Captain Obvious / Film

All examples found in cinematic releases are here!

Films — Animated: This section is for animated films

• Lampooned in Disney's Aladdin:
  Frightened guard: He's got a sword!
  Razoul: You idiots! We've all got swords!
• In Disney's Atlantis: The Lost Empire:
  Milo: (exasperated) Well, do you have any advice?!
  Vinny: Yeah—Don't get shot.
• Nightwing in Batman: Under the Red Hood partly because he likes to chat and Batman doesn't talk so much so Nightwing just states the obvious as a way to pass the time.
  • Also played for laughs (and dissimile) with the Black Mask:
    Black Mask: Maybe my last request was too mired in subtlety. I want this man dead. When I say dead, I mean seriously dead. Beaten, broken, his-head-mounted-on-my-wall kind of dead!
    Ms. Li: Understood. We'll be taking further precautions at every transaction—
    Black Mask: Screw that! Time he learns that this is a contact sport! We're going on offense. Rough up his business. Something big! Something loud! When he shows up to shut us down, have a party waiting for him! And when I say party, I actually mean A WHOLE LOT OF PEOPLE WHO ARE GONNA KILL HIM!
    Ms. Li: (deadpan) I figured.
    Black Mask: Just being clear.
• The Boxtrolls:
  • Much of Mr. Gristle's dialogue is him describing what he's doing. "I'm jumping on a cage!" "I'm swinging on a chain!"
  • "You bit me, with your mouth." First said by Winnie after Eggs bites her, then by Archibald after Winnie bites him.
• An inversion in Cars 2, when McQueen warns Mater that he's not at home and implies to him that Mater should behave appropriately. Mater responds that it is quite obvious he's not at home and thinks McQueen is acting as Captain Obvious.
  McQueen: Look, Mater, we're not in Radiator Springs.
  Mater: You're just noticing that? Boy, that jet lag really done a number on you.
• This exchange in The Emperor's New Groove:
  Kuzco: Okay, I admit it. Maybe I wasn't as nice as I should have been. But Yzma, you really wanna kill me?!
  Yzma: Just think of it as... you're being let go. That your life's going in a different direction. That your body is part of a permanent outplacement.
  Kronk: Hey, that's kinda like what he said to you when you got fired!
  Yzma: I know. It's called a "cruel irony". Like my dependence on you.
• The Incredibles: After Bob throws Mr. Huph, his boss, through several walls which puts him in the hospital:
  Bob: I'm fired, aren't I?
  Agent Rick Dicker: Oh? You think?
• At the end of Disney's The Jungle Book (1967) when the human girl "drops" her waterjug in front of Mowgli:
  Baloo: She did that on purpose!
  Bagheera: Obviously.
• In My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Friendship Games, when Rainbow Dash sees Rarity clinging to the edge of a tear in reality and can't get to her, she has this bit of useful advice:
  Rainbow Dash: Hang on!
  Rarity: (irate) Obviously!
• In the Disney animated version of Peter Pan, when Wendy walks the plank, Pan rescues Wendy before she hits the water, so the pirates just see her fall out of their sight and then hear nothing. A crewman then informs everyone that they just heard no splash, which seems to annoy Captain Hook, as he then creates a splash by throwing said crewman overboard.
• In The Princess and the Goblin Curdie finds the goblin village in the mines.
  Curdie: A goblin village... A goblin village. This must be where the goblins live!
• Puss in Boots: The Last Wish: The Ethical Bug has a few examples, played for dark comedy. After Big Jack Horner openly talks about killing his rivals for the wish, not long after having killed some of his own men in a fight, the bug remarks that it's starting to seem as though Jack doesn't appreciate the value of life. Not long afterward, Jack remarks about how he only cares about getting all the magic in the world for himself, then gets several more of his men killed. The Bug then has this to say.
  Ethical Bug: That was horrible! Your wish is horrible! YOU'RE HORRIBLE! You're an irredeemable monster!
  "Big" Jack Horner: Whoa, whoa! What took you so long, idiot?!
• A common criticism of Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron is that the narration is completely unnecessary, as the film does a very good job of conveying what Spirit is thinking with no dialogue, and then the narration comes in to explain to us what we've already figured out. A particularly glaring example of this is when Spirit escapes the ranch only to immediately be caught again by members of Little Creek's tribe.
