Top 10 Movies with Broken Physics
#10: “The A-Team” (2010)
Top 10 Movies of 2010
In “The A-Team,” our heroes survive a mid-air plane explosion by parachuting out of the wreck in a tank. They land safely by repeatedly firing tank rounds downwards into a lake to slow their fall. Unfortunately for the A-Team, the firing force of a single tank round isn’t greater than the force of a tank falling at high speeds. They would have needed to fire around 90 rounds of ammunition to land safely. But the model tank they used typically holds 30 rounds. Since we don’t see them reload often enough, it doesn’t appear the team fired enough ammunition to slow themselves down for a soft landing. If the A-Team obeyed the laws of physics, this mid-movie tank stunt would’ve been the film’s real ending.
#9: “Transporter 2” (2005)
A typical day for Frank Martin consists of driving fast cars, beating up goons, and insulting the laws of physics. When a bomb is strapped to the underside of his Audi, he launches his vehicle off a ramp, spins it upside down, and knocks the bomb off on the first try. But his most implausible stunt was a jump between two buildings. While running from the police, Martin drives his car through a concrete barrier and launches himself to an adjacent building without damaging his car. The impact from the barrier would’ve slowed him down so much that the newly wrecked car would’ve plunged towards the ground. Martin may be a good driver, but even he’s not good enough to defy the laws of physics.
#8: “Fast & Furious 6” (2013)
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After so many “Fast and Furious” films, franchise fans have accepted that our heroes can accomplish impossible feats with their cars. But “Fast and Furious 6” featured a scene so ridiculous that in interviews even the movie’s writer Chris Morgan has admitted it wasn’t realistic. At the film’s climax, our heroes race to rescue Mia Toretto from a speeding plane. The heroes spend around thirteen minutes trying to keep up. According to the analysis of BBC's Ben Carter, who puts their average speed at 120 miles, that means the runway would have to be around 26 miles long! Since the world's longest runway is 3.5 miles long, the film’s climax is definitely a stretch.
#7: “Superman” (1978)
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Henry Cavill’s Superman was criticized for the collateral damage he caused while fighting Zod. But science makes it clear that Christopher Reeve's version of the character was even more reckless. When Lois dies in an earthquake, Superman goes back in time to save her. He flies around the world so fast that the Earth spins backward and reverses time. If Superman flew fast enough to alter the world’s rotation, he would generate extremely powerful winds. These gusts could be strong enough to topple buildings, create dangerous weather conditions, and jeopardize the innocent lives of people around the globe. Audiences may accept that Superman can defy science and accomplish this feat. But are they okay with all the damage his time traveling stunt would cause?
#6: “Mission to Mars” (2000)
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The saddest scene in “Mission to Mars” was arguably its most inaccurate. When an astronaut named Woody is separated from his wife Terri in the vacuum of space, she uses exactly half of her jetpack fuel to accelerate towards him. Unfortunately, she doesn’t get close enough. Woody removes his helmet and instantly freezes to death so Terri wouldn’t use her remaining fuel to rescue him. But as astronomer Phil Plait has pointed out, since there’s no friction in space slowing her down, she would’ve had to fire an equal amount of fuel to stop. This means her jetpack would’ve been empty when she stopped. To add insult to injury, Woody would’ve suffocated before he froze. When you apply real science to “Mission to Mars,” the story becomes more tragic and impossible.
#5: “Total Recall” (1990)
Total Recall Trivia
By the end of “Total Recall,” corrupt Mars governor Vilos Cohaagen has one goal. He wants to prevent hero Douglas Quaid from turning on a reactor that will produce constant oxygen for the people of Mars. It turns out he had a good reason. While Earth’s air is seventy-eight percent nitrogen, Mars has only one percent of nitrogen inside of its atmosphere. This element helps prevent fires from burning continuously, protects us from oxygen toxicity, and helps make the sky blue. As writer Maria Montelibano points out for Medium, if you suddenly introduced a bunch of oxygen to Mars, what you’d ACTUALLY see is everyone getting sick, as fires and explosions raged underneath a bland sky. So while Cohaagen isn't the nicest guy, his evil actions were secretly keeping the citizens of Mars safe the entire time.
#4: “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” (2008)
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While watching Mutt swing on vines fast enough to keep up with jeeps was absurd, Indy’s fourth installment featured a more problematic scientific scene. Indy gets trapped on an atomic bomb testing site right before a nuke is detonated. He protects himself by hiding inside a refrigerator. After the fridge is launched into the air and comes crashing down hard, Indiana rolls out and keeps adventuring. But the fridge would’ve actually been fatal. If Indy wasn't mortally wounded by the force of the atomic blast hitting the fridge or his hard landing, he would’ve been hit with a ton of radiation as soon as he opened the door. Unless Indy still had access to the Holy Grail, he wouldn’t survive this adventure.
#3: “Fast Five” (2011)
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Sorry, “Fast and Furious” fans, but we're ruining another one of the films. In “Fast Five,” Dom and Brian steal a vault full of a hundred million dollars in cash. They accomplish this by using two Dodge Chargers to tow their bounty through the streets at breakneck speeds. If the vault they stole was full of millions in cash, it would weigh around fifteen tons. Harvard physicist Dr. Randall Kelley calculated that it would take about 467 Dodge Chargers to move that heavy vault at the speeds we see in the movie. Realistically, Dom and Brian would have reached a max speed of just over two miles per hour. And they would’ve gotten away with too… if they added about 400 members to their crew.
#2: “The Core” (2003)
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It takes less than a half an hour for “The Core” to become utterly absurd to anyone with an understanding of physics. After mysterious tragedies keep occurring worldwide, a geophysicist announces that the Earth’s core has stopped spinning. He goes on to say they have a year to restart it before the magnetic field around Earth disappears. But according to physicist John Ortberg if the Earth’s core stopped spinning, the magnetic field would be gone in an instant. Even a group of ragtag scientists couldn’t delay that phenomenon. Fortunately, scientists have theorized that the rest of Earth’s atmosphere would protect us from most of the catastrophic destruction the film depicts. Let’s hope we never have to test that theory.
Before our physics teachers fail our top pick, here are a few dishonorable mentions.
“Wanted” (2008)
You Can’t Make Bullets Curve with a Flick of the Wrist
“G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra” (2009)
Heavy Chunks of Ice Shouldn’t Fall That Fast
“2 Fast 2 Furious” (2003)
Brian’s Speedy Car Would’ve Flown Over the Boat
“Live Free or Die Hard” (2007)
John McClane Would’ve Broken His Legs Jumping Off the Jet Alone
“Speed” (1994)
If the Bus Miraculously Jumped a Huge Gap, Everyone Would Be Injured
#1: “Armageddon” (1998)
Michael Bay’s space thriller kicks into gear when scientists discover a Texas-sized asteroid will hit Earth in eighteen days. NASA quickly trains and sends oil drillers to put a nuke inside the asteroid and blow it to space dust. Their plan is both extremely rushed and horribly ineffective. According to research astronomer Dr. Alastair Bruce, speaking to the “i” newspaper, an asteroid as big as Texas would’ve been visible for months. And if the space rock was that massive, a single nuke detonated inside would barely tickle it. The explosion of one nuke would only break off smaller pieces of the asteroid that would probably collide with Earth and cause more devastation. Despite the numerous factual errors, “Armageddon” was a box office smash. It’s almost like audiences don’t even care about scientific accuracy.
