Worst movie endings

[Mizzougrad96]

Field of Dreams' ending was great. Bull Durham's ending was great. The ending of the first Rocky movie was great. Karate Kid's ending was great. Hoosiers' ending was great.

 

[Steak Snabler]

Field of Dreams' ending was great. Bull Durham's ending was great. The ending of the first Rocky movie was great. Karate Kid's ending was great. Hoosiers' ending was great.

I mentioned Bull Durham. I'll give you the others, too, I guess.

While Field of Dreams' ending might have been great, the rest of the movie sucked.

 

[Mizzougrad96]

I'm not sure I would go as far as to say it sucked, but the ending is a 10 and the rest of the movie is a 5.

 

[Steak Snabler]

Maybe I just can't get past Joe Jackson batting right-handed and speaking with a New Jersey accent.

The scenes were Burt Lancaster were great, though.

 

[terrier]

Apocalypse Now. Great journey, lame payoff.

 

[Batman]

Field of Dreams alternates from great to nonsensical more than any film I can remember. The "Wanna have a catch?" line gets me every time, and Terrance Mann's speech about baseball is epic.
However, that only happens once you get past the family farm being saved by the sage financial advice of a 9-year-old who just awoke from a near-death experience.
And the line of cars at the end? How the heck did they know to show up? Did the ghost of Joe Jackson go on the Buster and Floorwax morning show in Dubuque and tell them all to come on down?

 

[Batman]

One of the worst for me is "Volcano." It's one of my guilty pleasure films, but the ending is just god awful.
First, there's no way in heck they could gather enough resources in a disaster-ravaged city to blow up a street and a skyscraper in under 30 minutes. You couldn't do that in L.A. on a bright, sunny day if the streets were deserted.

Next, after they blow up the skyscraper, how are none of the panicking hospital patients (some of them gravely injured and unable to move on their own) or cops crushed by debris or incinerated by the lava fountain that blows out of the street?

Then there's the little shirtty kid who nearly gets everyone killed. Hey, asshole. I don't care if you're 6 years old. Lava is hot. Stay near the grown ups, or else don't cry when a building drops on you. And then on top of that, he delivers the worst line of the film. Looking at the ashen faces of everyone in the area, he says, "They're all the same." It's supposed to evoke emotions that disasters bring out the best in us all and bring us together. It makes me want to throw the little brat in a lava pit.

After that, you get the TV guys talking about how the lava flow is finally subsiding and everything is going to be OK. Yeah, sure. Half the city is destroyed, property damage is in the billions, there's a smoking volcano in the middle of the city and Los Angeles is a den of sane thinking on the best of days. I'm sure that will end well for you, chief.

Lastly, we come to Tommy Lee Jones' character. The guy, who manages L.A.'s emergency services, just walks away from his duties by telling the mayor he's "on vacation."
And, presumably, to go home and fork Anne Heche. Again, I don't think either one is going to end well for him.
In what world can you do that?
I like this movie. Usually watch it when it pops up on cable. But the last 15 minutes makes me want to jump off a subway train into a pool of lava (another awkward scene in the flick, where the guy's buddies react like he got hit in the nuts instead of melting in front of their eyes).

 

[Ben_Hecht]

Field of Dreams alternates from great to nonsensical more than any film I can remember. The "Wanna have a catch?" line gets me every time, and Terrance Mann's speech about baseball is epic.
However, that only happens once you get past the family farm being saved by the sage financial advice of a 9-year-old who just awoke from a near-death experience.
And the line of cars at the end? How the heck did they know to show up? Did the ghost of Joe Jackson go on the Buster and Floorwax morning show in Dubuque and tell them all to come on down?

The book is exponentially better than the movie.

 

[Shifty Squid]

No country for old men. The movie builds up to an ending that never comes and it just sort of ends. I loved the movie until the very end where I was left saying WTF? Where's the rest of it?

LOVED the ending to "No Country." One of my favorite movies of the past 10 years, no question.

It's not really about "Where's the rest of it?" I don't think. It's over. That's it. That is the rest of it. You don't necessarily have to get it. The open-ended nature of it is part of it. Not everything's going to be wrapped up in a bow, and that's fine. That's life.

