Best action movie plot holes of all time

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The Purge: Election Year picture

Plot hole: When the security guy goes inside the secret hole, there is no way he'd have been able to cover the rug. When the other guys come in the rug is covering the hole.

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Batman Returns picture

Plot hole: When The Penguin is controlling the Batmobile, Batman punches through the floor to take off the transmitter. We still see a video feed of The Penguin. Why? Batman pulled off the transmitter, so there is no reason for there to still be a video feed.

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Suggested correction: We see the Red Triangle gang spends a while fiddling with the Batmobile's workings before installing the transmitter. It's likely they made multiple 'modifications', thus the transmitter was for controlling the car's engine and steering, and the video feed was made possible by another, separate means.

Suggested correction: I concur with the other correction. There are multiple shots showing the gang working on the car and doing other things to it beyond just putting on the transmitter. (You see them playing with wires, moving parts around, etc.) Hacking into the computer/video-feed so Oswald could taunt Batman is likely among the other things they are doing. There's nothing into the movie that suggests taking off the transmitter should (or even could) interrupt the video-feed. The fact that Batman has to punch the screen to get rid of the Penguin's image is another point to the fact that the transmitter itself had nothing to do with the video feed.

TedStixon

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No Time to Die picture

Plot hole: At the end of Spectre, Blofeld loses his eye in the crash. In No Time To Die, he is being held in Belmarsh Prison, which is a high-security facility and houses many terrorists like him. However, despite the stringent security measures, he somehow has access to a bionic eye, which was provided to him during his imprisonment. This would have been thoroughly checked multiple times to ensure its safety before being granted to him.

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Suggested correction: Blofeld loses the eye in an explosion earlier in Spectre, before he went to London. He likely already had the eye with him when he was captured after the crash.

In the UK there are several TV shows about police and prison corruption. It isn't much of a stretch to imagine that one of the guards was bribed and smuggled the eye in for him. Blofeld is a criminal mastermind - he would have many resources at his disposal despite capture.

He just happened to have a bionic eye on his person as a backup in case he lost one of his real ones in an accident?

Phaneron

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Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan picture

Plot hole: Why doesn't Reliant know that Khan is exiled here? The Federation is so terrified and opposed to genetic engineering that it's still illegal 300 years after Khan. So why is there no warning along with the data on the Ceti Alpha system? Kirk logged what happened with Khan and his solution of marooning him. Starships use nav data to navigate star systems. Ceti Alpha 6 exploded, yet the helmsman or computer never noticed that there is one less planet than there was when Kirk was there? There is no debris from the explosion? Ceti Alpha 5 is the exact same size and was conveniently blown into the exact same orbit as Ceti Alpha 6 used to have? So there is nothing whatsoever to make the crew even suspect that it's not 6? Enterprise would have to have scanned the planets in the system to know that one was habitable for Khan. Did Ceti Alpha 6's destruction somehow magically turn Ceti Alpha 5 into its exact duplicate? If Starfleet ships have been there to map after Ceti Alpha 6 exploded, none of them bothered to check on the exiles? Pretty callous for Starfleet, don't you think? With the technology and amounts of information available to Starfleet vessels, there is NO logical reason for the Reliant to think that this planet is Ceti Alpha 6. Finally, would the Federation be willing to test a device whose exact effects will be unknown on a planet so close to another inhabited one? (00:21:00)

Grumpy Scot

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Suggested correction: The answer is yes: against all known laws of science, the inexplicable explosion of Ceti Alpha VI led to Ceti Alpha V conveniently taking its orbit and making it easy to mistake for its former sister planet. A mistake would've been to give an explanation that can be debunked. By leaving it to "somehow" the movie leaves it open to a million possible rationalizations. You can even make a whole other story about the crazy circumstances that led to this incredible result.

TonyPH

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Terminator: Dark Fate picture

Plot hole: Sarah turns up on the bridge to fight the Rev-9, we later learn that she is texted the location of where to be as when the terminators travel though time it causes a gravitational anomaly, and this is where she needs to be. The Rev-9 had been there ages killing Dani's dad etc, Sarah would have no idea to be on the bridge after the terminator has chased them though the town - she can't possibly know that location.

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Suggested correction: Sarah is very skilled at fighting Terminators. She receives the coordinates but knows that many other real-world factors may impede her progress to those coordinates, so she makes efforts to prepare for that. Also, the coordinates that she received for the Rev-9 may very well have told her to fight it on the bridge because the T800 who sent those coordinates knew that Sarah would also then be able to rescue Dani and Grace, and eventually meet up with him as a result.

I'd say the real reason Sarah is on the highway to fight Rev-9 is that she followed it. She misses the moment it arrived (from the future), she follows it to the car factory, but she misses it again, then she finally catches it up on the highway.

