Top 10 Movie Scenes with the Worst Editing
#10: Alex Cross vs. Picasso
“Alex Cross” (2012) Tyler Perry plays James Patterson’s FBI hero in this 2012 adaptation, which culminates in a final face-off with the villainous Picasso inside a crumbling theater. It’s a fight to behold for all the wrong reasons: this sloppy sequence boasts infrequent and mismatched editing, low-frame-rate slow-motion, and overuse of shaky cam shots. It’s a tough scene to watch, and not the only one; an earlier scene in Picasso’s home features an obvious mirrored shot, among others that feel either too fast or too slow for what is meant to be conveyed. You can go ahead and “Cross” this one off your watch list.
#9: The Misfits
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“Bohemian Rhapsody” (2018) Love it or hate it, the production of this Freddie Mercury biopic was a bit of a production nightmare… for that reason we’re able to give this one a bit of a pass. How “Bohemian Rhapsody” was not only nominated, but WON the Oscar for Best Film Editing is inexcusable in our eyes though. You would think that a basic scene of dialogue between Queen band members would take some relatively simple editing, right? Instead what we get here is edit-whiplash where we are thrown to a different band member every few seconds. We understand wanting to invoke the frantic editing styles most commonly seen in music videos, but this is just taking it too far...
#8: The Painting
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“Manos: The Hands Of Fate” (1966) There’s no doubt about it; Harold Warren’s cult horror classic is a mess from start to finish. The sound mixing and editing is amateur at best, but the real horror can be found in the movie’s first half. Inside the mysterious Torgo’s house, a sinister portrait of his dark master is frequently shown in awkwardly lengthy and unbroken shots, the longest of which lasts for a painful nineteen seconds. It may have been deliberate, trying to produce the same discomfort in the audience that the characters feel. But age has not been kind, and today, the only reaction it provokes is awkward laughter.
#7: The Transitions
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“Hulk” (2003) It seems that Ang Lee took the idea of bringing a comic book to life on the big screen a little too literally. The Marvel giant’s box-office-gamma-bomb suffers from an overly dark tone and poorly aged CGI; but the most frequent problem, hands down, is the stylised panel-editing. During scene transitions, and throughout the movie, the filmmakers chose to overlay shots on top of each other, to resemble panels from a comic book. It . . . did not work. Most of the transitions look like presets from any off-the-shelf editing software, and the results were far too cartoonish, and clashed with the already established bleak tone.
#6: The Entire Movie
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“Samurai Cop” (1991) Even for a direct to video action flick from the ‘90s, it’s difficult to know where to begin with this one. Even ignoring the lazy writing, amateur acting and low production value, this cult film barely holds itself together. The movie clearly had no final sound mix, evident by the blatant contrast of background noise on almost any cut between two shots. What’s even worse, the movie has no creativity in how it is pieced together: an actor delivers terribly dubbed lines, before cutting to another actor delivering their own terribly dubbed lines; rinse and repeat. Throw in a few juvenile-standard action sequences, and voila: “Samurai Cop”!
#5: The Boardroom Sequence
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“Battlefield Earth” (2000) This new-millennium science fiction flop is panned enough for its cheesy acting and reliance on crazy camera angles, but its time in post didn’t do it any favors. The film is excessive in its use of slow motion, extensive wipes and sudden cuts between characters. A scene featuring Terl confronting his superiors demonstrates this shoddy editing at its worst. With irregular slow motion and repeating dialogue throughout, the intent was to emphasise Terl’s torment by his peers. But the effect just feels pointless and comes off as annoying. The film was so unwatchable that early audiences reportedly suffered from migraines. Mind-blowing sci-fi, indeed.
#4: Mismatched Shots
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“Transformers: Dark Of The Moon” (2011) Michael Bay is The Man when it comes to adrenaline-pumping action scenes, but he doesn’t take the same care everywhere else, and his movies suffer for it. The quieter scenes in his third “Transformers” flick showcase timing that always feels slightly . . . off. There are needless angle changes, as if attempting to keep the same momentum as the action sequences. Several scenes feature takes that don’t even seem to match up. Clearly, low attention to detail is the issue: in one scene, Bay and co. forgot to digitally add an autobot into Shia LaBeouf’s hands. Less than meets the eye?
#3: Bryan Mills Jumping A Fence
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“Taken 3” (2014) Liam Neeson’s third outing as America’s most extreme dad was full of movement, but this eight-second slice in particular boasts a ridiculous fifteen alternative angles of Bryan Mills HOPPING OVER A FENCE. In such a fast-paced franchise like this, editing on this level just ends up feeling like overcompensation for a lack of quality action. This is emphasised even further by the tense score running underneath the shots. The forced implication of high stakes onto such an arbitrary feat results in a level of absurdity you might find in “Hot Fuzz”. Really, fifteen shots? You can’t help but think it should have only “taken three”.
#2: The Laundromat Scene
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“Domino” (2005) Tony Scott’s retelling of bounty hunter Domino Harvey’s life is littered with periodic freeze frames and slow motion, but, for many, the exposition-filled “Laundromat” scene stands out most for the wrong reasons. It features a variety of excessive angle changes without meaning or purpose, as if trying to add action to a quiet sequence. The final product is a movie scene with the pacing of a television commercial, hurrying to get all its information across in a limited allotted time. Tony Scott has since acknowledged that he didn’t “let the movie breathe enough,” and was “overcome by the insanity of that world”. We’re inclined to agree. Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honourable mentions: Spectacular Spectacular “Moulin Rouge!” (2001) Action Scenes “Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen” (2009) Action Sequence “Resident Evil: The Final Chapter” (2016)
#1: The Basketball Scene
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“Catwoman” (2004) In a superhero movie about Halle Berry using cat powers to stop an evil cosmetics company (yes, that IS the plot), the last thing we need is a montage of her . . . shooting hoops with her boyfriend. This scene is cut together, without any real focus or direction, to the sounds of Mis-Teeq’s “Scandalous," and resembles nothing more than a poorly-edited music video. Like many other scenes in the movie, the cuts are hella jarring, at times reaching a staggering rate of eight cuts in four seconds, serving to confuse viewers rather than wow them. Failing to highlight our heroine’s newfound confidence, this is one montage that should have been . . . scratched.
