Although dying in a movie allows an actor the rare opportunity to roll around the floor clutching their chest and murmuring "they got me" for 15 minutes, it also means they don't get to be in the sequel.
That's why movie deaths needs to be memorable. They need to be visceral. They need to be meaningful. And yet, some of the best-known movie deaths are shit. Here, in the form of a numbered list, we bring you the top 10 most disappointing movie deaths ever…
1 – Transformers: Jazz
Watching this film made a sizable part of our inner child die horribly, choking to death on his own stickle-bricks. It’s hard to even pick out scenes within a film that pretty much amounts to rape via CGI, but the death of Jazz (a character fondly remembered by anyone old enough to give a shit) is a particular kick in the milk teeth. We were already scared when they decided to create ‘black-stereotype’ robot and try and explain it away with ‘oh he learnt to talk from rap music’. But then he tries to take on Megatron and gets ripped in half. Surely a devastating moment for the young fans? Oh no, he doesn’t even get a slo-mo shot. Instead it’s straight to a guy pulling inexplicable motorbike stunts. We later learn that he can’t be repaired, before Optimus says something along the lines of ‘But at least we got new friends’. Jazz is slung on the rubbish heap a crime on the same scale as letting Anthony Anderson survive a film.
2 – Predator: The Predator
The Predator is easily one of the most intimidating monsters in recent movie history. A 7ft tall invisible alien with a laser that cuts through Jessie Ventura like butter and a face like a toothy vagina is not to be messed with. But in the end Arnie just has to pull the old ‘hey look at me’ game before dropping a tree on his head. Being outsmarted by a man who looks confused by his own shoes is nothing to be proud of. The self-destruct sequence is a brief reprieve, but it seems pretty easy to outrun. Arnie isn’t exactly light on his feet, but a small dip in the ground seems sufficient to avoid a flaming death. Shame.
3 – Jurassic Park: Robert Muldoon
This death differs slightly in the fact that you are left a bit disappointed with the character himself. Frankly, Muldoon knew better. He was the velociraptor expert for God’s sake! Even we, the uneducated audience, knew that if you’ve got a raptor sat staring at you, you can be pretty sure that there’s another about to ambush you and get claw-happy with your intestinal tract. But no… instead he takes about 20 minutes unfolding an elaborate rifle and the trap is sprung. “Clever girl." Not really – predictable if anything, you muppet!
4 – Star Wars: Return Of The Jedi: Boba Fett
This guy is without a shadow of a doubt the coolest of the characters in the Star Wars universe. He stands up to Vader and that guy kills people literally for fun. But in hindsight, the legend of Fett isn’t really based on much more than a pretty cool helmet. In the end he suffers a slapstick comedy death, twatted in the back by a – blind – Han Solo who isn’t even pronouncing his name right. The biggest crime in Return Of The Jedi (yes, worse than the Ewoks) is the sight of Fett twanging into the side of a ship and rolling into what looks like big sandy anus.
5 – Bad Boys 2: Generic druglord
This film is long. It's really long. It’s a film that goes past the point of guilty pleasure until you start to wonder if all of the needless slo-mo and colour filters will actually bring on a tumour. It’s somewhere during hour 19 when those lovable ‘bad’ boys have killed most of Mexico, driven through most simultaneously flammable and unpopulated favela in the world and finally come face to face with Jordi Mollà’s villain. We don’t even know why they were on a minefield as we were drooling and confused by then, but they just shoot him in the head. Considering how ridiculous the film is, we at least expected them to fire him out of a cannon into a pit of rabid hyenas. But no, they just couldn’t be arsed.
6 – Terminator 2: Arnie
Now don’t get us wrong, this film is amazing. Well, at least right up to the last few minutes. After Arnie’s smelted the T-1000 into a CGI mulch, the time comes for him to sacrifice himself. It’s at this stage that you gradually start to realise what is about to happen. He’s going to try and go soft. Viewers of Kindergarten Cop know this is a bad idea on the scale of given Lindsay Lohan your car keys. “I know now why you cry,” is bad enough, but the thumbs-up… WHY OH WHY THE THUMBS-UP?
7 – The Godfather: Vito Corleone
Another example of a great film with a scene that just feels a bit off. We don’t know what it is about this moment but the scene of Vito Corleone’s death has not aged well. Five minutes of watching Brando grunt strangely at a small child before pulling a genuinely terrifying face with an orange slice is somewhat unnerving. Then he just kind of falls over. The man didn’t need a grandiose, bullet riddled death, but there’s something genuinely wrong with that scene that is hard to put your finger on.
8 – Kill Bill Volume 2: Bill
Finally, after nearly five hours, two entrance fees and God knows how many unnecessary lines of dialogue have been sat through, the Bride is gonna KILL BILL. Then to have the sheer audacity to have the entire fight take place in about 5 seconds whilst sitting down is the equivalent of a movie cock-slapping. Tarantino even dangles the idea of a twilight swordfight in front of us but just can’t be fucked.
9 – Aliens: Apone
The character of Apone was never going to make it to the end of the film. He might as well have had the words ‘disposable black character’ stamped on his forehead. But he still manages to be one of the most memorable badasses in the film, despite never firing a shot. From the moment he shoves a cigar into his gob within seconds of waking from hyper sleep you expect to see him stub it out on the eyeball of an alien as he goes down swinging. Instead he stumbles about trying to hear out of his earpiece and an alien drops on his head like a sack of acid-filled shit. One girlish scream later and he’s gone.
10 – Collateral: Vincent
Once again, this is a great film. But at the same time are we really supposed to believe that Jamie Foxx’s confused cabbie takes down Tom Cruise in full ‘silver fox’ assassin mode? OK, the lights on the train go out, but there’s still plenty of time to get off a shot and Cruise shoots about six times into a doorway about the width of a person. He even seems to shoot first. But he misses and gets shot. No wonder he looks pissed off. It’s still worth watching the film just to see Tom Cruise run like a robot.
[story by Nicholas Edmondson]
Adam Gade says
Per Transformers: The black guy always dies, usually first. And Fett doesn’t die, it’s explained away by the geeks at wookiepedia.com.
Boba says
Are you trying to tell me that I’m still alive? Shit…
David Schwartz says
What about Michael Corleone? When he he just falls off his chair. That’s the worst ever!
Boba says
What about Samir from Coronation Street?
On My Knees says
Apone!! *to the sky* WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!?????
Stabby McGee says
Showing my pop-culture geek streak, now:
Jazz is meant to be coming back (hello sequel and miraculous new technology!); Robert Muldoon is meant to have survived the raptor attack; Boba Fett survives and escapes the Sarlacc; Arnie does the thumbs-up in reference to an earlier part of the film, which is par for the course in the Terminator trilogy; Uma Thurman was symbolically ‘killing’ Bill over the course of the two (shit) movies, the actual death was his acceptance of the inevitable; Apone wasn’t killed by the Alien, he was taken and facehugged, his death was more fitting – blown up by the exploding nuclear reactor; and finally, arguably, Vincent wanted to die and therefore let himself be shot.