do you understand what’s going on here
cuz we sure don’t welcome to
watchmojo.com and today we’re counting
down our picks for the top 10 movies
with incomprehensible action scenes for
this list we’re taking a look at the
most difficult to understand action
scenes in movies this confusion might be
caused by any number of issues like poor
editing bad pacing or an overly shaky
camera these aren’t necessarily bad
movies but they do contain at least one
remarkably incomprehensible action scene
however we won’t be including any found
footage or point of view films on this
list oh and a spoiler alert is probably
in order
number 10 house call the Bourne Legacy
closed in the first Bourne film without
Jason Bourne Aaron cross attempts to
save dr. sharing from assassins in her
home the ensuing action sequence is
quick and chaotic but not in the way
you’d want instead of depicting the
altercation clearly the cuts complicate
the scene so it’s hard to tell where the
actions taking place as cross manoeuvres
around the house the fight leads to a
basement it’s not pitch-black but the
reduction in light takes even more away
from the clarity of the fight while it’s
not impossible to watch the quick cuts
and other issues in this scene take a
fight between a super soldier and some
assassins and make it somehow less
exciting and certainly difficult to
decipher how did you do shoes number 9
final tribute fight The Hunger Games
the final fight of the Hunger Games has
Peeta and Katniss pitted against the
last tribute Cato on top of the
cornucopia many of the hits are hidden
by camera movement and cuts while the
shakiness makes the entire scene hard to
watch some big hits aren’t even shown
because of the frequent edits like when
Peeta bodyslams Cato this scene takes
place at night and the actors are
dressed in dark clothes so the action is
pretty tough to see of course
this fight is intended to ramp up the
tension but instead it leaves the
audience confused go on huh shoot and we
both go down if you win the first
Cornucopia scene is intentionally
chaotic to create a panicked feeling as
the tributes scramble for survival this
final fight is just too chaotic to even
understand after that matters
number eight Stallone versus Van Damme
The Expendables 2 you want to kill me
like a man The Expendables 2 should have
been filled with badass one-liners and
intense action scenes from classic
actors right
unfortunately the film severely lacks in
the quality action Department with the
final fight between Ross and velena
suffering from poor editing and
choreography the visibility is made even
worse by the fact that the scene is
tinted dark blue which was also the case
for other fights in the film at some
points during the Stallone Van Damme
fight you can’t even make sense of how
quickly the characters get from point A
to point B it’s this combo of issues
that make the scene less engaging and
hard to follow a film with this much
talent should have let us savor the
sweet action instead of question it
tastes good to me
number 7 bathroom fight Columbiana
you’ve been waiting for this one for a
very long time yes 2011’s Columbiana
shows the revenge story of the
protagonist catelleya played by Zoe
Saldana and the film leads to a
climactic fight between katana and the
man who killed her family
sounds like a satisfying end to the
story right wrong
the problem is the camerawork is overly
shaky and the cuts are so excessive that
it’s impossible to see any hits land the
fact that the fight takes place in a
small bathroom doesn’t make the scene
any less confusing either the
confrontation is choppy and hard to
follow which makes what’s supposed to be
the most intense part of the film almost
anticlimactic
Markel Wow it’s cataleya number 6
rooftop rumble Quantum of Solace the
first thing you should know about us is
that we have people everywhere in Daniel
Craig’s second outing his bond he’s
found chasing his targets across the
rooftops of Siena Italy in the opening
of the film unfortunately critics were
quick to point out that the entire
sequence is poorly edited with excessive
cuts which means the fights are
difficult to watch and the parkour is
not nearly as exciting as it could have
been
Casino Royale features a similar chase
in its opening and in that scene the
parkour shots are held longer and the
hand-to-hand fights aren’t cut so
quickly so the audience is able to feel
the hits and the excitement from the
action however when it comes down to it
Quantum of Solace is opening doesn’t
show double-oh-seven s awesome skills as
best it can you had to kill him remain
questioning so that we might actually
learn something number 5 knife fight The
Bourne Supremacy go out the back I have
another car this scene shows our titular
hero Jason Bourne fighting jarda in his
home the fight is close and dirty
meaning it uses a lot of quick cuts and
a shaky camera the result of that
however is that viewers are constantly
trying to get a glimpse of the action
rather than enjoying the scene for what
it is this quick editing technique
especially the constant cutting at each
hit makes the punches seem less
impactful almost as if no one is
actually getting hurt the movement of
the camera also blocks the view of the
punches and knife swipes director Paul
Greengrass is known for a shaky cam
style but this scene heavily hides the
action while the excessive cuts and
movement make it barely comprehensible I
thought you were here to kill me number
four Smallville’s scuffle Man of Steel
whether you love or hate Man of Steel
you must admit it has its moments
however the Smallville fight is not one
of them at least according to critics
the main issue with this sequence is the
camera movement it seems like they were
going for a handheld vibe an effect that
