Plot hole: To taunt Agent Augustus Eugene Gibbons, General George Deckert namedrops Darius Stone. Gibbons looks at him genuinely shocked, which the General acknowledges scoring an important moral victory and establishing himself further as a Machiavellian villain. The problem with all this is that Gibbons would have to literally not know what he's been doing and why up to that point, to think that the General, who is also the Secretary of Defense, does not know about it.Gibbons broke Darius out very openly, from a military prison that is the only maximum security correctional facility in the Department of Defense. His reason to bring Darius out was also, explicitly, that Deckert is targeting the ex members of their unit (which is, we have to assume in retrospect giving perhaps too much credit to the screenplay, the only reason why Gibbons could execute such a flawed plan to begin with and why Darius is still alive). So, Gibbons being surprised that his adversary "knows", after a couple of days even, is pure absurdity.
Sammo
13th Sep 2020
XXX: State of the Union (2005)
12th Sep 2020
XXX: State of the Union (2005)
Plot hole: XXX and his ex (as redundant as it sounds) are learning from the TV the news of Gibbons' demise. He then tells Shavers "Let's get to work" and they plug the hard disk in, for the very first time because they realise that it's been wiped clean. It is night, and their mission was during broad daylight; if Gibbons had to wait nighttime to sneak into his own home, he could have easily helped them out during their mission, and it's absurd that they just sat on the crucial hard disk while chilling and watching the nightly news. Gibbons' house is billed as "Chevy Chase, Maryland", so it's just a few minutes away from their position. (00:31:00)
12th Sep 2020
XXX: State of the Union (2005)
Plot hole: Agent Kyle Christopher Steele ordered roadblocks for 10 miles, Stone just destroyed a state police patrol car blocking a major bridge, but he is able, with no explanation, to just get away with that one encounter with the police and bring back his hyper-recognizable monster van from the countryside to Georgetown with no problem. (00:25:00)
12th Sep 2020
XXX: State of the Union (2005)
Plot hole: The NSA base in Virginia is assaulted. Gibbons escapes after noon/early afternoon and gets to the United States Disciplinary Barracks in Kansas, the day after. Another day passes for the prison escape, and then another day to get back to DC. The FBI agents are hanging out at the crime scene in full force three days after, but during all this time nobody sealed or covered with as much as a tarp or put any perimeter around the huge entrance holes; makes little sense to guard the doors with a dozen agents and leave huge uncovered (not to mention dangerous) holes leading to the core of the building. Even worse, the hard drives of the people they are supposedly investigating (Gibbons) are still there. They would have been sent to the labs to be analyzed, especially since they have been wiped clean, which would only enhance the suspicions. (00:21:00)
12th Sep 2020
XXX: State of the Union (2005)
Plot hole: The destroyed NSA base is in the middle of nowhere and patrolled by dozens (we see at least 8 agents just by the barn outside) of federal agents, but Shavers, who provides nothing of relevance to the mission since he's not even the getaway for Stone, is able to just park in plain sight in the vicinity and stalk it with binoculars. With that level of surveillance, his van would have been spotted and approached for identification by the feds in no time. (00:20:35)
12th Sep 2020
XXX: State of the Union (2005)
Plot hole: Movies constantly cheat with helicopters that suddenly and silently arrive to save the day, but the scene goes beyond that; Ice Cube is fighting guards on the rooftop of the military maximum security prison at Fort Leavenworth. He suddenly jumps off the roof to catch the passing helicopter. Without even mentioning the noise problem, which is obvious and huge, that helicopter would have been spotted already by radars, prison snipers, the same guards that were battling Ice Cube, it flew in plain sight of a military installation! And raised no wind at all on the terrace flying at jumping distance from its ledge. (00:12:45)
11th Sep 2020
XXX (2002)
