10 Exact Moments Recent Movies Lost Us

Nightmare fuel M.O.D.O.K. was the last straw.

Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantumania MODOK
Marvel Studios

There's nothing quite like watching a movie and realising the exact moment at which it achieved greatness and was forever cemented in your mind as an all-time classic.

But it's sadly far more common for a film to commit one single act of cinematic sacrilege which just tips the scales too far and ruins the whole damn thing.

Sometimes a single scene can be the straw that breaks the camel's - or rather, the viewer's - back, confirming to them that what they're watching just isn't good. Like, at all.

So many creative missteps can make the audience lose interest, from shoehorned cameos to shock value twists, stupid subplots, atrocious CGI, and characters you just couldn't stand.

These are the moments that made viewers en masse start tuning out and appreciate that it wasn't going to end up anywhere good. The promise was there in some cases, but in these precise moments, these movies threw it all away.

The lessons to be learned from most of these films? Give the audience what they want, and if you're gonna take a big swing, you need to be really sure about it...

10. Wonder Woman's Cameo - Shazam! Fury Of The Gods

Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantumania MODOK
Warner Bros.

Shazam! Fury of the Gods is one of the most disappointing sequels in recent years, and while most of the movie is a pretty pedestrian superhero flick - and one packed with insane Skittles product placement, no less - it truly hits the bottom of the well right at the end.

Billy Batson (Asher Angel) ends up sacrificing himself to save the day, but before we've got more than a hot minute to mourn Billy's death, Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) rocks up out of nowhere to put things right.

Wonder Woman repairs the Wizard's (Djimon Hounsou) broken staff and then uses it to bring Billy back from the dead, and even though few would've expected Billy to stay dead, this superstar cameo felt like a painfully desperate way to make it happen.

The moment that Wonder Woman shows up - in a cameo that was clearly filmed separately from the scene's other actors - it's hard not to picture a Warner Bros. executive arguing for its inclusion in an attempt to boost the flagging DCEU.

That we also had to sit through the tonal derailment of Wonder Woman's iconic theme jarringly interrupting Billy's makeshift funeral only made the whole scene fall even flatter. Nobody needed this, and it ended the movie on a horribly corporate, cynical note.

Contributor
Contributor

Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes). General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.