It is explicitly stated by the T800 Carl that he was sending Sarah the coordinates of where the terminators would appear, because the arrival would create a space-time wrinkle he is able to measure ahead of time. There is no indication he can predict the future events and send Sarah coordinates of places to be other than that.

Epigenis

Suggested correction: Sarah's truck can be seen in the background when Grace arrives. Grace doesn't look like any Skynet Terminator, and the time bubble she arrives in is different to the ones in T1 and T2. We can infer that Sarah followed Grace from her arrival to the bridge in an attempt to understand what was going on with the new time travellers before intervening.

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The Old Guard picture

Plot hole: Nile checks the gun Andy gave her and realises it's empty, which in turn leads her to realise that Booker was setting them up, because he gave that gun to Andy in the first place. No way that Nile, a marine, and Andy, a timeless warrior, somehow both missed the noticeable difference in weight between a fully loaded pistol and an empty one.

Jon Sandys

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Suggested correction: That is only true if you handle the same gun all the time. Throughout the movie they shoot dozens of different guns, all with their own loaded/unloaded weights. Different guns are also made of different materials, and mixture of materials, which would change the weight. Different guns are also balanced differently, depending on the materials and manufacturer. The weight difference in a lot of the guns they were carrying between loaded and unloaded were between 3.5oz-7oz (which is not that much). With all the different guns they use and carry throughout the film, it is not a mistake that they wouldn't catch it. Also, Nile is used to carrying an M16 or M4, not the handgun used in the film so she would have no way to know the loaded vs unloaded weight. They would also not expect someone in their team to betray them, so there's no need to check the weapons (although you should check any gun that is handed to you).

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Back to the Future Part II picture

Plot hole: If Old Biff changed his past and went back to 2015, he goes back to HIS future, not the bad future, but Doc later tells Marty that if he were to go to the future to stop Biff from taking the almanac, he'd go to the bad future, so Old Biff technically shouldn't have been able to return to "his" future at all.

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Suggested correction: The effects of the past being altered may not have happened immediately. It is possible that it took time for the timelines to adjust to the changes of events, meaning enough time would have passed to change 1985 when they return, but not enough time could have passed to change 2015. By the time Doc says if they went back to 2015 they would be going to an alternate future, some time has passed, so the effects of the past being altered and taking ahold in 2015 and altering it are more likely to have occurred by then.

Casual Person

Here is what you say: "perhaps it took time for the time lines to adjust." What kind of time would timelines take? Time is time, it doesn't take time to change the timeline. That doesn't make any sense. Some people claim it was the DeLorean itself that came back to its own original timeline and only then reset itself in the new one, but then the new timelines being erased later on wouldn't have happened either. So its a genuine plot hole.

lionhead

It's established in the first film that it takes time for the changes to take effect. Marty and his siblings slowly disappear from the photo, rather than instantly. Although the scene in BTTF2 was deleted, it was filmed showing Biff dying and slowly fading away after his return to his present.

Yet they were restored instantly without any outside influence at the end of the movie. There are a lot of things wrong with this movie and the first one. Old Biff disappearing should mean that Marty and Doc should slowely disappear as well, even the DeLorean. But they didn't, that doesn't make any sense. The point is there is a plot hole, somewhere. To know where all you can do is look at it logically and then you automatically come up with Old Biff going back to the future but not the alternate future. If he did there wouldn't have been a movie, but that's the plot hole.

lionhead

The timeline didn't change until he made his first bet which was some years I think after receiving it. He immediately travelled forward after giving the act, meaning he will still jump forward to the original future.

The timelines would instantly change, and Old Biff couldn't possibly have returned to "normal" 2015. It's just a poorly-thought-out time travel plot hole (or a deliberate error to expedite the storyline).

Charles Austin Miller

Suggested correction: In context, Doc was saying that they couldn't return to 2015 to stop Biff from stealing the time machine, because Biff didn't steal the time machine in the alternate 2015, he only stole it in the original 2015. Marty and Doc didn't stay long enough in 2015 after Biff returned, and that's why they didn't see any differences. Also, though they were unaware of it, Biff was dead in the alternate 2015, so the disasters he caused might have reverted back after his death.

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Poseidon picture

Plot hole: When the ship has turned on its side for the brief moment, it cuts to inside the ship where a hallway explodes, causing the ship to submerge. The only problem is the people are standing on the ceiling, but if the ship's on its side, they'd be on the wall, not ceiling.

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Sudden Death picture

Plot hole: It seems that an awful lot of time and effort was taken in planning this caper, what with all the bombs planted throughout the arena and all, but the terrorist were pulling this during game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals. What if the series ended at game six in Chicago?

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Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over picture

Plot hole: The Toymaker throws that toy bird at the hippie version of himself. The toy goes through him because he is a hologram. Later, he pushes the soldier version of himself at the screen making it crack. How could he if the three others are holograms?