Plot hole: Via his bondesque band-aids, Vin Diesel disposes of all the bad guys' vehicles - except the one next to the boss and Yelena (very conveniently or he would have killed his main villain and his girlfriend). He races super-fast to his hideout with his super-fast bike, he is in SUCH a rush that he does not even park the bike but just jumps off it and lets it crash into a dumpster. In his room he has a 45 second conversation with Sova. Somehow Asia Argento in less than a minute not only caught up with him, who had already a huge head start and she was never seen even beginning any pursuit, but she also contacted 'the Ivans', from a separate organization, shows up with them and she was there early enough to even infer that XXX was in trouble, so she must have been even quicker than that to eavesdrop. (01:20:00)
11th Sep 2020
XXX (2002)
Plot hole: You are locked in a room. On one end of the room, a thick vault door of solid steel. On the other end, a security glass double door with your evil boss cackling maniacally, the remote for the deadly chemical bomb in his hand. You have automatic weapons at your disposal. Which door are you gonna shoot in your desperate attempt to save your skin? Apparently, ALL the literal rocket scientists in this movie decided that shooting at some inches of stainless steel is a better option than trying and dent a couple mm of plexiglass, which would have stopped their traitorous employer from releasing the gas or killed him too. No human being would be this stupid. (01:15:15)
10th Sep 2020
xXx: Return of Xander Cage (2017)
Plot hole: A plot twists occurs around midway through the movie; the Pandora's Box that was stolen at the beginning of the movie was not the 'real' one but just a prototype which, Becky Clearidge says, "Only ever had the ability to control one satellite." Literally a couple minutes later, Serena says they found the Pandora's Box (the one they did not know was just a prototype) because it "needs to keep reconnecting itself because the satellites orbit." First of all; they found the prototype, which already crashed the one satellite it could control...so what was it reconnecting to? Second; they know nothing of this actual model, but are able instantly to track it down with this 'newfound' knowledge, which means that A) the box is ridiculously easy to track down for anybody B) they should have spotted this second signal already when they tracked down the prototype. (00:59:20 - 01:01:40)
10th Sep 2020
xXx: Return of Xander Cage (2017)
Plot hole: Donnie Yen rides away on the bike while XXX is still fighting baddies on foot, and when he grabs a bike he fights some more off with one wheeled acrobatics. So Donnie should have a huge head start, and inside the jungle of the hideout he knows and Xander does not. Still, with no explanation a couple scenes later they are side-to-side, Xander just happens to have miraculously caught up with him. (00:55:30)
9th Sep 2020
Mulan (2020)
Plot hole: At the beginning of the movie it is said explicitly by the Chancellor that the Rourans have attacked 6 garrisons at once, disrupting trade on the Silk Road, which would, in his words, threaten the survival of the whole Empire. It's a bit odd considering that their assault relies on the Witch's abilities, and she can't be everywhere at the same time, but forgetting that; the Emperor to counter this urgent menace (Bori Khan slaughters everyone in the cities) decides to summon to arms literally the whole kingdom amassing a huge army. This obviously is a project that takes months (we even see Mulan taking days just to get to the training spot, and then they train long enough to become proficient in archery when they started off not able to even throw an arrow) and does absolutely nothing to stop the brutal raiding and killing, but somehow Bori Khan's plan is kindly waiting on Mulan and her buddies to train, despite being a plan based on speed, surprise and distraction.
Suggested correction: First, it is not fair to cram so many "mistakes" into one entry. Second, it is your personal assumption that all six attacks relied on the witch. Third, she can transform into a bird and fly; certainly, she can catch up with multiple attack forces if needed. Fourth, it was an empire, not a kingdom; a super-massive empire called China. Fifth, training a relief force is also part of the call to arms. Where there is a battle, there is death. Dead units need to be replaced. Sixth, "speed" didn't come into play in the strategic aspects of warfare until World War II. At the time of this film, they were tactical elements. Wars went on for years, sometimes decades. China was a huge empire and conquering it quickly is impossible. Seventh, you've already explained the reason behind Rourans' delay into another mistake entry you posted: They were carrying catapults and they had practiced using them.