  Spirit: [narrating] I couldn't believe it. One second, I was free; the next... more ropes...
• Much of the dialogue in the Miramax version of The Thief and the Cobbler is this, mainly because it was half-heartedly thrown in for the sole purpose of Filling the Silence. For example, we know Tack's in love with the princess because he makes her face out of thread in a very effective scene. Yet somebody decided he also needed to sing a horrible Award-Bait Song about it!
• Up: Dug. Especially in Dug's Special Mission.
  Dug: Now I am going down the hole. It is dark in the hole.
• In Wolfwalkers, when Robyn transforms into a wolf for the first time, she seeks out Mebh and the following exchange occurs.
  Robyn: Something's happened to me!
  Mebh: Yeah, I can see that.
• Zootopia has a character named Duke Weaselton who has a habit of stating some pretty obvious statements.
  "Just watch it! Doug is the opposite of friendly; ... he's unfriendly!"

Films — Live-Action: This section is for live-action films

• In Anti Trust Milo righteously exclaims "In the real world, when you kill people, they die—for real!" He's saying it to bring home how far removed the Big Bad really is from reality and how little he respects human life, but it's pretty silly out of context.
• From The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again, when Amos and Theodore are in a saloon and realize that the sheriff who's after them is dozing at a table:
  Amos: Where's the back door?!
  Bartender: In the back!
• Obelix has a moment in Asterix & Obelix Take on Caesar as the heroes search for Getafix's grandfather in the film's climax.
  Asterix: What's that?
  Getafix: It's the end of his beard!
  Obelix: Then he must be at the other end!
  Asterix: You figured that out by yourself?
• Parodied in Austin Powers with Basil Exposition, who as well as the more useful kind of filling-in, on occasion displayed a tendency to state the blindingly obvious as well ("Thanks, Basil."). In particular, a deleted scene from the first movie has him helpfully pop up at the end to inform Austin and Vanessa that they've survived the destruction of Dr. Evil's secret base and have found themselves in a raft for some reason.
• Vicki Vale in Batman (1989). "Bats", she points out, upon seeing the animals in the Batcave, "His parents were murdered in that alley. That's why he went there" while checking Bruce Wayne's newspaper files motivated by having seen him going to the alley, and then when she sees Joker's Smylex gas flowing out of a balloon, she comments "Smylex gas". In the first and third example, the referred items are in plain sight not only to her but to the audience as well. And right after that, she shouts: "He's gonna kill everybody!" - after everyone has already learned, and has known for at least a week, exactly what Smylex gas does.
• This afterlife exchange in Beetlejuice:
  Quarterback: Coach... I don't think we survived that crash...
  Juno: How did you guess?
• In The Big Lebowski, Donny's dialogue consists of about 50% Captain Obvious, and 50% Captain Oblivious.
  Donny: Phone's ringin', Dude.
  The Dude: Thank you, Donny.
• Black Dynamite: "These children are orphans... and orphans don’t have parents."
• In Bruce Almighty, we're treated to this from the title character: "It's a funny thing about pleasure, it can be quite pleasurable!" Partially justified though in that he was simply trying to say "pleasure" as much as possible.
• The Chronicles of Narnia: Narnia seems to have been created as a World of Snark, and a few characters stand out:
  Soldier: (to Reepicheep the mouse) You... are a mouse!
  • In an earlier film:
    Lucy: Weren't you wondering where I was?
    Edmund: That's the point. That was why he was seeking you.
• From Clueless' Cher: "Also, sometimes you have to show a little skin. This reminds guys of being naked, and then they think of sex!"
• Sheriff Obvious in The Crazies (2010), after learning that an unidentified plane has crashed in their drinking water, townsfolk have started acting insane and murderous, and that they have no phone connections or internet access, has this brilliant gem to say:
  David: We're in trouble.
• General Stillwell gets off a blistering one in Spielberg's 1941, after walking out of a movie theater with his men and seeing the chaos caused by panicking civilians who think the Japanese are invading.
  Stillwell: Sergeant, secure this area. I want a one-block perimeter.
  Sergeant: Yes sir! What's the plan of action, sir?
  Stillwell: Hold the block. You can hold one block, can't you?
