History EpicFail / LiveActionFilms

* ''Film/XMenFirstClass'':
** Banshee's first flight... is ''not''.
** After Erik has just stopped a missile strike from the US Navy, Xavier tries to get Erik to call off his counterattack by saying that "they were JustFollowingOrders!" He said that to a ''Holocaust survivor''. Magneto's face and [[TranquilFury quiet voice]] show everyone just how ''utterly'' Xavier has failed to convince him before he returns the missiles to sender.

* In ''Film/DogDayAfternoon'', three men decide to [[BankRobbery rob a bank]]. They walk into the bank in broad daylight with no masks, no gloves, and no floorplan, without checking if their information is up to date. The mastermind Sonny Wortzik doesn't even think of blacking out the security cameras until the unmasked robbers have been inside for almost five minutes, and he's too short to reach them without jumping. One robber [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere quits]] because he can't bring himself to pull a gun on someone. Then the remaining robbers make the tellers open the vault and find barely any money left to steal, because the latest shipment is already gone. All the while, the robbers use each others' real names, allowing the authorities to identify them easily--especially Sonny, who also announces that he is a [[UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar Vietnam veteran]] and a former bank teller.\\
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Then, while raiding the counters, Sonny decides to dispose of the traveler's check register by lighting it on fire. The thick smoke drifts through a vent and alerts everyone outside that something's going on in the bank. Before long, the robbers attract not only police and media attention but also a huge crowd of onlookers, ensuring that they are trapped inside a sweltering building with no means of escape, that their faces will be on national television, and that what began as a quick robbery is now a hostage situation with one robber [[SanitySlippage too mentally unstable]] to handle the ensuing standoff. To say that the robbers DidntThinkThisThrough [[StupidCrooks is an understatement]].

* ''Film/{{Paddington}}'''s trademark. No matter how simple and easy a task might be, trust Paddington to mess it up it in a spectacular fashion.

* From ''Film/PulpFiction'', one of the guys at the apartment where Jules and Vincent go to retrieve Marsellus Wallace's briefcase ambushes them and shoots at the duo at very close range... and misses every shot. All three pause to stare in surprise. (Jules believes that this is a sign from God to change careers.)

* ''Franchise/RoboCop''

* In ''Film/{{Snatch}}'', there's pretty much ''anything'' [[StupidCrooks Sol and Vinnie]] put their minds to. In their defining moment, they were hired to take a briefcase from a man who had been sent to place a bet at a bookmaker's. They were to rob the bookie's place as well, so it wouldn't look too suspicious to the guy with the briefcase when they stole the case from him. In the end, they'd get the cash from the bookie's, their employer would get the case. Unfortunately, their getaway driver, Tyrone, DrivesLikeCrazy and backed into the van their victim had used to get to the scene, knocking him out and trapping him inside it.\\
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Later that night, they see someone carrying a case go inside, and without attempting to verify the target, Sol and Vinnie enter the bookie's, only to find that it's (obviously) the wrong person, and furthermore that the bookie's has no cash because all bets are off. Then the cashier lady turns out to be a BadassBystander who deftly disarms Sol of his shotgun and trips the alarm. Then they attempt (and fail) to open the front door. Reasoning that it's a security door that locked when the alarm was pushed, they try to ShootOutTheLock. The door turns out to be bulletproof, and Vince gets his leg grazed by the ricochet. They fall down in exhaustion and take off their ski masks, at which point they notice the security camera that's just caught them both unmasked. And ''then'', to top it off, Tyrone shows up to get them... it turns out the reason they couldn't open the front door is because [[DoorDumb they tried to push the "pull" side of the door]]. The clincher is that the pair are completely unknown in that part of the underworld, and the camera fails to be of any use because the owner doesn't recognize them... but Tyrone is recognized. Epic Fail indeed.

** Perhaps Picard was just going for RefugeInAudacity: "So you're telling me there were three aliens, all different species, and you had a shootout with them while dune buggy chasing until they ramped off a cliff into their spaceship?"