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Beverly Hills Cop II picture

Plot hole: Cain's hitman asks for a match to lit his cigar. Cain gives him the matchbook. When Axel later tests the matchbook for fingerprints, there is only one on it - Cain's. The hitman's fingerprint ought to be on it too.

Jacob La Cour

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The One picture

Plot hole: Yulaw just killed 3 cops, and went to Gabe's house and hid in the attic. He then pretends to be Gabe and asks TK to get the gun for him. Why didn't he just get a gun from the 3 cops he just killed or from the police car he just stole?

Quantom X

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Bad Boys picture

Plot hole: Why was $100,000,000 worth of heroin sitting in the police vault all this time before the bad guys stole it? Wouldn't the DEA have taken possession of the drugs long before that?

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Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines picture

Plot hole: The T-X did not hear Catherine in the Animal Hospital when she was only a few feet away and breathing loudly. Considering the scope of some of her technology, one would assume she would easily find her. (00:22:20)

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Suggested correction: This isn't a plot hole. It's just your unfounded assumption. There's no evidence to support the supposition that the T-X has such audio detection capability.

Even if she could detect it, how could she discriminate between the sound of Catherine breathing and that of the dozens of caged animals in the room? That's stretching even fictional technology a little far.

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Mission: Impossible picture

Plot hole: In the air vent, we see a rat. Wouldn't rats in the vents set off the alarms on a regular basis, because the lasers were on the upper side of the vent?

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Captain Marvel picture

Plot hole: When Vers arrives at the bar, Nick Fury is already there. She went straight to the bar after stealing the bike, while Fury needed still to learn about the theft, link it to the case, with investigations taking place to maybe (only possibility that would not depend on the vehicle being reported) figure out that Pancho's was the destination from examining the search history of the browser. Fury went there by car. His boss also explicitly says to work on the case alone. Amazing he could be there with such timing.

Sammo

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Suggested correction: Vers probably got lost and had to wander around to find the place.

I can't realistically say it's impossible (it is not shown, after all), but nothing in the movie implies it, and it's the exact opposite. She is shown, driving, fast, on the Sierra Highway, which is where the bar is. Not stopping to ask for directions or at crossroads (something it takes 1 second of movie to show). In perfect Star Trek tradition she can speak the language, she reads the maps just fine, in fact she already looked the place up on the map, that was next to her and she already knew how to use without help, before taking off on her fast bike not hindered by traffic. And again, the head start she has is huge since Fury can begin investigating only once he hears about the stolen bike. Fury is at his HQ and a long time seems to have passed, since he is patched up and a whole autopsy has been done. Vers started searching right away.

Sammo

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Ultraviolet picture

Plot hole: Where did Cross get the blood on his hands? The gloves were clean of blood after he looked at the teeth and removed the gloves, so where did it come from?

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Cutthroat Island picture

Plot hole: When Morgan and her Slave/New Boyfriend are escaping from the burning ship, which is going to explode any second, they emerge onto the deck, run up a flight of stairs, cross the deck to the stern rail, look about themselves, then dive overboard. They know the ship is about to explode and are desperate to get overboard. The railings are about a metre away from the hatch they emerge from in the first place - why not just jump overboard there?

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Jumping Jack Flash picture

Plot hole: When Terry gets back to her computer, after escaping from the spies and cops, the time is after 3pm New York time. If Jack actually is in Russia or Eastern Europe, wouldn't he have already gone to, and been killed at, that 5pm meeting?

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Child's Play picture

Plot hole: Andy is suspected of having killed Eddie Caputo, because he was at the scene when Eddie's house blew up and Eddie was killed. But there are glaring things that go unquestioned: None of the cops seem to think it's strange that a six-year-old kid would travel by himself so far to some random house in order to blow it up. The South Side neighborhood where Eddie lives is halfway across the city from Andy's apartment. How did Andy know where Eddie lived? How do the cops think he even knew Eddie at all? None of them address this most puzzling problem.

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Suggested correction: The police believe Andy to be insane (hence why he is sent to a mental institution instead of juvenile hall), and thus do not believe his choice of victims to be in any way rational.

Also, as unlikely as it is that a six-year-old child could (or would) travel halfway across the city to murder a random person, the possibility that a child's doll came to life and carried out the act was considered far too outlandish at that point in the plot.

zendaddy621

Suggested correction: We don't see the entire investigation. We just see the cops holding Andy then taking him to a psychiatric clinic. Chances are they were asking those questions and we just didn't see it because it's not important to the plot. Regardless, the cops have every reason to believe Andy either knows about or was partly responsible for the murders considering he keeps showing up at murder scenes. There's only so many conclusions you can draw, even if they don't make sense.

TedStixon

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