Entry is articulate because they are not separate mistakes, it's just that the "strategy" employed by the invading army and the response to it is all over the place and contradictory (1). They show and say in every possible way that the reason garrisons fall so quickly is because of the witch intervention and they depend on her (2). Catapults are never shown as being used for city assault (7), and it's obvious why; walls are bypassed, cities don't take months and huge armies to be taken, they fall in minutes (6). The climax of the movie itself happens with the invading army crushed, the Emperor knowing it, but their plan is perfectly successful, since they made it through the super-massive kingdom from the Silk Road battle, without being able to fly, simply outmaneuvering everyone with a tiny group of jedis (3-4-6 again). See original entry for why 5 is absurd;anything else I mentioned was not flavour or additional mistakes, but just context.
9th Sep 2020
Mulan (2020)
Plot hole: There is no reason at all why, being targeted by a few arrows by unseen enemies - a fire suppressed already by the salvo of their own archers - the Rourans would turn around their heavy siege equipment, away from the bulk of the enemy forces, and fire it, hurling a single heavy stone to the middle of nowhere when they have the whole rest of the army who could storm the rock the supposed enemy commandos hide behind, or the archers who could keep shooting - again, they proved to be completely successful. It also makes no sense that the all-powerful witch who made the warriors flee managed to do any of this, 'sneaking' by horse in the middle of the steppe.
Suggested correction: Mulan used the helmets of the fallen warriors to make it appear that a large force has flanked Rourans. Rourans didn't expect this new "force" and knew nothing about it. They didn't know its size. And while their original target seemed harmless, this new "force" was killing Rourans. Fear and death were the reasons. What you see in this scene is an enactment of one of Sun Tzu's famous quotes: "All warfare is based on deception. [...] Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected."
What we see in the scene is laughable, and not because of the idea, which surely is based on the profound strategic motto you mentioned and we find in many folkloric tales in other cultures as well; what we actually see in the movie, is that she grabbed a couple helmets lining them up on a rock, and she shot a few arrows. Then she stops shooting, and we see helmets knocked down in their full view. The movie truly surpassed itself in showing it in the most phony way; had they shown her shooting from behind the rock responding to their fire, or the helmets not falling, or them just shooting at mist, terrified, it would have maybe worked. It's an enormous overreaction. That and, under no circumstance trebuchets are used that way anyway. And she did all this setup unseen, again.
In response to death, nothing is an enormous overreaction. Something or someone was killing them. They wanted to kill it, and they didn't have time for Facebook's famous brand of pseudo-myth-busting. What if they knew it was one girl shooting at them? They'd still have done the same. Being killed is a very personal matter.
9th Sep 2020
Mulan (2020)
Plot hole: The 'avalanche scene' in this remake is mind-boggling. For starters, the Witch single-handedly holds the whole Chinese army at bay splitting in a zillion of flying creatures - a power level completely inconsistent with the rest of the movie. To the annoyance of being pounced by little birds, the army gets in turtle formation, apparently just waiting it out. The Rourans somehow are ready for this and have a trebuchet set up - despite the fact that they are nomads, conquered the forts infiltrating them, and they were skirmishing a moment before. They throw flaming boulders with such precision that they are able to target each single 'testudo', multiple times, with the soldiers just sitting there with no reaction.To save them, Mulan is able to sneak behind them UNSEEN, by horse, with a bunch of extra helmets she somehow carried, set them in place, and fool them. Any of these convoluted operations would have taken an impossibly long time.
Suggested correction: This entry does not mention any plot hole in all of this. All this entry does is explaining what happened in the film and then ridiculing it. For example, the Rourans weren't "somehow" prepared for it; it was their plan from the start. Being mind-boggling is not a mistake.
"Any of these convoluted operations would have taken an impossibly long time" is not a plot hole? They were not expecting a field battle (the scene literally starts with them saying "They left the garrison!", so were thinking of an entirely different fight), they somehow just happened to have those never-seen-before trebuchets in the middle of nowhere and have them ready for a usage that is out of their capabilities. I could have split the entry in a couple different ones, but the scene is the same and I think they provide adequate context to what happens with the chain of unpredictable and illogic (even in the 'magic' of the movie world) events.