* In ''Film/{{Ted 2}}'', Sam decides to let Ted drive her car for 20 minutes after he begs her to let him. We then see just how bad of a driver Ted is. He texts while driving, swerves between the lanes, then tosses a drink of some kind on the windshield of another car, causing it to crash. Then to top it all off, Ted burns himself while trying to throw his cigarette out the window which causes him to veer to the left of the road, narrowly avoiding several oncoming cars, then swerving to the right to avoid another a head on collision with another car which causes the car to go off the road and down a hill, and when the car reaches the end of the hill it goes air born and lands in barn. "Well Sam it's been 20 minutes, you want to take over?"

* In ''Film/{{Ted 2}}'', Sam decides to let Ted drive her car for 20 minutes after he begs her to let him. We then see just how bad of a driver Ted is. He texts while driving, swerves between the lanes, then tosses a drink of some kind on the windshield of another car, causing it to crash. Then to top it all off, Ted burns himself while trying to throw his cigarette out the window which causes him to veer to the left of the road, narrowly avoiding several oncoming cars, then swerving to the right to avoid another car which causes the car to go off the road and down a hill, and when the car reaches the end of the hill it goes air born and lands in barn. "Well Sam it's been 20 minutes, you want to drive?"

* ''The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight'' don't come by their name idly; they are ''stupefyingly'' [[StupidCrooks incompetent at organised crime]], especially when they try to knock off their mob boss, Antonio "Baccala" Vestrummo, and his underlings, most notably "Water Buffalo".

** When the knights encounter the French castle, they try to conquer it somehow. Bedivere suggests a Trojan Horse ploy with a gigantic wooden rabbit. It fails because Bedivere missed the important part about being ''inside'' the rabbit when it's taken into the castle. And then the French just launch the rabbit right out of the castle anyway.

** ''Film/Batman1989'': Batman programs the computer in his Batwing to fire two machine guns and several missiles at ComicBook/TheJoker. ''Every'' missile and bullet [[ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy completely misses]]. Even more humiliating when the Joker causes the Batwing to crash to the street below with a single shot from his (admittedly very long) gun.

* Creator/TimBurton's ''Film/{{Batman|1989}}'' series:
** The 1989 film: Batman programs the computer in his Batwing to fire two machine guns and several missiles at ComicBook/TheJoker. ''Every'' missile and bullet [[ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy completely misses]]. Even more humiliating when the Joker causes the Batwing to crash to the street below with a single shot from his (admittedly very long) gun.

* In ''Film/Tremors4TheLegendBegins'', Hiram Gummer mans a [[{{BFG}} massively-oversized punt gun]] to help fight off a Graboid. Having had a rather short time to learn to fire guns, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIj1rdyS5L4 he quickly moves to shoot it when it finally pops out of the ground]]... and misses. He misses the giant monster with a cannon-like gun designed for shooting entire flocks of ducks, when the tip of the barrel is ''mere feet away from it''. [[spoiler:Fortunately, not only does the shot scare it away, he succeeds in shooting it when it comes back.]]

* ''Film/Deadpool2016'': Deadpool's attempt to fight Colossus results in him breaking both hands and a foot without Colossus moving a muscle.

* ''Franchise/{{Alien}}'':
** This trope is used in ''Film/{{Aliens}}'' to emphasize how drastically unprepared the Colonial Marines are against the xenomorphs. The unit is sent into a highly critical part of the Hadley's Hope colony (the atmosphere processor), after reviewing its schematics. They are knee-deep in the xenomorph hive when Ripley points out to them that the machinery can be pierced by conventional weaponry, which leads a frantic and inexperienced Gorman to tell the Marines to give up all their ammunition (except for flamethrowers) to one man, [[PoorCommunicationKills without explaining why]]. When the xenomorphs inevitably crawl out of the walls, said soldier is the first casualty, causing everything to descend into anarchy. Apone stands in one spot trying to hear Gorman's orders just before he's abducted by a xeno, the only soldiers who survive are the ones who kept spare magazines and/or backup weapons, Drake and Vasquez stage a tactical retreat by shooting wildly with smartguns (which causes the damage that would eventually overload and destroy the colony), and Gorman is knocked out by unsecured cargo in the APC during the escape. Given that Burke admits to Ripley that the real objective of the mission was to smuggle some eggs out inside infected Marines, the fact that the squad performed so poorly was probably intentional: the Weyland-Yutani Corp wouldn't want a group of ''competent'' soldiers sent in.
** ''Film/AlienResurrection'':