Chigurh has basically ceased to be human by that point. He's effectively a supernatural figure. What's happening is only somewhat real. The forces of good in the movie lost. Jones' character is admitting he was defeated, and he's giving up. Chigurh is harmed but lives to see another day, another kill or more. But how much of this is really happening? "And then I woke up." It's left up to the viewer to decide.

Is it a neat, clean-cut ending? Not at all. Is it perhaps a little too overwrought and pretentious? I've heard that. But I don't really have a problem with it. And the fact that you or me or whoever doesn't entirely get it doesn't make it "bad" in my view.

But, to each his own.

 

[schiezainc]

Worst ending to a movie I've ever seen is War of the Worlds, the Tom Cruise version.

You spend three hours telling me these aliens are going kick our ass and they die because they've got allergies? Are you f*cking kidding me?

That's straight out of the book, but that's not why that ending sucks beyond belief.

It sucks because his dipshirt teenaged son (or whatever) charges into an alien-controlled front line in the middle of the movie, is presumed to be dead for the remainder of the film, then miraculously shows up at his mother's door to greet Tom Cruise at the end, without explanation, despite the fact the aliens were world-class ass-kickers until the viruses got them.

Bullforkingshirt, Spielberg. That is his syrupy-ending, audience intelligence-insulting jump-the-shark moment.

I was actually pissed off by it.

I knew someone would bring up the "The aliens got killed by Earth diseases" War of the Worlds ending as being stupid. Can't say I'm shocked it's schieza. A few of my co-workers at the time said the same thing. They hadn't read the book either.

Bubbler nails it here. That ending was the nadir of Spielberg's constant need to tie everything up with a neat little bow. It's pretty much infested everything he's done since just after Schindler's List.

I understand it's from the book ... and don't give a crap.

That ending was atrocious. Absolutely atrocious.

You mean to tell me an alien race came to Earth, presumably studied how to take us out and never thought to themselves "shirt, I hope we brought along our Alien Advil in case we get the sniffles from something there."

The whole thing not only seemed rushed, it seemed like a giant cop-out. Oh, I get it, we should take more time to appreciate nature because it could save us one day. Gee, golly, mister, I'ma gonna go plant me a tree right now, yessirre.

fork that movie. fork it right in the ass.

 

[DanOregon]

I always hated the way John Hughes movies would be funny for 80 minutes and then try and "get serious" (Breakfast Club, Planes, Trains, Ferris, Home Alone) right at the end.

 

[Bubbler]

Worst ending to a movie I've ever seen is War of the Worlds, the Tom Cruise version.

You spend three hours telling me these aliens are going kick our ass and they die because they've got allergies? Are you f*cking kidding me?

That's straight out of the book, but that's not why that ending sucks beyond belief.

It sucks because his dipshirt teenaged son (or whatever) charges into an alien-controlled front line in the middle of the movie, is presumed to be dead for the remainder of the film, then miraculously shows up at his mother's door to greet Tom Cruise at the end, without explanation, despite the fact the aliens were world-class ass-kickers until the viruses got them.

Bullforkingshirt, Spielberg. That is his syrupy-ending, audience intelligence-insulting jump-the-shark moment.

I was actually pissed off by it.

I knew someone would bring up the "The aliens got killed by Earth diseases" War of the Worlds ending as being stupid. Can't say I'm shocked it's schieza. A few of my co-workers at the time said the same thing. They hadn't read the book either.

Bubbler nails it here. That ending was the nadir of Spielberg's constant need to tie everything up with a neat little bow. It's pretty much infested everything he's done since just after Schindler's List.

I understand it's from the book ... and don't give a crap.

That ending was atrocious. Absolutely atrocious.

You mean to tell me an alien race came to Earth, presumably studied how to take us out and never thought to themselves "shirt, I hope we brought along our Alien Advil in case we get the sniffles from something there."

The whole thing not only seemed rushed, it seemed like a giant cop-out. Oh, I get it, we should take more time to appreciate nature because it could save us one day. Gee, golly, mister, I'ma gonna go plant me a tree right now, yessirre.

fork that movie. fork it right in the ass.

How is it "rushed" if its adapted from a book that was 100 years old at the time of its release? Take that part up with H.G. Wells, not Spielberg.