Movie Clichés

Movie clichés abound, as any movie viewer must know. Here are the ones I’ve thought of in the last twenty minutes. Any movie which can avoid all these is probably a pretty good movie.

• If a character waxes poetic about his future, he’ll be dead within twenty minutes.
• If a group of men are going off to war, the one who has the most passionate and tearful moments of separation from loved ones is sure to die.
• If a “lost,” “legendary” place, artifact, or character is mentioned in the movie, you can be sure you’ll see it before the end.
• The least competent member of a team, if not slaughtered within the first half hour, will save the whole team at some point.
• Haunted houses are always really haunted. Ghosts are always real. There really is a monster in the closet. You get the idea.
• Prophecies always come true (exception: Lord of the Rings trilogy, where predictions are invariably wrong).
• Aliens are always hostile (exceptions: The Abyss and all films by Spielberg).
• If there’s a murder by we-don’t-know-who, it’s the helpful guy hanging around for no apparent reason who did it. If there’s no helpful guy hanging around, it’s probably the hero’s girlfriend, ex-girlfriend, partner, or brother.
• The bad guy always dies in the end, usually because of clumsiness while trying to kill the hero—unless he turns good, then he’ll die while trying to save the hero.
• If our hero lusts after a “bad” girl, and the bad girl has a less attractive but spunky and "good" girlfriend, our hero will end up with the girlfriend.
• If the story is being told to us by a really old character, that character will die at the end of the movie.

• At least one of a pair of identical twins is born evil.
• High class strippers with a heart of gold can operate most heavy equipment (Independence Day).
• A lost hand either comes crawling back, or a mad surgeon will replace it with one transplanted from an executed strangler.
• Paraphrase: A ringing telephone is always within arm’s length.
• It is only after the detective has been suspended that he can properly crack the case.
• If a woman is pregnant, she will deliver before the movie ends.

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