13 Movie Plots Rendered Ridiculous by Their Stars

[TMC1982]

http://www.cracked.com/article_15015...eir-stars.html

#13
THE PARENT TRAP

Plot: Lindsay Lohan plays identical twins separated at birth due to their parents' divorce. When the Lindsays meet by sheer ****ing Hollywood coincidence at summer camp, they devise a sickeningly cute plan to reunite their parents by switching places. Yay for fun!
Subsequent Development: Lindsay Lohan became a buhgina-flashing, coke-hoovering, Paris Hilton befriending wreck who'd spread her **** for everyone from Girls Gone Wild mogul Joe Francis to Benicio Del Toro. At that point, you should really just go to the zoo and let a gorilla drill you in the ass and save time.
Why It Ruins the Movie: Unless Lohan has been slutting and snorting her way across the globe as part of a clever plan to fake her way into rehab, hoping her estranged parents would reunite by her bedside at Promises, her recent behavior makes it tough to buy her as a bright-eyed adolescent. It's probably a good thing that the above scenario is highly unlikely, considering mother Dina is just as big a club-whore as her 20-year-old daughter and father Michael has spent more time in prison than with his kids. That brings us to an important question: Can you put a 20-year-old in foster care?
#12
FIRST DAUGHTER


Plot: The president's daughter (Katie Holmes) ditches her security detail and goes off to a California college to lead a normal life. But it turns out her new beau has a secret: He's really a secret service agent sworn to protect her! Oh my goodness!
Subsequent Development: Just a year after this movie's release, and under rather murky circumstances, Katie Holmes was impregnated by, and subsequently betrothed to, one Mr. Tom Cruise.
Why It Ruins the Movie: It's kind of hard to watch Katie Holmes portraying a character who's fighting for her independence from a life of round-the-clock surveillance knowing a mysterious cabal would soon select her as the fertile breeding ground for high-level thetans. "Kate" now has a higher security detail than the last 20 presidents combined, and Tom Cruise regularly combs through her stool for traces of psychiatric residue while trained Scientologist hitmen keep a bead on her with automatic rifles.
#11
MR. WRONG


Plot: Martha Alston (Ellen DeGeneres) just can't seem to find the right guy. When Whitman Crawford (Bill Pullman) shows up, everyone else seems to think he's Mr. Right, but Ellen sees a dark side that none of her friends recognize. Hilarity ensues as Ellen fights off the sexual advances of a man who' a kleptomaniac, a mickey-slipping psychotic, and-worse yet-Bill Pullman.

Subsequent Development: It turns out that for Ellen, every guy is Mr. Wrong.

Why It Ruins the Movie: The premise hinges on everyone else thinking Ellen's husband is the perfect catch, causing the friends to come off as painfully devoid of gaydar and making Ellen look like an even more uncomfortable leading lady than Nicole Kidman in Eyes Wide Shut. What should be a sugary-sweet comedy becomes a twisted psychological tale of a woman imagining that her boyfriend is a total dick merely because he has one.
#10
SAVING PRIVATE RYAN


Plot: D-Day. A squad of soldiers walk through wave after wave of Nazi bullets, at considerable sacrifice, to find the last surviving Ryan brother and return him home safely, on account of his perfect facial features and flawless golden skin. Sergeant Horvath (Tom Sizemore) is the battalion's husky, businesslike second-in-command who collects soil from various battlegrounds and, presumably, eats it later for a snack.
Subsequent Development: Sizemore has committed more than his fair share of major social blunders since Ryan, including a 2003 conviction for beating the living **** out of Hollywood whore queen Heidi Fleiss; multiple arrests for his crippling addiction to meth; and, of course, an underground porno he directed, produced, and starred in, during which he decided the pinnacle of sexy porno acts would be to squeeze into a spandex bodysuit and toss a football around with half-nude hookers.
Why It Ruins the Movie: Since Saving Private Ryan's release, Sizemore has proved to be the exact opposite of a selfless, disciplined patriot. In contrast, he's proved to be...well, a guy who does a bunch of meth and enjoys a hooker or two. It's pretty tough to picture him doing his duty during WWII when you can see it in his eyes in every frame of film that he'd rather be high-tailing it to Montreal to split a bag of heroin with five homeless women in the bathroom of an adult magazine warehouse.
#9
THE STRAIGHT STORY