I'll answer your first question: "'Any of these convoluted operations would have taken an impossibly long time' is not a plot hole?" In another mistake entry, you've complained that Rourans took their sweet time, and called it another mistake. So, according to yourself, no, it is not a plot hole. Clearly, you didn't like the movie and write just about anything to trash it.
Apples and oranges; you are comparing an inconsistency in the length/scale of a military campaign with the feasibility of operating a trebuchet, (inconsistent even in the same scene) as if the two could be related in any way. I could write a review if I wanted to simply 'trash' the movie, let's not try to attach motives when someone points out an inconsistency, it's not an attack to the movie per se, or to the viewers who liked it. Some things about this movie do genuinely puzzle me, sure.
29th Jun 2020
And Then There Were None (2015)
Plot hole: There are several parts of the murderer's plan that are based on pure convenience and/or against all odds, moreso than in the novel due to particular choices in the aesthetics or plot. The murderer (who can't exactly sprint around with cat-like motions) gets to the General and kills him in a gruesome manner, reaching a victim entirely in the open, with the island lacking any cover, not even a tree. Vera happens also to scream providing a diversion; unlike the book, the killer does not do anything to induce her hallucination and split the group, nor sabotages the lights creating a dimly lit environment that makes the trick more plausible.
7th Jun 2020
Ten Little Indians (1974)
Plot hole: In this adaptation, set in Persepolis, the killer couldn't possibly predict that the third-to-last Indian would use binoculars to check out of the corpse in the ruins, and he'd have to lurk in the ruins, with very limited to non-existent cover, in the sun, for a chance to push someone much larger than them, who also happens to be on their own.
7th Jun 2020
The Great Wall (2016)
Plot hole: The Chinese army displays a great variety of (often anachronistic) weapons and they spent considerable resources arming and reinforcing the Great Wall to challenge the beasts who have been plaguing their land every 60 years for thousands of years. but despite having records of magnets being effective against them, with magnets being well known to them for centuries (early magnetic compasses were available in the IV century BC, and the movie is set in the XI century) they made no use of that at all.
6th Jun 2020
Ten Little Indians (1974)
Plot hole: The way Judge Cannon joins the ranks of the dead in this adaptation makes the most sense of all the others, since he dies in his bed fixing a variety of logic mistakes, but it suffers from a flaw found also in the 2015 BBC adaptation; Vera screams because her candles go out, which is not something the killer could have set up, as opposed to the scary items planted by the killer in the novel and in previous movies. Without it, the killer couldn't have devised the plan the way it is shown.
5th Jun 2020
Ten Little Indians (1974)
Plot hole: The killer is not designed to be a ninja with superior athletic and stealth abilities, but for Elsa's death he beats three much younger and able-bodied people who were chasing her, kills the victim unseen by her - and they don't hear her high pitched scream - and is able to get back to the hotel unseen. (00:33:25)
5th Jun 2020
Ten Little Indians (1974)
Plot hole: In this version more than any other there's an implausibility about the first murder. Here it is stated that the poison is in the bottle and not the glass (which would have made other versions such as the 1945 one more plausible), but we can actually see Charles Aznavour drink from the glass (when he stands from the piano and leans his back against it) way before his death, and not pour himself any new liquor afterwards. (00:22:50)
5th Jun 2020
Ten Little Indians (1974)
Plot hole: Much like the 1965 version it takes plenty of dialogue from, in this version, contrary to the original novel, a few guests have been lured in under pretenses that would turn out to be false the moment they reach the hotel; the General's friend is not there, there's no Hollywood producer for Ilona (plus Iranian colleagues for the Judge and friend for Lombard, but those can be attributed to just being thin lies). Yet nobody protests about the absence of those key figures or asks the staff their whereabouts; everyone is remarkably docile about blatant lies obvious from the beginning. The Martinos apparently were not even aware that the place was a huge hotel and are even surprised that there are 8 guests to service - quite expected in a hotel of that size, really - but they have been there for several days already.
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