Top 10 Mistakes That Were Left in 21st Century Movies

The film “American Sniper” is based on the true story of US Navy SEAL Chris Kyle. And while - as with all “true story” movies - there were some creative liberties taken, the use of a fake baby is probably the most egregious. According to screenwriter Jason Hall, they had planned to use a real baby for the scene, but it unfortunately had a fever and the other baby didn’t wasn’t on set, so director Clint Eastwood decided to use a doll for one scene. Unfortunately, it ended up looking ridiculous. It’s so obviously a fake baby that at a screening of the movie the audience actually started laughing. CollegeHumor too would later have fun with this, in their extreme parody of the scene.

The origins of the “exit” sign date back to a 1911 fire in a Manhattan garment factory that killed 146 workers. One reason for the magnitude of the loss was blamed on the lack of signage indicating where the exits were. So, there’s a good chance that there would’ve been exit signs in theaters back in 1937 - the year in which “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” is set. That being said, there wouldn’t have been a modern, glowing red, electric “exit” sign as we can see in this scene from the movie. Unless the answer to the question, “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” is “the future!”

Near the beginning of the first “John Wick” film, we see John leave the house with his dog in his beautiful vintage 1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1. Notice the license plate on the car says New Jersey. He goes to a gas station to fill up. Notice the New Jersey newspapers. So, what could be wrong about a scene in which a guy fills his car with gas? Well, nothing, if the scene took place in any other state. However, New Jersey - and some parts of Oregon - are the only places in the country that have a law against self-serve gas stations. So, where were the attendants? Probably trying not to interfere with a crucial scene.

American comedian W. C. Fields is often credited with having said that an actor should “never work with children or animals.” The logic behind the quote is that both kids and animals can be unpredictable on set or scene-stealing in the movie. Or both, as was the case with Tom Cruise’s horse in “The Last Samurai.” As Cruise dismounts the horse in this scene, the animal shoots out its left hind leg and connects with an extra in a moment that could’ve earned him the top prize on “America's Funniest Home Videos.” Not only did the horse steal the scene, but it might have also stolen this poor extra’s chance at ever having kids.

In the final film of Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, Bane leads a heist at the Gotham Stock Exchange. As we can clearly see, it’s daytime when the heist begins. We even hear the sound of a bell which would seem to indicate we’re right at the beginning of the trading day when this all goes down. So, when Bane escapes the exchange and is pursued by the police, it makes sense that it’s still light out. However, the pursuit heads into a long tunnel and when we emerge it’s pitch black outside. Maybe this tunnel was some kind of time-traveling black hole tunnel that took everyone 12+ hours into the future. But we don’t think so.

Have you ever heard of those crazy long-sleeve shirts that morph into tank tops as you wear them? Ya, neither have we. But that must be what Tran is wearing in this race scene from the first “Fast and Furious” movie. When we first see Tran in his car, he’s got on a black, long-sleeve shirt. But when we cut back to him just before go time, there he is, wearing a black tank top. Looks like whoever decided we needed to see Tran’s shoulders during the race forgot to reshoot the drive-up part of the scene. Oooops!

When you go to a movie called “Pirates of the Caribbean,” you expect to see a lot of pirates. But you probably don’t have any expectations of seeing a cowboy. However, for those eagle-eyed moviegoers watching “Curse of the Black Pearl” that’s exactly what they saw. Okay, we can’t be sure the person visible in the background over Johnny Depp’s shoulder is an actual cowboy, but he is wearing a cowboy hat. According to various reports online, he was a grip on the film. Why he was standing there, we have no idea. Maybe he was just ten years early for his part as an extra on another Johnny Depp film, “The Lone Ranger.”

“Bernie” is based on the true story of the murder of wealthy Texas octogenarian Marjorie Nugent in 1996. And for the most part the movie stays true to its time frame, with one truly inexplicable exception: the iPhone! Yup, there’s an iPhone in the movie. Now, if the film took place in 2007, then maybe you could understand the filmmakers’ mistake, since the first iPhone came out in January of that year. But this is 1996! That was the year Nokia released the Nokia 9000 Communicator. We were still eight years away from the market release of the Motorola Razr. So, how anyone decided an iPhone made sense in this movie is beyond us.

Usually the color of an actor’s eyes isn’t super important to the role they’re playing. But then again, sometimes it is. In “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2,” as Severus Snape is dying, he looks at Harry and tells him that he has his mother’s eyes. Now, in the “Harry Potter” books we’re told on numerous occasions about Harry’s green eyes. However, Daniel Radcliffe - who played the eponymous Potter in the movies - has blue eyes. No big deal right? All they had to do was get an actor with blue eyes to play his mother. But, later on in the movie when we flash back to a young Lily Potter, she has brown eyes. We guess Snape was being metaphorical.

Imagine if you got bitten by a genetically modified “super spider” and could shoot webs out of your wrists. We can totally understand there being a learning curve in getting used to the webbing and controlling them. So, when Peter Parker destroys his room attempting to get his web-slinging under control, that seems about right. But then there’s the lamp, the one we see him web-sling right into the wall behind his head. Only we see it back on the shelf by his bedroom door after he sends a concerned Aunt May away from his room. Maybe the lamp got bitten by a radioactive time machine?