** An even bigger case occurs in ''Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019''. The military desperately attempt to kill both Ghidorah and Rodan by firing their [[spoiler:prototype Oxygen Destroyer]] at Isla de Mara. The missile hits after Ghidorah has subdued Rodan when Godzilla is in the middle of defeating Ghidorah. It fails to have any effect on Ghidorah due to [[spoiler:his alien biology]] but it cripples Godzilla to the point of near-death; and without Godzilla to keep Ghidorah in check, the latter monster promptly awakens all of the dormant Titans around the world and commands them to begin inflicting a global ApocalypseHow worse than the military ever imagined, razing cities around the world.

* This trope is used in ''Film/{{Aliens}}'' to emphasize how drastically unprepared the Colonial Marines are against the xenomorphs. The unit is sent into a highly critical part of the Hadley's Hope colony (the atmosphere processor), after reviewing its schematics. They are knee-deep in the xenomorph hive when Ripley points out to them that the machinery can be pierced by conventional weaponry, which leads a frantic and inexperienced Gorman to tell the Marines to give up all their ammunition (except for flamethrowers) to one man, [[PoorCommunicationKills without explaining why]]. When the xenomorphs inevitably crawl out of the walls, said soldier is the first casualty, causing everything to descend into anarchy. Apone stands in one spot trying to hear Gorman's orders just before he's abducted by a xeno, the only soldiers who survive are the ones who kept spare magazines and/or backup weapons, Drake and Vasquez stage a tactical retreat by shooting wildly with smartguns (which causes the damage that would eventually overload and destroy the colony), and Gorman is knocked out by unsecured cargo in the APC during the escape. Given that Burke admits to Ripley that the real objective of the mission was to smuggle some eggs out inside infected Marines, the fact that the squad performed so poorly was probably intentional: the Weyland-Yutani Corp wouldn't want a group of ''competent'' soldiers sent in.

* ''Franchise/{{Godzilla}}''

** An even bigger case occurs in ''Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019''. The military desperately attempt to kill both Ghidorah and Rodan by firing their [[spoiler:prototype Oxygen Destroyer]] at Isla de Mara. The missile hits after Ghidorah has subdued Rodan when Godzilla is in the middle of defeating Ghidorah. It fails to have any effect on Ghidorah due to [[spoiler:his alien biology]] but it cripples Godzilla to the point of near-death; and without Godzilla to keep Ghidorah in check, the latter monster promptly awakens all of the dormant Titans around the world and commands them to begin razing the human race and all other life on the planet into the ground.

* ''Film/TheGodsMustBeCrazy'' is a collection of epic fails every ten minutes of the movie. [[VerbalTic Ay ay ay ay ay.]] What's worse, roughly half the [[HilarityEnsues wacky predicaments ensue]] simply because at the beginning of the movie, ''someone throws an empty Coca-Cola bottle from an airplane''. Seriously. We never even learn the litterbug's name.

-->'''Indiana:''' We have to get to Marcus before the Nazis do.\\

-->'''Immortan Joe:''' Agh! ''MEDIOCRE!''

--->'''Tony:''' We're going to see if ten percent thrust capacity achieves lift. And three, two, one....\\

--->'''Tony:''' [''hovering above his house''] Kill power.\\

--->'''Tony Stark:''' Yeah, I'd say, uh, most countries? 5-10 years away... Hammer Industries? 20.\\

** When the knights encounter the French castle, they try to conquer it somehow. One suggests a Trojan Horse ploy with a gigantic wooden rabbit. It fails because they missed the important part about being ''inside'' the rabbit when it's taken into the castle. The suggester doesn't reveal this part of the plan until after the rabbit is taken inside.

* ''Film/TheOtherGuys'' with the "Aim For The Bushes" scene. Two detectives are chasing some jewelry thieves to the roof of a 20-story building, and the thieves escape by zipline (which they, of course, cut after using). The detectives decide the best course of action would be to jump off the roof and land on the bushes... even though ''the pavement underneath doesn't even have bushes, or anything the duo can safely land on''. Three guesses what happens next, and the first two don't count.

