character who only appears briefly earlier in the story Dr Anna staline played by Carla jury this was a fantastic subversion of expectations leading audiences to expect another generic everything is connected Heroes Journey Only to reveal that K isn't the special one but can still make a difference and have agency through his own actions not merely because of who his parents are it's super refreshing in a Hollywood landscape dominated by belated sequels that are somehow all hopelessly obsessed with creating sappy convolute familiar links between new characters and old number nine the Cavalry gets gunned down collateral Michael man's brilliant Thriller collateral seems to make it pretty clear early on that in battled caby Max played brilliantly by Jamie Fox is going to get a big assist from LAPD detective Ray Fanning played by Mark Ruffalo when it comes to escaping from and taking down ruthless assassin Vincent played also brilliantly by Tom Cruz Fanning is is shown to be a smart and resourceful cop who figures out that Vincent's victims are all Witnesses in a Federal grand jury case so going by film making convention why wouldn't he save the day but Midway through the film when Fanning seemingly saves Max from a chaotic nightclub shootout Fanning is suddenly gunned down in Cold Blood by Vincent who swiftly forces Max back into his cab with Max's only viable Ally now dead it falls to him to save the day himself which he eventually does even so given how the film built Fanning up this was a glorious obliteration of expectations that only further cemented Vincent's utter lack of regard for well anything but the job number eight explosions hurt a lot the other guys oh I love the other guys and right this send up of buddy cop action flicks which spends most of its run time making fun of the most tired playdown elements of that genre and perhaps the biggest laugh of all at least when Michael Keaton isn't on screen because he is brilliant in this movie comes when cop protagonist Gamble and hits Will Farrell and Mark wilberg respectively walk up to an accountancy firm only for the building to suddenly explode in their faces now typically in these sorts of movies an explosion won't do too much to face the heroes but in a gut-bustingly realistic twist Gamble and hoit are sent flying to the floor and starts screaming and riding around in pain gamble mentions that he's hearing a shot and he's got blisters on his hand from the explosion before straight up calling out movies themselves like how they walk away in movies without flinching when it explodes behind them there's no way we're so used to seeing heroic characters just walk away from explosions and I love that but to see one of them rising in pain on the ground and begging for an MRI was a Twist both ingenious and hilarious seriously go watch the other guys that movie is a riot number seven Beck is a good guy The Negotiator it's always a hoop when movies toy with our preconceptions of an actor and the types of roles they tend to play and The Negotiator did that quite wonderfully with David Moors Moos has had an incredibly fruitful career playing hard ass characters and card carrying villains think 16 blocks for example that's just the aura he carries as an actor and it's evidently served him well and so when he shows up as ill-tempered SWAT Commander back in the movie and starts clashing with hero Chris Sabian played by Kevin spacy we're basically conditioned to assume that he's going to end up being the secret villain who has framed Danny Roman played by Samuel Jackson Beck really seems strangely Keen to kill Roman for a large chunk of the movie and so why wouldn't he be the twist villain except he isn't he's simply an impatient ill-mannered bloodthirsty cop who believes that Rowan is guilty which really shouldn't have been that big as surprise but hey ho and better yet Beck even gets the moment of Glory at film's end when he prevents the real antagonist Frost played by Ron riffkin from killing himself oh not many people saw that one coming I bet number six the guy doesn't get the girl the last American Virgin oh the last American Virgin the seemingly dead ordinary 80s boner comedy that was absolutely positively going to end with timid High School AG Gary played by Lawrence mon getting the girl of his dreams the lovely Karen played by Diane Franklin this is hammered home by the film's efforts to depict Gary as a nice guy in St comparison to Gary's sexist pal Rick played by Steve Anon who ends up getting Caren pregnant and then immediately dipping out of her life Gary conversely helps Karen pay for an abortion at Great cost to himself and as the pair seem to grow close she invites him to her 18th birthday party but when he turns up in the film's final scene he enters the kitchen to find Karen making out with Rick the pair having apparently made up and emotionally destroyed Gary simply leaves the party and drives home in tears as the end credits roll and that's all she wrote what a weird bummer of a movie given that sex comedies are basically Duty bound to leave their hormonal audience and the kidy high this one was a bit of a shocker number five Daniel and Miranda they divorced this downfire think of basically any mainstream pre 2000s movie centered around divorce and the overwhelming majority of them will end with the estranged couple getting back together for a crowd-pleasing happy ending and that's certainly seemed to be on the cards for a movie as broad skewing as Mrs downfire that Miranda played by Sally Field and Daniel played of course by Robin