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10 Movies That Tried Way Too Hard To Be Clever – Screen Rant
Every good movie needs a clever hook that keeps audiences talking, but some films overcomplicate and layer concepts so thick that they just fall flat.
A mind-bending or thought-provoking film is always likely to impress—but some movies aren't nearly as clever as they seem on the surface. As the years go on, it gets harder and harder for Hollywood to develop new ideas. So, concepts of time travel, social commentaries, and trope diversions get recycled. This often requires a new element or an additional layer of exploration to drive the plot home. Unfortunately, some filmmakers don't go this extra mile to help their idea land with audiences, and the result is a film that is more smoke and mirrors than anything truly substantial.
Donnie Darko, Fight Club, The Matrix—these are all films that kept audiences talking, analyzing, and theorizing for years after their release. They often become more interesting with every subsequent watch, as buried details or moments of foreshadowing are seen hidden within the plot. Clever concepts give a movie longevity and ensure audiences keep their ideas relevant for decades. Unfortunately, this isn't easy to achieve, and several attempts at Hollywood cleverness over the years have fallen flat.
Overall, Isn't It Romantic had a cute premise. It followed a New York architect (Rebel Wilson), who was jaded against romance—especially those 2000s-era romantic comedies. However, one day after getting knocked unconscious, she woke up to find herself in one. This allowed the self-aware film to poke fun at its own genre, which it certainly did around every corner. However, it failed to take it much further than this. Isn't It Romantic might have been more clever if it diverted rom-com tropes and corrected the problems it had criticized.
The Platform told the story of a prison where the cells are stacked one on the other. Every day, a platform full of food would start at the top cell and gradually make its way to the bottom. This meant that the uppermost prisoners frequently got all the luxurious food they needed, while those on the lower levels were left with scraps. This was a clear social commentary and might have been effective as a short film. However, after initially exploring this concept, The Platform seemed to have little more to add to the conversation.
Cloud Atlas certainly had a lot going on. Actors Tom Hanks and Halle Berry played several different characters in Cloud Atlas over several centuries, which was interesting and ambitious on its own. The overarching theme here is a sort of connectedness—the idea that souls are pulled together repeatedly throughout time. Aside from this, Cloud Atlas has that stressful feeling of a film trying too hard to be deep. With so many separate storylines, the concept of connectedness was lost in a frustratingly disconnected plot.
M. Night Shyamalan's Unbreakable series was fairly well received with its first two installments, but things fell apart with Glass. By the final film of this trilogy, it became clear that the interest in the plot depended entirely on Dissociative Identity Disorder, which had already been grossly exaggerated for the sake of making a terrifying villain. James McAvoy gave a great performance and managed to truly feel like several different characters. But since this idea had already been played out, and other plot aspects were left half-baked, Glass didn't impress as much as was expected.
Bright brought standard fantasy races and placed them in a modern urban setting, and this was interesting enough for the first part of the film. The plot followed two police partners, one a human with a deep seeded prejudice against orcs, and the other (you guessed it) an orc. This was a clear metaphor for real-world racism, layered with points about police brutality and gang culture. Unfortunately, aside from pointing out these issues and resolving everything with a kumbaya moment, Bright had nothing else intelligent to add to the conversation.
Now You See Me is another film with an exciting premise that falls flat under any amount of scrutiny. It follows a group of stage magicians who miraculously steal money from the rich and powerful, and Robin Hood it over to the audience. At first, Now You See Me took the time to explain how some of these tricks happened, revealing their impressive magic to be the logical sleight-of-hand of real-world magic. However, the film leaned on the magic premise to get away with doing whatever it wanted without bothering to justify it with any logic. Entertaining, yes, but entirely dependent on cheap storytelling.
Hot Air doesn't take long to show what it's all about. The story follows a conservative radio host, Lionel Macomb, who revels in spreading hate and rage—until his entire belief system is challenged by his teenage niece. The film clearly intends to reveal the problems of binary thinking, but it lacks perspective. Macomb was a completely superficial character—a caricature of right-wing thinking. If Hot Air had really wanted to be clever, it could have demonstrated how individuals are pulled into such extreme thinking rather than just continuing the simple idea of "that is bad, and this is good."