can and has been used dramatically in
the past but unfortunately here it only
makes it difficult to see the three
super beings throwing each other through
buildings
in addition to the overly excited camera
our lens flares and unnecessary zooms
that make the scene even more difficult
to watch
show us the Big Blue Boy Scout beating
the bad guy don’t hide it forever human
you say we will kill a million more
number three junkyard scuffle
transformers we’re locked in a normal
start michael bay’s theatrical version
of the Transformers is packed with
explosive action between our favorite
Autobots and Decepticons but some scenes
don’t do our favourite 80s cartoon
justice one such example is the junkyard
scene between bumblebee and barricade to
start most of the shots in the sequence
need to be wider to compensate for the
huge robots the movement of the camera
and timing of the edits obscure the
movement of the fight and make the scene
less clear to the viewer
not to mention barricade is a black
police car which makes him hard to see
against the night sky rather than
actually showing us the hits and the
movement in a comprehensible manner this
scene basically implies a badass fight
and fans expected more
that’s a tough without a head-on number
two alien ambush battle Los Angeles
this alien invasion film follows a
commander and his platoon on a rescue
mission to save civilians from a police
station during the mission the platoon
is ambushed by aliens which leads to a
shootout on the street
sounds pretty standard but this action
scene is incomprehensible to say the
least
in fact the camera moves so much and the
cuts are so quick that the audience
doesn’t know who’s shooting it who
what’s more
you can’t even really tell where anyone
is in relation to each other or even how
the scene is laid out ad loud screaming
gunfire and tons of dust and the result
is a confusing scene that borders on
unwatchable no honorable mentions this
time around number 1 cross-eyed Alex
Cross
nauseating is too generous of a term to
describe this action seen in this fight
cross relies on hand-to-hand combat in
his final fight against the villain
Picasso except this final fight is too
confusing for us to even understand
what’s going on the camera shakes to the
point where most if not all of the
action is obscured the shot is also
zoomed in too tight which on top of the
shakiness makes the scene physically
hard to watch at times ultimately the
frequent cuts and ironically the
slow-motion segments take away any
remaining clarity the scene may have had
enjoy this this finale is about as
climactic as a black screen that says
the end it at least that would have been
easier to watch do you agree with our
list over so soon I want my money’s
worth which movie do you think has the
most incomprehensible action scene
for more entertaining top 10s published
every day be sure to subscribe to
watchmojo.com
you
cuz we sure don’t welcome to
watchmojo.com and today we’re counting
down our picks for the top 10 movies
with incomprehensible action scenes for
this list we’re taking a look at the
most difficult to understand action
scenes in movies this confusion might be
caused by any number of issues like poor
editing bad pacing or an overly shaky
camera these aren’t necessarily bad
movies but they do contain at least one
remarkably incomprehensible action scene
however we won’t be including any found
footage or point of view films on this
list oh and a spoiler alert is probably
in order
number 10 house call the Bourne Legacy
closed in the first Bourne film without
Jason Bourne Aaron cross attempts to
save dr. sharing from assassins in her
home the ensuing action sequence is
quick and chaotic but not in the way
you’d want instead of depicting the
altercation clearly the cuts complicate
the scene so it’s hard to tell where the
actions taking place as cross manoeuvres
around the house the fight leads to a
basement it’s not pitch-black but the
reduction in light takes even more away
from the clarity of the fight while it’s
not impossible to watch the quick cuts
and other issues in this scene take a
fight between a super soldier and some
assassins and make it somehow less
exciting and certainly difficult to
decipher how did you do shoes number 9
final tribute fight The Hunger Games
the final fight of the Hunger Games has
Peeta and Katniss pitted against the
last tribute Cato on top of the
cornucopia many of the hits are hidden
by camera movement and cuts while the
shakiness makes the entire scene hard to
watch some big hits aren’t even shown
because of the frequent edits like when
Peeta bodyslams Cato this scene takes
place at night and the actors are
dressed in dark clothes so the action is
pretty tough to see of course
this fight is intended to ramp up the
tension but instead it leaves the
audience confused go on huh shoot and we
both go down if you win the first
Cornucopia scene is intentionally
chaotic to create a panicked feeling as
the tributes scramble for survival this
final fight is just too chaotic to even
understand after that matters
number eight Stallone versus Van Damme
The Expendables 2 you want to kill me
like a man The Expendables 2 should have
been filled with badass one-liners and
intense action scenes from classic
actors right
unfortunately the film severely lacks in
the quality action Department with the
final fight between Ross and velena
suffering from poor editing and
choreography the visibility is made even
worse by the fact that the scene is
tinted dark blue which was also the case
for other fights in the film at some
points during the Stallone Van Damme
fight you can’t even make sense of how
quickly the characters get from point A
to point B it’s this combo of issues
that make the scene less engaging and
hard to follow a film with this much