* In ''Film/{{Elizabethtown}}'', the protagonist suffered an immense failure before at the very beginning of the film: the creation of a pair of sneakers that, [[RiddleForTheAges for reasons that are never]] [[NoodleIncident explained]], were recalled, made national news (and not in a good way, with the protagonist's boss reading a snippet from a magazine that says "a whole generation will go back to walk bare-footed because of these shoes") and caused the shoe company to lose a billion dollars. [[PlayedForDrama It got him fired, and made him so depressed that]], before the plot really happens, he [[DrivenToSuicide tried to kill himself]].

* ''Film/{{Elizabethtown}}'' involved the protagonist's own immense failure: the creation of a pair of sneakers that, [[RiddleForTheAges for reasons that are never]] [[NoodleIncident explained]], were recalled, made national news (and not in a good way, with the protagonist's boss reading a snippet from a magazine that says "a whole generation will go back to walk bare-footed because of these shoes") and caused the shoe company to lose a billion dollars. [[PlayedForDrama It got him fired, and made him so depressed that]], before the plot really happens, he [[DrivenToSuicide tried to kill himself]].

* Tue current page quote from ''Film/{{Elizabethtown}}'' involved the protagonist's own immense failure: the creation of a pair of sneakers that, [[RiddleForTheAges for reasons that are never]] [[NoodleIncident explained]], were recalled, made national news (and not I a good way at all, with the protagonist's boss reading a little snippet from a magazine that says "a whole generation will go back to walk bare-footed because of these shoes") and caused the shoe company to lose ''a billion'' dollars. [[PlayedForDrama It got him fired, and made him so depressed that]], before the plot really happens, he [[DrivenToSuicide tried to kill himself]].

* The 1978 disaster film ''Film/{{Avalanche}}'' ''really'' takes the cake in utter incompetence. When the titular avalanche hits, rescue crews race to the rescue. One truck dumps their equipment, causing an ambulance to stop and the driver hopping out in annoyance. This causes a police car to swerve, fishtail and ''hit a pedestrian and send him through a storefront window as the car itself goes through.'' Then, there's a group of rescuers completely missing catching a man falling from the destroyed remains of a ski lift (granted, he was probably dead from electrocution, but his fate was sealed when the rescuers missed). For a hat trick, some rescuers are able to rescue the leading male's mother and get her to an ambulance and heading towards a hospital. However, on the way down, the driver decides to go really fast, causing him to throw the ambulance into a ravine below and it to blow up.

* The 1978 disaster film ''Film/{{Avalanche}}'' ''really'' takes the cake in utter incompetence. When the titular avalanche hits, rescue crews race to the rescue. One truck dumps their equipment, causing an ambulance to stop and the driver hopping out in annoyance. This causes a police car to swerve, fishtail and ''hit a pedestrian and send him through a storefront window as the car itself goes through.'' Then, there's a group of rescuers completely missing catching a man falling from the destroyed remains of a ski lift (granted, he was probably dead from electrocution, but his fate was sealed when the rescuers missed). For a hat trick, some rescuers are able to rescue the leading male's mother and get her to an ambulance and heading towards a hospital. However, on the way down, the driver decides to go really fast, causing him to throw the ambulance into a ravine below and blowing up.

* In ''Film/GangsterSquad'', the squad's first operation as a unit devolves into equal parts slapstick and failure. They try to take down one of mobster Mickey Cohen's casinos by storming it at gunpoint, only to be met by a group of armed officers who assume they're robbers and try to arrest the group. On the squad's escape out of the casino, their car breaks down, and David and O'Mara get arrested after giving the car a running boost. The two men get beaten, arrested, and sent to jail, where Cohen sends men intending to pick them up and execute them. The squad arrives to save the two men, but Kennard's plan of tying a rope from his vehicle to the prison window bars fails (the bumper gets ripped off the car), Keeler's plan to cut the power results in chaos in the prison block, and the whole thing would have gone south if Wooters hadn't show up.

* ''Film/TheLordOfTheRings: The Two Towers'': When the Ents (gigantic living trees) hold a council, they demonstrate just how mind-bogglingly slow they are at doing ''anything''.