• The cop in the passenger seat of the paddy wagon in The Dark Knight has this role. Obviously justified, since the audience would have noticed if Gordon started talking.
• Pepper in DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story
  Pepper: (Peter puts on a blindfold) Yeah, he will not be able to see with that.
• On two occasions in Donnie Brasco. First when Lefty asks if there's good money in 'it', Donnie takes a few moments to ask "What, jewels?". And then when Donnie notes that the knob of the air conditioner isn't there. Lefty replies to both sarcastically "Thank you."
• Referred to by name in Dude, Where's My Car?:
  Mr. Pizzacoli: They said "the Photon Accelerator Annihilation Beam," you fool!
  Chester: Hurry, activate it, dude!
  (a small panel on the Transfunctioner reads "Photon Accelerator Annihilation Beam")
  Chester: I think that's it, dude.
  Jesse: Thank you, Captain Obvious!
• Dungeons & Dragons (2000): "Always like you thieves. Always taking things that don't belong to you."
• In Eighth Grade when Kayla's crush, Aiden, comes into the room shirtless at the pool party to unplug his cell phone, all Kayla can say is that she also charges her phone because "Sometimes my phone runs out of batteries, too!"
• One of many lampshadings in Galaxy Quest where Gwen complains that her only role in the show, apart from being Fanservice, was to repeat what the computer had just said out loud.
• Getting Even (1986) has a rather awful line, delivered in the middle of a car chase.
  "If you kill us, I'll never speak to you again!"
• From Ghostbusters (1984): Ray asks Peter where a flight of stairs goes, since Peter's been there before. Never one to admit ignorance, he simply states, "They go up."
• The Giant Spider Invasion features a brief exchange between a woman and her cheating husband, who pretends to go into town to listen to a preacher. Their conversation mirrors one had by Calvin Coolidge (see in the Real Life Folder, below).
• G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra: "Damn, that ninja's fast."
• Roland Emmerich's version of Godzilla (1998) features a scene where the titular monster is lured to an ambush with truckloads of fish to eat. Matthew Broderick gives us the bizarre statement: "That's a lot of fish".
• In Help!, Ringo is trapped in a basement. A tiger comes in, and its presence is noticed by a caption reading "A Tiger".
• Butterfingers in Hudson Hawk announces his suspicion that his team of covert agents may have been double-crossed, based on the fact his chest was just riddled with crossbow bolts.
• Independence Day:
  David Levinson: They're chasing us!
  Capt. Steven Hiller: Oh really, you think?
• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade has two.
  • While Indiana Jones and his father are being pursued by angry Nazis:
  Henry Jones Sr: These people are trying to kill us!
  Indiana Jones: I know, Dad!
  • At the end of the movie, a collection of grails are found along with an immortal knight who explains that only one is the Holy Grail and that "for as the true Grail will bring you life, the false grail will take it from you". After drinking from one of the grails, Donovan rapidly ages, becoming a skeleton in the span of about thirty seconds. Just in case Indy and Elsa didn't get the idea, the knight says "he chose... poorly", demonstrating that Tropes Are Not Bad.
• Indy himself gets to be one at the end of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: "Their treasure was knowledge. Knowledge was their treasure."
• Jurassic Park (1993):
  • Dr. Grant's reaction when he sees a living dinosaur for the first time:
    Grant: It's... it's a dinosaur!
  • Also, closer to the end of the film:
    Grant: (talking on the phone) Mr. Hammond, the phones are working.
• In Little Monsters: As two characters emerge from underneath a bed.
  Brian: This is somebody else's house!
  Maurice: No duh—where'd ya park the squad car, Dick Tracy?
• In Live Free or Die Hard, John and Matthew trigger the alarm in the building where also Thomas Gabriel is. The loud noise makes it perfectly clear. However, his nerd assistant still has to mention this, after which Thomas lampshades this with some snark:
  Trey: Someone set off the alarms.
  Thomas Gabriel: Yes, thank you detective. I can hear that! Find a way to turn it off!
• The Lord of the Rings
  • Legolas gets more dialogue in by stating what is clearly happening already. The most commonly used being that if an orc attacks, he yells "Orcs!"
  • After the other characters describe their plan to draw Sauron's attention away from Frodo, Legolas summarizes, "A diversion!" just to put everything out in the open for the audience.
