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• In Madame Web (2024), Julie, Mattie and Anya are hiding from Ezekiel by staying at Ben and Mary's house. All of a sudden Mary's water breaks.
  You'd Expect: Ben to tell the girls to stay home while he takes Mary to the hospital.
  Instead: He takes them with him, leading Amaria to ID the girls and Ezekiel almost killing them all.
• In Magnum Force, SFPD detective Early Smith comes home with the phone ringing loudly.
  You'd Expect: Smith would quickly open the door to answer the phone before it hangs, and leave the mail for later.
  Instead: Smith ignores the phonecall and decides to check the mail instead, and gets blown up by a bomb planted for him. What's worse is that the phonecall is from fellow detective Harry Callahan warning him about the mail bomb.
• In Mannequin, Johnathan enters the back room of the rival department store and sees his beloved Emmy in a pile of other mannequins on a conveyor belt, about to be fed into a huge shredding machine.
  You'd Think: Jonathan would run over to the bright yellow control console, slap that big red EMERGENCY STOP button, and then calmly walk up to retrieve Emmy without having to worry about either of them getting ground into bits.
  Instead: He runs up the conveyor without turning off the machine. Sure, after seeing Emmy come to life, the janitor hits the aforementioned button Jonathan should have hit in the first place and we have a happy ending, but damned if it wasn't a really close call.
  You'd Also Think: The janitor would hit the stop button the instant Jonathan jumped onto the conveyor, if for no other reason than to avoid the liability and/or termination of his employment that would follow if something tragic happened.
  Instead: He doesn't do jack until after he sees Emmy come to life. "Okay, let me get this straight Mister Janitor; you couldn't give a crap if some dude gets himself killed in a rather gruesome and messy manner right in front of you, but you will hit the emergency button if a hot chick is in danger? Nice, real nice."
• Manos: The Hands of Fate: Mike, his young wife Margaret, and his daughter are lost in the middle of nowhere. They happen upon a creepy lodge and its creepy caretaker Torgo, who tells them about a creepy "Master," and intermittently begs them to leave. Margaret doesn't like the looks of things, and asks Mike to leave.
  You'd Expect: Mike to be a rational human being and get out of there. This "Master" fellow obviously isn't nice, and there's clearly something wrong with Torgo.
  Instead: "Well, how about it, Torgo? Can we spend the night here?" Things get worse for everyone, including the audience.
• The Mask has down on his luck bank clerk Stanley Ipkiss invited by his best friend Charlie to a night at an elite night club called "The Coco Bongo" along with some hot chicks. But as they're entering, Stanley lags behind while getting distracted trying to look hip, and Bobby the bouncer has already closed the entry rope by the time he's done, while Charlie and the girls fail to notice he's absent.
  You'd Expect: Stanley to just tell the bouncer that he was invited by Charlie and got separated from them. Bobby can go verify this with Charlie and Stanley can get in for a night at the coolest club in Edge City.
  Instead: Stanley somehow thinks that just crossing the rope and going on in without permission is a good idea. Naturally, Bobby quickly catches him, grabs him and furiously says "You crossed the rope. Never cross the rope." Then Stanley tries to tell him that he knows Charlie, but they naturally don't believe him after what he tried to do, and just throw him onto the street with nothing but a parking ticket to show his loss.
  • Dorian Tyrell, the antagonist, being ordered to meet his boss, Niko. By that time, he has plans on turning against him.
    You'd Expect: Suspecting it's a trap, he should come with two men to accompany him in case Niko is pulling some shit on him.
    Instead: He comes alone to the meeting. Niko's men put him down with a gun on his head and golf tee on his mouth while Niko himself strikes a golf ball that is on his mouth. Tyrell's bloody lucky that he's just ordered to leave Edge City.
• The Matrix Revolutions:
  • Bane is onboard the Hammer. He is possessed by Smith and is acting suspiciously. The crew (correctly) suspect that he is responsible for an EMP blast that led to the deaths of several other rebels.
    You'd Expect: That Captain Roland restrain him or station security in the room with him.
    Instead: He leaves him alone in a room with a woman half his size
    Result: He kills her, escapes and gets aboard the Logos, where he almost kills Neo and Trinity.
  • Then Bane holds a blade to Trinity's neck and holds her hostage to force Neo to put down the plasma rifle he has and walk away from it.
    You'd Expect: Bane slits Trinity's throat and makes a dive for the rifle.
    Instead: Bane pushes Trinity down the hatch into the power room and then makes a dive for the rifle.
    Result: Trinity flips a circuit breaker and cuts power to the room above, giving Neo a chance to fight back before Bane can shoot him. The only justification is that Smith has a tight grasp on the Villain Ball and wants to savor Trinity's death in his own time, but that doesn't excuse his idiocy.
• Matilda
  • During the film, it's revealed that Harry Wormwood is more than a Snake Oil Salesman; he peddles stolen car parts. The FBI have gotten on the case and have been watching his house, taking photos of him with stolen car parts and such. At one point they successfully gain entry by convincing Zinnia that they are speed boat salesmen. Matilda at one point pointedly identifies them as cops in front of her mother, and Agent Bob gives her a Death Glare.
    You'd Expect: With all the evidence they have, the agents would get a search warrant for either the house or Harry's auto shop. And make sure that absolutely no one is at home the day that they break in for evidence, or have a plausible excuse.