Director Christopher Nolan has had plenty of success making mind-bending and thought-provoking films, but it felt like he got lazy with Tenet. Full of time travel and, therefore, multiple timelines, very little explanation is given for how this works. In fact, the line "don't try to understand it" was used to simply brush any questions away. To make matters worse, aside from protagonist John David Washington's desire to prevent World War III, motivations are never explained. Overall, it seemed the film tried to be so complicated that audiences would be too intimidated to ask questions and perhaps forget to notice that character development was non-existent.
The idea of artificial intelligence taking over mankind has been done time and time again to great success. Unfortunately, Transcendence wasn't one of those cases. Actor Johnny Depp's character, Dr. Will Caster, becomes obsessed with his experiments with AI, his wife and friends grow concerned, and without fail, technology evolves to be dangerously influential. Transcendence asked several of the same old regurgitated questions about the ethics of creating consciousness but provided no intelligent or unique answers. Ultimately, the great visuals couldn't cover up the lack of substance.
Signs is a fun thriller in its way, but it in no way holds up to any intelligent analysis. There are some interesting connections to destiny—like how each character's faults and failures resulted in the evil alien's downfall—but this all falls flat thanks to the terribly cliche villains. There is no answer in sight for why the aliens bothered to attempt communication in the first place or why they are on a planet whose service is 75% water when the substance is their single greatest weakness. In the end, Signs is a great introductory thriller for preteens, but its attempts at cleverness missed the mark.
A fight inside Mankato East High School last week Friday is re-igniting the debate over school resource officers in Minnesota. In a video taken in the hallways of the school building, school officials say about 10 students were involved in that brawl. One of the students assaulted was Nashawn William’s son.
“I was upset,” said Williams. “He had a blood clot in his right eye at the bottom and his upper torso was swollen…They could have killed my son stomping him on the floor, like you all saw the video, they could have killed my son.”
The fight comes after Supt. Paul Peterson told families in an email this month that “SROs will not be physically located at MAPS schools but will be available on an ‘on call’ basis to assist school staff.”
Scott Hare, Director of Student Support Services with Mankato Area Public Schools, said police were called in to break up the fight. He added that if an SRO had been in the building, the situation would have looked different.
“Having an officer on site, they’re right there. It’s very fast. It will take a couple of minutes for other officers to arrive through 911,” said Hare. “An SRO can read the situation and make the correct judgment call on the type of support that they would need to bring in.”
A new law prohibits SROs from placing a student in a face-down position and bans certain holds on the head, neck and across most of the torso. Besides Mankato, at least a dozen other law enforcement agencies have pulled their SROs across the state arguing the law would prevent them from doing their job.
RELATED: Minnesota Chiefs of Police Association meets with attorney general over new school resource officer law
“Once you take that presence out of the school, everybody feels like they can run around because they know the teachers can’t do anything,” said Williams.
Elizabeth Hanke is a parent within the school district and believes the state is overreaching by getting involved with placing policies at schools.
“We need more local government and community involvement. We need to give authority and agency back to our teachers and police officers, and still be able to hold them accountable for when they’re not doing their jobs effectively,” said Hanke.
Last month, Attorney General Keith Ellison said what’s written in the law is clear, however, Governor Tim Walz’s office tells 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS Walz remains open to a special session addressing this matter.
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The last Fight Week prior to the mega Fulton-Inoue/Spence-Crawford showdowns offers up some interesting action.
FRIDAY
Thompson Boxing sadly bids farewell after 23 years of promoting boxing in Southern California. Their final show is headlined by welterweight Louie Lopez (13-2-1, 4 KOs) against an opponent TBA. You can catch the action on YouTube and Facebook.
SATURDAY
ESPN presents former undisputed lightweight champion George “Ferocious” Kambosos Jr. (20-2, 10 KOs) against Maxi Hughes (26-5-2, 5 KOs) in a twelve round IBF world title eliminator from the FireLake Arena in Shawnee, Oklahoma.
UFC Fightpass has exciting junior middleweight KO artist Serhii “El Flaco” Bohachuk (22-1, 22 KOs) against former world title challenger Patrick Allotey (42-4, 32 KOs) at the Chumash Casino Resort in Santa Ynez, California.