• In Magical Legend of the Leprechauns, Seamus' wonderful piece of advice for Jack on how to win a horse race? "Get closer to the others."
• Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • In Iron Man, when the Iron Monger fires up its Rocket Boots:
    JARVIS: Sir, it appears that his suit can fly.
    Tony: Duly noted.
  • JARVIS's replacement FRIDAY picks up the ball in Captain America: Civil War.
    (after Scarlet Witch drops half the cars in the parking garage on Tony during the airport fight)
    FRIDAY: Multiple contusions detected.
    Tony: Yeah, I detected that too.
  • Avengers: Infinity War:
    • Used intentionally to parody the Title In-trope, as the Guardians are introduced via an establishing shot of the cosmos, which is then labeled... well...
      SPACE
    • Later in the film we get this little gem:
      Eitri: You understand boy, you're about to take the full force of a star. It'll kill you.
      Thor: Only if I die.
      Eitri: Yes, that's what killing you means.
• The Mask: Seems to be a defining point of Detective Doyle's character, to the frustration of Lt. Kellaway.
  (a group of police fire without success at The Mask)
  Detective Doyle: I missed.
  Lt. Kelleway: Aw, we all missed!
• The Matrix series:
  • Neo enters the Keymaker's coop, and introduces himself. The other, while crafting a key at that specific moment and while literally being drowned in an ocean of finished keys, simply responds, "I am the Keymaker."
  • "Now there's more than one of him?" "A lot more" "How is that possible?" "Somehow he's found a way to copy himself." Of course, this does rule out something else copying him and there having been multiple copies of him to begin with.
  • "Is that good for us or bad for us?" "Well, it looks like every floor is wired with explosives." "Bad for us."
• In Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, when Ethan Hunt is rappelling down the side of the Burj Khalifa with a fire hose, the hose turns out to be slightly shorter than needed. One of the characters yells at Ethan "Your line's not long enough!" to which Ethan replies "NO SHIT!"
• Played for Laughs in Muppet Treasure Island:
  Billy Bones: Beware, lads! Beware!
  Jim Hawkins: What, the One-Legged Man?
  Billy Bones: Aye! But also, beware runnin' with scissors! Or any other pointy objects! It's all good fun 'til somebody loses an ey-AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH! Dies
• Charlie in Mystery Team at times.
  And THIS is the LUMBERYARD... Right?
• The Naked Gun
  • Lampshaded as the heroine is being held hostage by a bad guy who is pointing his gun at Frank.
    Jane: He's got a gun.
    Frank: I know.
  • Taken from a running gag on Police Squad!, offers of cigarettes are mistakenly interpreted as statements of fact.
    Frank: Cigarette?
    Jane: Yes, it is.
  • From the sequel to the first film.
    Frank: I told Jane to meet us at the hotel's rear entrance.
    Ed: Where's that, Frank?
    Frank: In the back.
• In Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Jack Sparrow escapes from a room full of guards right in front of King George II. His Majesty turns to Hector Barbossa, and observes: "He escaped."
• Plan 9 from Outer Space had gems such as these:
  "Inspector Clay is dead... murdered. And somebody is responsible!"
  "Visits? Well, that would indicate visitors!"^note Spoken by a character who was wearing US Army Captain's bars, making him a LITERAL Captain Obvious.
  "...and they attacked a town. Not a large town, I must admit, but a town of people: people who died!"
  "Future events such as these will affect you in the future."^note Naturally accompanied by, "Can you prove they didn't happen?"
• In the film adaptation of Red Sonja, the titular character is weeping over her sister, who's just died. Arnold leans down, touches her lightly on the shoulder and says, "She's dead." He's basically telling her to let go and move on, but he could have been a bit less blunt.
• After the thieves in Reservoir Dogs get away from a robbery that turns into a police shootout, they're having trouble locating one of their own. Mr. Blonde has a succinct analysis of the situation: "Either he's alive or he's dead, or the cops got him, or they don't." Mr. White is quick to point out what an obvious observation this is.
• Seemingly everyone from The Room (2003) is this at one point or another.
  Mike: Did you, uh, know that chocolate is the symbol of love?
• In Shakespeare in Love, an exasperated lord unmasks one of Shakespeare's actors as a girl rather than a boy playing a girl: "That woman is... a WOMAN!"