Plot: Richard Farnsworth plays Alvin Straight in David Lynch's only intelligible film to date (there isn't a dwarf riding a purple unicorn in sight). An elderly man finds out his brother is seriously ill and drives his tractor thousands of miles to make amends with him. He and his tractor are pretty tight, so they don't even haggle over the gas.
Subsequent Development: After being diagnosed with terminal cancer, Richard Farnsworth shot himself a little less than a year after his Oscar-nominated performance for the movie.
Why It Ruins the Movie: You really can't feel all warm and fuzzy when Alvin finally reaches his brother, wondering if he only drove all this way because he couldn't remember where he left his .22. Plus, Farnsworth ruined Misery for us too, as watching his lovable ol' coot sheriff character getting shot in the back by Kathy Bates is now "That's just in poor taste," instead of "Ha ha! Fatty took the dumb sheriff out!"
#8
PEE-WEE'S BIG ADVENTURE


Plot: Innocent manchild Pee-Wee Herman (Paul Reubens) searches for his stolen bike while simultaneously bringing joy to whomever he meets on a fantastic lesson-learning cross-country adventure.
Subsequent Development: Florida police became intimately acquainted with Reuben's little Pee-Wee when he was caught not-so-innocently playing with it in a porno theater. Afterwards, his house was raided for 15 metric tons of child pornography, which he claimed was art. Because, you know, it was all black and white and stuff.
Why It Ruins the Movie: Did you see that mugshot? This is supposed to be the lovable, mildly retarded manchild in a bowtie who used to talk it up with Jambi every Saturday morning, not a pervert in a raincoat publicly masturbating in a Toys "R" Us.

http://www.cracked.com/article_15015_p2.html

#7
SUPERMAN

Plot: Possibly the worst scientist in the universe shoots his son into outer space after an earthquake on his alien planet, and a few years later, Earth gets a new immigrant. He finds out he has amazing powers that include invincibility and imperviousness to gravity. He then moves to the big city to pose as a mild-mannered reporter and meets a hotshot female reporter who's smart, self-assured-and blah, blah, blah, you should really know all this.
Subsequent Development(s): Christopher Reeve fell off a horse at an equestrian show, paralyzing himself from the neck down. And Margot Kidder went ****** insane and started sleeping in strangers' yards. (To be fair, the wood pile was really comfortable.)
Why It Ruins the Movie: Because in Reeve's case, to appropriate a tagline, it makes us believe a man can't fly. Reeve's tragic accident reminds everyone that actually, no, he isn't Superman, despite how many times people at awards shows insisted he was, indeed, super-duper. In fact, one would probably guess that Reeve probably got annoyed at how often people patronized him because of his signature role, wanting to say, "Hey, I appreciate what you're trying to do here, but being brave in the face of adversity isn't the same thing as being able to lift tanks, okay?" In Kidder's case, it's simply a matter of wondering if her thought in the movie-"Can you read my mind?"-isn't just what she asks every person who passes her on the street when she isn't wearing a tinfoil helmet.
#6
A BRONX TALE


Plot: Lillo Brancato, Jr. plays Calogero "C" Anello, a sweet and impressionable, yet super-tough, young man who falls for a local black girl. His racist peers think this is unwise, and try to convince him of his error by killing him. The sweetness and innocence of C's young love, and the valuable lessons he learns about friendship with black people, helps him grow from a Bronx boy into a hairy Bronx man.
Subsequent Development: While breaking into an apartment to steal prescription drugs, Brancato and an accomplice shot and killed an off-duty New York police officer.
Why It Ruins the Movie: "C's" sweetness and innocence are watered down just a little by the fact that he's a stone-cold cop-killer. When he has to make a choice between his father and the local mob boss, or between his black girlfriend and his racist buddies, we keep waiting for him to just kill them all and take their prescription drugs, too.
#5
RAMBO III


