Confusing Plots

[Ferbian]

There's a lot of movies out there. Some are (If I may say so) pretty damn strange. Some movies I have spend between 10 minutes to 2 hours (the end of some of the movies, including commercials) to figure out what the hell it was about.

These movies I would say ruins the joy of watching them. But some of them can actually be pretty entertaining or great to watch. That is if you ever catch the plot of it.

So what I wanna ask you guys is:

Have you ever watched a movie where you couldn't figure out the plot? Why couldn't you?

What do you think about these kinds of movies?

There's 3 movies that took me quite a while to figure out. One of them I never figured out the purpose of.

The first one is: Twelve Monkeys - The one with Bruce Willis. Yep. I never figured out what in the world that movie was about. Seemed pretty back and forth to me of weird situations that I never could find a start or end in. It'll be on television tonight. Where I hopefully will find out the plot. But this definitely wasn't as interesting as it could've been if the plot had been understandable.

Codename Mercury - Yep Bruce Willis makes some weird ass movies. Or well he stars in them. I never figured out the true plot of this one either.

The Truman Show - Surprise surprise. Not a Bruce Willis movie. No this one is Jim Carrey all the way. It took me about a hour to figure out the plot of this one. After that I could finally enjoy the movie. And laugh at it. Yep I managed to watch a Jim Carrey movie where I didn't laugh until I understood it. I'm easily entertained when it comes to comedians. So it says a lot.

On and off note: I fully welcome people to explain to the others in this thread what it is about. As long as you add to the discussion rather than answering just the question.

 

[LitasRevenge79]

1. The Happening- by M Night Shymalan
I should've learned my lesson after the let down with The Village he made. This was supposed to be a Innovative and Delightfully scary concept according to critics. The overall plot seemed simple enough, a weird virus making people act harmful to themselves. But then you watch the movie, and there is absolutely no way to describe HOW the 'virus' gets started, then it gets turned into 'karmic retribution' to people living on earth? Then of course, he has one of those 'twist' endings. But the twist is so pathetic that it leaves it open for a possibility of more of this story.

2. Blair Witch 2: Book of Shadows- Okay, I've never been into the whole series of these movies. I only watched it cause it had the lead guy from Burn Notice in it that I liked. Anyways, this movie is just clusterfucked from the get go. It keeps jumping between interviews in a police station and the explanation of why the people are being interrogated by the police. Not to mention some pretty freaky hallucinations some of them start seeing when they start getting cabin fever after being stuck in their little research place. Its just a movie with people and paranoid delusions and justifications for searrching for the infamous 'witch' that is mentioned from the first movie. I'm so glad I watched it on SyFy and didn't pay for it. Just too jumpy, and no one could explain WHY in the sam hell it was so freaking important for them to be in THAT damn cabin, or to go out in the woods where some random people were or the importance of some freaking wiccan spells they had to have...just random things that were there that seemed of no importance to be there in the first place.


Those are just the two that really stick out in my mind at least.

 

[Leeds Guy]

I'd say The Manchurian Candidate. I had no idea what the hell was going on in this movie until about halfway through. I love films like this though, I love having that ohhhhhh moment where you click whats been happening and I loved this film. I think it just sucks when your let down by films like this. When your expecting something major to happen and it turns out it's just something insignificant.

Weird though Ferbs how you put the Trueman show in there. I mean it is a bit self explanitory by the title.

 

[Via Armbar]

I'll go with one of my all time favorite movies, The Prestige. It starts off in typical Nolan fashion with an out of context intro. Even after the first scene however, the narrative of the story makes some unidentifiable jumps. It goes from one man reading another mans journal to that owner of the journal reading the journal of the man who was initially reading his journal. Follow? Yeah I didn't at first either. As long as you can keep an idea of the timelines then things should be okay. Once the final scene ends however, you definitely want to rewatch immediately because the ending gives you a new perspective on the rest of the story.

Honorable mention goes to Moon. The movie gets odd almost right from the get go and it doesn't ease up until the near end. It definitely ends up where I didn't think it would. Confusing at first, but about midway through the movie things clear up a bit.

 

[jmt225]

Mulholland Drive is the first movie that comes to mind for me.

The first hour and a half or so is easy to follow. A young woman escapes from being murdered, but still gets in a car crash, which makes her lose her memory. When she comes to, she roams around and goes into a random house, where she meets Naomi Watts' character. The woman tells Watts she can't remember anything and Watts believes her. They then both go on the trail to figure out who the woman is, while Watts is also an aspiring actress, so there are a few key tryout scenes as well. That's basically it.

But then, out of nowhere, when we feel like we're going to get some answers of who this woman is and why someone wanted her killed, BOOM, the movie takes a complete 180 and everything we've been watching....

Spoiler

.... was a dream. Or was it? It's never really explained what's real and what's not; you have to come to the conclusions yourself.

I really, really love this fucking movie, and I love that it's confusing as fuck. I love that I can come to my own conclusion of what happened and what didn't. Plus, it's one of those films where you pick up little things each time you watch it. That, plus it's downright entertainment value, makes it one hell of a movie that I suggest everyone check out. Be forewarned though... you will be left scratching your head, as this is without a doubt stranger than most movies you'll ever see in your lifetime.

 

[Fire Marshall Bill]

I had that problem with Matrix Revolutions. The first two were easy for me to understand. Hell, most of Revolutions I was able to follow. But at the end I just had no idea what the hell happened. It took a combination of someone trying to explain it and my own thoughts for me to finally put it together (I think). And I think that's where they started going wrong with it. The first one was a new, cool idea. Then they started to complicate it. Not that they were bad, but they went far enough into it that I know for a fact I was not the only one confused by the outcome.

 

[Dave]

Speaking of complex plotlines, I have just watched American Psycho and I haven’t been this G-Darn confused since I watched Fight Club for the first time.

However, I have a desperately good love affair with films like these and I love to watch them. I liked Fight Club and although I am still confused by the ending of American Psycho, I adored it. The same goes for movies like Shutter Island. Shutter Island is by far my favourite movie of the last 5 years and maybe beyond. However, on the subject of American Psycho, I have found myself scratching my head, thinking about what has happened in the last 20 minutes of the movie and I still don’t think I have cracked it at all.

I think that what they are trying to get at is that Christian Bale’s character, Patrick Bateman, has adopted so many personalities that he they believe that he is all of them and he has simply lost track of all of them. However, I really don’t know. The same is true of movies like The Machinist, which is another favourite of mine. In fact, Christian Bale is very good at these roles in general. Either way, both of those movies have very confusing plots and I have found myself watching twice or maybe three times just to find out what has happened.

Something with a great plot twist or complex story sometimes runs the risk of losing the audience as it delves too far into the obscure but the movies I have listed are prime examples of how good these movies can be when they are pulled off correctly.