talent should have let us savor the
sweet action instead of question it
tastes good to me
number 7 bathroom fight Columbiana
you’ve been waiting for this one for a
very long time yes 2011’s Columbiana
shows the revenge story of the
protagonist catelleya played by Zoe
Saldana and the film leads to a
climactic fight between katana and the
man who killed her family
sounds like a satisfying end to the
story right wrong
the problem is the camerawork is overly
shaky and the cuts are so excessive that
it’s impossible to see any hits land the
fact that the fight takes place in a
small bathroom doesn’t make the scene
any less confusing either the
confrontation is choppy and hard to
follow which makes what’s supposed to be
the most intense part of the film almost
anticlimactic
Markel Wow it’s cataleya number 6
rooftop rumble Quantum of Solace the
first thing you should know about us is
that we have people everywhere in Daniel
Craig’s second outing his bond he’s
found chasing his targets across the
rooftops of Siena Italy in the opening
of the film unfortunately critics were
quick to point out that the entire
sequence is poorly edited with excessive
cuts which means the fights are
difficult to watch and the parkour is
not nearly as exciting as it could have
been
Casino Royale features a similar chase
in its opening and in that scene the
parkour shots are held longer and the
hand-to-hand fights aren’t cut so
quickly so the audience is able to feel
the hits and the excitement from the
action however when it comes down to it
Quantum of Solace is opening doesn’t
show double-oh-seven s awesome skills as
best it can you had to kill him remain
questioning so that we might actually
learn something number 5 knife fight The
Bourne Supremacy go out the back I have
another car this scene shows our titular
hero Jason Bourne fighting jarda in his
home the fight is close and dirty
meaning it uses a lot of quick cuts and
a shaky camera the result of that
however is that viewers are constantly
trying to get a glimpse of the action
rather than enjoying the scene for what
it is this quick editing technique
especially the constant cutting at each
hit makes the punches seem less
impactful almost as if no one is
actually getting hurt the movement of
the camera also blocks the view of the
punches and knife swipes director Paul
Greengrass is known for a shaky cam
style but this scene heavily hides the
action while the excessive cuts and
movement make it barely comprehensible I
thought you were here to kill me number
four Smallville’s scuffle Man of Steel
whether you love or hate Man of Steel
you must admit it has its moments
however the Smallville fight is not one
of them at least according to critics
the main issue with this sequence is the
camera movement it seems like they were
going for a handheld vibe an effect that
can and has been used dramatically in
the past but unfortunately here it only
makes it difficult to see the three
super beings throwing each other through
buildings
in addition to the overly excited camera
our lens flares and unnecessary zooms
that make the scene even more difficult
to watch
show us the Big Blue Boy Scout beating
the bad guy don’t hide it forever human
you say we will kill a million more
number three junkyard scuffle
transformers we’re locked in a normal
start michael bay’s theatrical version
of the Transformers is packed with
explosive action between our favorite
Autobots and Decepticons but some scenes
don’t do our favourite 80s cartoon
justice one such example is the junkyard
scene between bumblebee and barricade to
start most of the shots in the sequence
need to be wider to compensate for the
huge robots the movement of the camera
and timing of the edits obscure the
movement of the fight and make the scene
less clear to the viewer
not to mention barricade is a black
police car which makes him hard to see
against the night sky rather than
actually showing us the hits and the
movement in a comprehensible manner this
scene basically implies a badass fight
and fans expected more
that’s a tough without a head-on number
two alien ambush battle Los Angeles
this alien invasion film follows a
commander and his platoon on a rescue
mission to save civilians from a police
station during the mission the platoon
is ambushed by aliens which leads to a
shootout on the street
sounds pretty standard but this action
scene is incomprehensible to say the
least
in fact the camera moves so much and the
cuts are so quick that the audience
doesn’t know who’s shooting it who
what’s more
you can’t even really tell where anyone
is in relation to each other or even how
the scene is laid out ad loud screaming
gunfire and tons of dust and the result
is a confusing scene that borders on
unwatchable no honorable mentions this
time around number 1 cross-eyed Alex
Cross
nauseating is too generous of a term to
describe this action seen in this fight
cross relies on hand-to-hand combat in
his final fight against the villain
Picasso except this final fight is too
confusing for us to even understand
what’s going on the camera shakes to the
point where most if not all of the
action is obscured the shot is also
zoomed in too tight which on top of the
shakiness makes the scene physically
hard to watch at times ultimately the
frequent cuts and ironically the
slow-motion segments take away any
remaining clarity the scene may have had
enjoy this this finale is about as
climactic as a black screen that says
the end it at least that would have been
easier to watch do you agree with our
list over so soon I want my money’s
worth which movie do you think has the
most incomprehensible action scene
for more entertaining top 10s published
every day be sure to subscribe to
watchmojo.com
you
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