Williams would reconcile for the sake of their suffering kids except that's not what happens at all the film ends with Miranda and Daniel remaining divorced but on much better terms which is surprisingly given what Daniel actually did if you think about it too much your brain will leak out of your ears and even more surprisingly though Miranda's new partner stew played by Pierce brosen isn't made out to be a villain of any kind he's a Charming super likable guy all the way to the end just a poor victim of driveby frings it's since been revealed that Mrs dfire indeed a ended with Miranda and Daniel getting back together but Sally Field and Robin Williams both of whom had been divorced in real life felt that this was a disingenuous note to end the movie on and would send the wrong message to Children of Divorce and so director Chris Columbus rightly made the call to end in a more authentic left field no and honestly Mrs downfire is way stronger for it number four revenge isn't easy Blue Ruin Jeremy sonier T Thriller Blue Ruin is basically a featurelength exercise in taking the Revenge movie formula and turning it brilliantly inside out the film follows Dwight played by mon Blair a man who embarks on a quest to kill the man who apparently murdered his parents two decades earlier but there's absolutely nothing badass about Dwight's violent Crusade Blue Ruin considers what it would be like if a regular person with limited weapons experience wanted to extract a pound of Flesh a fact best embodied by a mid-film scene where Dwight ends up shot in the leg with a crossbow forcing him to perform self-surgery except rather than the hero tidily patching himself up as expected Dwight's attempt to remove the crossbow from his leg only makes things worse causing blood to gush from the wound promting him to groggily go to the hospital and let the professionals do the job instead if there's a lot of love for competence porn movies basically films which focus on a character who is extremely skilled at something going about it Blue Ruin is basically the opposite a Savage story all about how utterly El equip the average person is to wreak Vengeance of any kind number three glass tables don't break game night it's a cliche of action films that basically everything in the vicinity is extremely fragile and breakable during a fight scene because more often than not it looks really damn cool we've all seen dozens of movies where a carent is thrown onto a glass table during a fight and it just explodes like but in reality they usually a good deal more sturdy than that and the terrifically entertaining 2019 action comedy game night has great fun illustrating this fact as on two separate occasions characters are thrown onto a glass table only for it to just not break at all the second instance even results in Kevin played by lamon Mor hilariously quipping glass tables are acting weird tonight well it's totally understandable that action movies love breaking glass tables because frankly it just looks amazing game night went unexpectedly out of its way to point out just how unrealistic this incredibly common Trope actually is number two Aussie Mand is's villain monologue Watchmen oh there's nothing more frustrating than listening to a villain prattle through a bond villain monologue explaining what they're going to do and how there's nothing the hero can do to stop them of course they almost always can and will enter Watchman which climaxes with Adrien V AKA oie mandas revealing that he's orchestrated all the very bad things that have happened throughout the movie and his final Gambit involves detonating a series of nuclear reactors across the world killing 50 million people personally I prefer the squid but I digress more to the point he intends to frame Dr Manhattan for it in turn uniting the US and USSR against a common alien entity once Vite finishes his speech a shocked raw Shack and nidal attempt to stop him putting his plan into action only for him to reveal that far from a cliche com villain he triggered the explosions 35 minutes earlier and there's nothing they can do to stop them this is technically a com book cliche so you can't really give the movie credit but despite my misgivings with the adaptation this was diabolically refreshing to see on the big screen and number one there's no final showdown No Country for Old Men as taught and brilliantly executed as No Country for Old Men is on an initial viewing it nevertheless seemed to be headed towards an incredibly typical final showdown between our hero luell and Mos played by Josh broland and the ruthless killing machine Anton shur played brilliantly by bardam but in a wonderfully bewildering end of second act twist Moss is unexpectedly killed off screen not by shagar but by a group of Mexicans who have been following him and it gets even better as the audience is then led to believe that Sheriff Ed Tom Bell played by Tommy Lee Jones will take over from moss and be the one to take shagura down except he just doesn't the film instead ends with bell retiring and effectively admitting to himself that he hasn't got what it takes to deal with the likes of shagar who manages to escape into the night with all that too the Corin Brothers slippery approach left some casual minded audiences pretty underwhelmed but damn if it wasn't a trip to see a pair of filmmakers totally upend our expectations of how a western like this is supposed to wrap up

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Length: 13min 19sec (799 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 11 2024