Plot: Rambo takes up arms with a plucky, can-do Afghani Mujahideen insurgence force against the unstoppable Red power of the Soviet menace, solving the problem by shooting 203,449 Russian soldiers single-handedly. Take that, Russian ****! Signed, AMERICA!
Subsequent Development: On September 11, 2001, some members of the Afghani Mujahideen (currently known as the the Taliban) sort of attacked the United States in an extremely bad and unforgettable way.
Why It Ruins the Movie: Watching two hours' worth of Sly Stallone helping out a body of people who would eventually decide to fly a plane into the World Trade Center can be a little unsettling. You don't necessarily blame Rambo, whose heart's certainly in the right place here. You more just want to take him aside for a few minutes with some informative charts and newspaper clippings.

http://www.cracked.com/article_15015_p3.html

#4
THE CROCODILE HUNTER: COLLISION COURSE

Plot: Animal wranglers Steve and Terri Irwin rescue an endangered crocodile, which has swallowed a top-secret satellite beacon. CIA agents conclude that the Irwins are enemy spies stealing their technology, which would be the logical conclusion to make when watching two people in crotch-hugging shorts shout like idiots and point out animals' testicles to nearby cameras.
Subsequent Development: Steve Irwin was killed by a stingray while snorkeling.
Why It Ruins the Movie: At the time of release, Irwin's wildlife expertise and brass-balled foolhardiness made him apparently unkillable and a genuine riot to watch. But once the inevitable finally happened, it became impossible to watch The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course without a grim, foreboding sensation of watching a doomed soul on a collision course with death. It's sort of sad for a comedy, in other words.
#3
THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST


Plot: The Mel Gibson-helmed film depicted a lot of Jews beating and killing and spitting and defecating upon the Christian Lord and Savior, whose passion was the whole basis of the film. But Mel assured everyone that the movie wasn't-no, couldn't be -anti-Semitic. And in case you hadn't noticed, he's Mel Gibson! You know, Lethal Weapon! What a great guy!
Subsequent Development: Gibson just happened to let slip that he thinks Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world in the back of an LA police car during his drunk-driving arrest. He also called a female police officer "sugar-****." (Later inquiries revealed her **** not to be made of sugar.)
Why It Ruins the Movie: Well, for one thing, it seems a little weird to hear the story of Christ's crucifixion as told by a drunk driver who casually throws around words like "sugar-****." Oh, and the whole hating Jews thing. That's kind of a big deal, too.
#2
AMERICAN PIE


Plot: Tara Reid plays Vicky Lathum, the sexually inexperienced cutie who confesses to never having "double-clicked the mouse" and who claims that she really wants her deflowering to happen at "the right time, the right place."
Subsequent Development: In the eight years since Pie came out, Reid has shown her funbags and puss to every photographer in LA, in addition to having sex at wrong times and in very wrong places (Easter Sunday, In-and-Out Burger break room).
Why It Ruins the Movie: Pretty much the whole plot of American Pie hinges on Reid taking the "we should wait" stance, which, in hindsight, doesn't fly so much anymore. Especially considering that a photo gallery of Reid having violent sex with a frat boy pops up when you Google Image search "Vicky Lathum."
#1
THE NAKED GUN


Plot: The bumbling Nordberg (OJ Simpson) helps Lt. Frank Drebin (Leslie Neilsen) foil various evil schemes, all while being hilariously murdered on-camera at least a dozen times.
Subsequent Development: OJ Simpson may or may not have stabbed a couple of people to death. (Okay, he did.) Either way, he was responsible for the most recent "Trial of the Century" and is allegedly still totally looking for the real killers, whenever he can break away from the golf course.
Why It Ruins the Movie: The third and last Naked Gun film was released shortly after "The Juice's" infamous Bronco ride down the California highways. If you (like us) were sitting in the theater on opening weekend, you can relate to everyone in the audience audibly groaning as OJ's name scrolled up on the credits over an image of a blaring police siren. In the blink of an eye, Simpson was transformed from likable Hall-of-Famer to reviled, cold-blooded murderer. These days, when he's riddled with bullets and falls into a harbor to be left for dead in the opening minutes of the film, it's more satisfying to just turn off the movie there and call it a happy ending.

Mod Note: Please do not post multiple post in a row when there's obviously no need for it. If it can be posted in one post, then please do so. Warnings will be issued if necessary.