• Junior in Smokey and the Bandit. Most notably when the car becomes an Instant Convertible.
  Junior: Daddy, the top came off.
  Buford: No shit.
• In Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, when the Enterprise is trying to contact Regula One, Spock has this insightful comment, "There are two possibilities. They are unable to respond. They are unwilling to respond."
• In Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, one of the FBI agents interrogating Chekov concludes that "He's a Russkie."
• In Star Trek: Nemesis, Data had his Captain Obvious moments too, as even the dead-serious crew couldn't help but notice sometimes...
  Data: (picking up a robotic arm) It appears to be a robotic arm.
  Worf: Very astute.
• In most of his incarnations, Spock plays the Captain Obvious role. This is lampshaded in the 2009 Star Trek (2009) film.
  Spock: (on intercom) Dr Puri, report.
  McCoy: It's McCoy. Dr. Puri was on Deck 6. He's dead.
  Spock: Then you have just inherited his responsibility as Chief Medical Officer.
  (McCoy looks at a burning medical room full of casualties from the attack)
  McCoy: Yeah, tell me something I don't know!
• In Star Trek Into Darkness, McCoy has this to say about the angry natives throwing spears at him and Kirk: "They're trying to kill us! They're trying to kill us, Jim!"
• Star Wars:
  • The Phantom Menace:
    • Ric Olié is notorious for lines like "Enemy fighters straight ahead!"
    • The very first scene with Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan has droidekas arrive and turn on their force fields. A second later, Obi-Wan says, "They have shield generators!"
  • In Attack of the Clones, Obi-Wan after Padmé's would-be assassin is killed by what is very obviously a toxic dart: "A toxic dart!"
  • The Empire Strikes Back: C-3PO demonstrates his usefulness:
    [ground shakes violently]
    C-3PO: Sir, it's quite possible this asteroid is not entirely stable.
    Han: "Not entirely stable"? Well, I'm glad you're here to tell us these things! Chewie, take the Professor into the back and plug him into the hyperdrive!
  • Return of the Jedi: Admiral Ackbar's "It's a trap!" For context, the Rebel Alliance fleet is attacking the second Death Star, only to find out that not only is the deflector shield still up, but the Imperial fleet is waiting for them.
• The So Bad, It's Good Street Fighter movie had its moment when it's revealed that Guile came Back from the Dead... somehow.
  Sagat: Guile's... alive?
  M. Bison: OF COURSE!!!
• Team America: World Police:
  • A Running Gag has Sarah's "empath" abilities amount to stating the obvious. At one point, her plane is shot down, and she shouts, "I sense that I'm going down!" This, of course, is not counting the times she's completely wrong- she "senses" that Gary's inside the Egyptian tavern that he infiltrated to investigate the terrorists there, but by this point, he's already left.
  • When the team goes to Cairo, Joe remarks that it's in Egypt.
• In Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014), when Vernon sees Raph, all he can say is, "You're a talking turtle."
• The Ten Commandments is absolutely loaded with this, to the point that it often seems like they're reading the scene descriptions as well as the dialogue.
  • One such example:
    General: He opens the water before them, and he bars our way with fire!
    Boy: He raises his hand and he opens the sea!
    Old Man: God opens the sea with a blast of his nostrils!
• In ¡Three Amigos!, the main characters are trying to find the Singing Bush. They come to a bush that is singing. They repeatedly ask if it's the Singing Bush, but it doesn't reply because it's too busy singing. Finally, one of them confidently proclaims "I think this is the Singing Bush."
• A particularly hilariously stupid version of it happens in Urban Justice. Eddie Griffin's character says, "Cause I ain't ever gonna snitch on me, nigga." Like, no crap, of course no drug dealer is gonna snitch on themselves.
• X-Men has Storm's much-maligned observation: "Do you know what happens to a toad when it's hit by lightning? The same thing that happens to everything else." This was supposed to be the payoff to a Running Gag where Toad constantly brags about things a toad can do. For some reason, it was left in as an Orphaned Punchline.
• Stryker and a mook at the dam base in X2: X-Men United.
  Stryker: Can you override the spillway mechanism?
  Mook: Everything's controlled from inside that room. That's why the doors are so thick.
  Stryker: Oh!? Really?!?

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