ProBox TV has a pro fight card from the Radisson Victoria Plaza in Montevideo, Uruguay, with middleweight Amilcar Vidal Jr (16-1, 12 KOs) rebounding from his first loss against Domicio Rondon (17-5, 11 KOs).
So we have a fighter from Australia against a UK fighter at a venue on Oklahoma. Looks like this one will go the distance!
My thoughts (re the fighters and venue) exactly but why do you think that this means a distance fight?
Am I ridiculous for thinking that Hughes has a chance in this one, Pete?? He’s been on a nice little run as of late against some decent guys including a former world champion, albeit a blown-up featherweight.
I was just thinking the same. Maxi is on a nice run; If you take away the win against a mentally and physically compromised Teo, has George done much?
Getting whitewashed against Haney twice and close wins against Bet and Selby doesn’t make a great resume. I think Maxi is a live dog.
Don’ think so-has five losses and not much KO power. Kambosos pretty average as well but should have enough to beat this guy.
Only time he got f’d up was vs someone who wore Reyes gloves. As long as Kambosos isn’t wearing those, Hughes may not be psyched out. He like kept the Reyes gloves and showed them off about how much he hated the padding and feel to them. It was in a YouTube video.
I think he does have a chance. I always felt the stars aligned perfect for Kambosos when he fought Lopez. Lopez was overconfident and fought a fight that gave Kambosos a chance. Plus he was better at taking Lopez’s power then we thought which I also think caught Lopez off guard. Other then that, like Streetgang said…what else has he really done that separates him from Hughes? I maybe in the minority but I thought Selby beat him.
So yes I think Hughes could outpoint him. I am not sure if that is my pick but it is a reasonable outcome. Just to clarify when I earlier said it would go the distance I was referring to their KO % …that comment had nothing to do with the venue which I do not think will be relevant as to whether it goes the distance or not.
I remember the Selby fight and thinking it was close but Lee may have nicked it.
I will be pulling for Maxi, George has become a bit unbearable for me.
I think I might just take this week off and just save the excitement for next weekend
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The IBF’s 38th Annual Convention will kick off this weekend at The Fairmont Chicago Millennium Park, in Chicago, Illinois from May 28 – June 1, 2023. After 38 years, the organization will be returning to the Midwest to celebrate the IBF’s 40th year. The IBF celebrated its 2nd Annual Convention in Dearborn, Michigan in 1985 and a return to the region is long overdue. “We are excited for this milestone event and are looking forward to gathering with the boxing community in Chicago and the Midwest,” said IBF President Daryl Peoples.
During the convention the IBF hosts several events and seminars. Notably, the IBF also presents annual awards at each convention, and proudly announces its top award recipients for 2022 to be presented at the Awards Banquet closing the organization’s convention festivities on Wednesday, May 31, 2023. The IBF is proud to announce some of it’s top awards for 2022 in anticipation of the upcoming convention.
Jersey Joe Walcott Award
The Jersey Joe Walcott Award, the organization’s highest honor, will go to Naoya Inoue. In spectacular fashion, Inoue unified the Bantamweight division with a second-round knockout win over Nonito Donaire. Naoya won the IBF title in 2019 and defended six times.
Female Fighter of the Year
Receiving the IBF Female Fighter of the Year Award is Chantelle Cameron who unified the Female Jr. Welterweight division. Cameron put on an exciting performance when she beat Undisputed Welterweight Champion Jessica McCaskill by unanimous decision and became the Undisputed Champion in the division.
Fight of the Year
IBF– Sivenathi Nontshinga vs. Hector Flores
Female – Katie Taylor vs. Amada Serrano
Intercontinental – Mark Heffron vs. Lennox Clarke
USBA – Robeisy Ramirez vs. Abraham Nova
Jessica McCaskill and Murodjon Akhmadaliev are recieving Championship Rings for 3 successful title defenses.
“We proudly celebrate the notable achievements and remarkable careers of our champions, and the boxers that participated in IBF title fights. These are very well-deserved distinctions as all these fighters have worked incredibly hard to attain these accomplishments. We look forward to celebrating them,” noted Daryl Peoples.
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