[Light Lucario]

I can understand some of these choices, mainly if it involves someone like OJ Simpson or if people were killed or insulted like with Mel Gibbson, but I'll have to disagree with two movies: The Parent Trap and Superman. They're the only movies on this list that I have seen anyway. While we all know that Lindsay Lohan pretty much has messed up her life, which is sad and I hope that she'll eventually get her act together, I don't think that really changes what she did in the past. Even with all of what she has done, I've been able to enjoy watching The Parent Trap, along with Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen, which I thought was pretty good. I couldn't really get into Mean Girls.

As for Superman, I always did feel bad for Christopher Reeve and I didn't know that Margot Kidder did that, it actually never made watching the first two Superman movies painful to watch. I thought that what Christopher Reeve did during the remainder of his life was inspiring and even after his accident, people thought of him as Superman, in a sense. While I understand some actions of stars do ruin movies, there are some cases where its best to focus on the work they did in the film itself and not their personal lives.

[mr.happy]

The inclusion of Reeve's Superman is utterly absurd. I'm one of those people who didn't rate him that highly as an actor in general, but once he put on the red trunks and cape, he was Superman, period. If anything made those movies work, it was Chris Reeve.

I say pull Superman/Reeve from the list and replace it with Valkyrie/Tom Cruise. I know, I know, it isn't even out yet, but we've all seen the trailer, right?

[The Penguin]

When I first read the title, I thought it would be a list of actors that amounted to miscasting, saying an actor made their movie ridiculous in some cases a decade after they starred in it is reaching (and not very interesting).

[EinBebop]

I've liked many of Cracked's lists. This was not one of them.

[Lord Dalek]

Oh this is just terrible.

Also where the hell is Change of Habit?

[Hanshotfirst113]

I've liked many of Cracked's lists. This was not one of them.

Likewise. I thought that the comments about Reeve was a bit of a low blow too.

[Michael24]

I don't think anything an actor has done in their personal life has ever affected the way I feel about their past work. Sure, Tom Cruise seems little more than a nut nowadays, but I still enjoy watching Top Gun, Days of Thunder, and Mission: Impossible, and I'm looking forward to Valkyrie. Same for Lindsay Lohan. The Parent Trap is still a nice little film, and I maintain there's a really good actress in there, she just can't be seen nowadays because of the mess she's made of her life. And sure, O.J. became became one of the most famous scumbags in America in the mid-90s, but he still cracks me up in the Naked Gun movies.

The thing about Ellen DeGeneres in Mr. Wrong is funny because it reminds me of people arguing that no one would ever buy the relationship between Harrison Ford and Anne Heche in Six Days, Seven Nights, as Heche had recently been discovered to be Ellen's girlfriend at the time. However, it's just a movie, where people play fictional roles, and I thought they went together well.

The thing about Rambo III is really just a bit of irony. (The same could be said for The Living Daylights, where James Bond also helps the Mujahideen.) That's just history for you. Both are still highly entertaining movies, and my favorites of the respective franchises.

[TMC1982]

The inclusion of Reeve's Superman is utterly absurd. I'm one of those people who didn't rate him that highly as an actor in general, but once he put on the red trunks and cape, he was Superman, period. If anything made those movies work, it was Chris Reeve.

I say pull Superman/Reeve from the list and replace it with Valkyrie/Tom Cruise. I know, I know, it isn't even out yet, but we've all seen the trailer, right?

I can understand the listing of Christopher Reeve. While he was still alive following his accident, it was a bit weird and ironic seeing him portray the Man of Steel, when in real life, he couldn't breath or walk on his own. This was perhaps, an attribute of how great Reeve was in the role.

I don't think anything an actor has done in their personal life has ever affected the way I feel about their past work. Sure, Tom Cruise seems little more than a nut nowadays, but I still enjoy watching Top Gun, Days of Thunder, and Mission: Impossible, and I'm looking forward to Valkyrie. Same for Lindsay Lohan. The Parent Trap is still a nice little film, and I maintain there's a really good actress in there, she just can't be seen nowadays because of the mess she's made of her life. And sure, O.J. became became one of the most famous scumbags in America in the mid-90s, but he still cracks me up in the Naked Gun movies.

The thing about Ellen DeGeneres in Mr. Wrong is funny because it reminds me of people arguing that no one would ever buy the relationship between Harrison Ford and Anne Heche in Six Days, Seven Nights, as Heche had recently been discovered to be Ellen's girlfriend at the time. However, it's just a movie, where people play fictional roles, and I thought they went together well.

The thing about Rambo III is really just a bit of irony. (The same could be said for The Living Daylights, where James Bond also helps the Mujahideen.) That's just history for you. Both are still highly entertaining movies, and my favorites of the respective franchises.

It's always hard to take seriously an openingly gay actor/actress "pretend" to be sexually attracted to the opposite sex. For instance, Neil Patrick Harris plays a horny, womanizer on the show "How I Met Your Mother", even though he's gay in real life.

Mod Note: Again, please avoid successive posts. Warnings will be issued if this continues.

[Michael24]

It's always hard to take seriously an openingly gay actor/actress "pretend" to be sexually attracted to the opposite sex. For instance, Neil Patrick Harris plays a horny, womanizer on the show "How I Met Your Mother", even though he's gay in real life.

I suppose it could be difficult for some people if it's that big of an issue for them, but I can't say it's ever been a problem for me.

[RAINMAN]

Superman,Rambo3 and the naked gun series are the only ones on the list I watched. I have not seen R3 sense I was a kid. 9/11 has nothing to do whit it. It just ben so long that any one air that movie on TV or Cable. I knew about reeves tragic life but I didn`t know kidder roll like that? I was just a kid when the O.J. mess wentdown. It sort of effected me but I got over it. I can`t stop watching the NG series due to a madman going off the deep end.

[Shawn Hopkins]

It's always hard to take seriously an openingly gay actor/actress "pretend" to be sexually attracted to the opposite sex. For instance, Neil Patrick Harris plays a horny, womanizer on the show "How I Met Your Mother", even though he's gay in real life.

That works, though. Because he's awesome.

You really have to learn to separate the actor from the work. If any actor stays in the game long enough they'll eventually do something that lets the studio managed facade slip and be revealed for the person they really are.

Besides, because Cracked is staffed by teenagers with short cultural memories apparently, they missed some of the major ones. I know I can't look at those jolly Fatty Arbuckle comedies the same way they were received when they first came out and Rock Hudson sexing the ladies just seems hollow. Also, more recently, why not pick on Tom Cruise directly? His recent scientologist kookyness sure makes it hard for me to watch any of his older films.

[Sandoz]

It's always hard to take seriously an openingly gay actor/actress "pretend" to be sexually attracted to the opposite sex. For instance, Neil Patrick Harris plays a horny, womanizer on the show "How I Met Your Mother", even though he's gay in real life.

That's like saying you can't take an actor seriously for "pretending" to be a stockbroker in a movie because they're not a stockbroker in real life. Actors are not their characters.

[Mikintosh]

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing about Rambo III when I watched it a few weeks back, but then I also felt the same about Charlie Wilson's War, which was also kinda on the same topic. And yeah, I'd pull Reeves & Lohan too, the first being a cheap shot and the second non-applicable since I don't think the adult actions of a child star colors their younger performances, even if they started overlapping around "Mean Girls" and "Herbie: Fully Loaded." Otherwise, I liked the list.

[Michael24]

You really have to learn to separate the actor from the work. If any actor stays in the game long enough they'll eventually do something that lets the studio managed facade slip and be revealed for the person they really are.

It's like in the early-90s when people thought Home Improvement might be in jeopardy so soon when the report of Tim Allen's 1978 arrest made headlines, but it did virtually nothing. That might have had to do with the fact he came out publicly and admitted to it, saying it was at a time in his life he had since gotten away from, and didn't try to just cover it up and play dumb instead.

[Master Moron]

Subsequent Development: In the eight years since Pie came out, Reid has shown her funbags and puss to every photographer in LA, in addition to having sex at wrong times and in very wrong places (Easter Sunday, In-and-Out Burger break room).

Wait, you mean you're not supposed to have sex at In-and-Out Burger? Then why is it called In-and-Out Burger?

[Hanshotfirst113]

That works, though. Because he's awesome.

OK then, you've straightened that out .