    Instead: They break into the Wormwood's garage, with Agent Bill saying the evidence they have would convince a judge to look the other way. On a day where Matilda stayed home from school to practice her newfound telekinesis, and she's been the most suspicious.
    The Result: Matilda busts them for breaking into her house without a search warrant, informing them they could go to federal prison. They can't even fall on the speedboat Bavarian Fire Drill because she's seen through their cover. And when they try to scare her by saying she and her brother will be sent to an orphanage and if she cooperates it will be a good one, she turns the tables on them by using her powers to distract them and steal the videotape of evidence. While they had no idea Matilda had powers, and they have enough evidence to send the Wormwoods into hiding, they still broke in to illegally seize evidence when someone could catch them doing it. Not only could they get in massive trouble, if they did take Matilda's father to trial, what she saw could get the case thrown out.
• Max Payne:
  • The title character interrogating Jason Colvin about his wife's death roughly. While doing so, his secretary, Jackie, is knocking on his door.
    You'd Expect: Max forces Colvin to tell her that everything is okay.
    Instead: He continues to interrogate him roughly, giving Jackie the chance to call Aesir police.
  • Another one when Max blocks the door leading to the storage room while in pursue.
    You'd Expect: The Aesir police will have to use the bottom floor to get to the other side.
    Instead: They just blew up the door, giving Max the chance to escape with the smoke. Good thing Bravura calls them out for that.
  • Also, early on, Mona's sister, Natasha is planning on having sex with Max. Not wanting this, he orders her to leave.
    You'd Expect: He should frisk her to make sure she hasn't taken anything from him.
    Instead: He just allow her to leave without having checked out anything from her. It turns out she has stolen his wallet, and it's found on the crime scene. This is how Mona briefly thinks Max killed her before they worked together in finding the real murderer.
• In The Maze Runner, Thomas has just been dumped in the glade and is greeted by its inhabitants.
  You'd Expect: This being a song and dance all these characters are well acquainted with, Thomas would be sat down (by force if necessary), then told in detail the exact conditions of his new life. It is in their absolute best interests to make sure every new person that pops up becomes a contributing member of their society after all.
  Instead: The characters only give the barest of explanations as to what's going on, pointedly refusing to even mention the maze, and then they act like it's his fault when he gets curious about it. The only reason they behave this way is because the alternative would have been a clunky exposition dump.
• Mean Girls
  • Cady has a crush on Regina's ex boyfriend, Aaron, and she is scared to talk to him. She realizes that he is good at math, so Cady thinks of exploiting this by pretending to be bad at math.
    You'd Expect: For Cady to realize that by purposely failing her class, she will risk ruining her grade point averae and getting in trouble with her parents.
    Or: For her to simply have study sessions, rather than tutoring sessions, with Aaron since they are both equally good at math.
    Instead: She pretends to be bad at math and purposely gets bad grades in her math class. It's not until she confesses this to Aaron at her party and getting condemned by Aaron does she realize how idiotic her actions really were.
  • Regina finds out that Cady was plotting against her to kick her out of the Plastics. She comes up with a revenge plot to frame the other girls for the Burn Book, turn them into the Principal, and seem like they were gossiping about her as well. These would be grounds for suspension, if not expulsion.
    You'd Expect: Regina would stop there. Getting the girls expelled would ruin their popularity, without a doubt.
    Instead: She photocopies the Burn Book, distributes it in the corridors, and stands back smugly as everyone breaks down into devolving chaos on seeing the nasty gossip written about them. It practically screams that she was the instigator to anyone that is not participating in attacking another girl.
    The Result: During the brawl, the coach that was a sexual harasser seemingly fondles two girls while breaking them up, and several students seem to suffer injuries. Principal Duvall steps in, turns on the fire alarm, and orders all the female students to the gym. Yes, that includes Regina. She may not care now, but she could have easily gotten someone hospitalized if not for Duvall's quick thinking.
    To Top It All Off: When Ms. Norbury makes all the girls write apologies to each other and do a trust-building exercise to try and mend the damage, Janis's "apology" features her calling out Regina for accusing her of lesbianism and making her an outcast, as well as revealing that Cady was sabotaging the whole time by giving her foot cream to treat acne and bars that help one gain weight rather than lose it. To further the humiliation, everyone catches Janis as part of the exercise and hoists her on their shoulders, revealing that no one actually liked Regina; they only feared her. While Cady feels this is a shade too far, and she may be right given that she's voted Prom Queen when someone thinks she pushed Regina in front of a bus, Regina is forced to confront that her Plastic ways lead to consecutive harm.
• At the end of Meet the Feebles, Heidi has gone on a shooting rampage and is gunning down nearly all her fellow Feebles on stage. Bletch can see this from his theatre box, but Heidi doesn’t know he's there.
  You'd Expect: Bletch to get out of the theatre before Heidi notices him. His show might be ruined now that nearly all the Feebles are being killed, but he's still got his drug operation going and only recently took out the only rivals he had.
  Instead: Bletch stays in the box and just watches as Heidi kills each Feeble one by one. Then he shouts at Heidi to calm down after she's killed all but five of them. Heidi promptly shoots him, and though he is nearly saved by Trevor, Robert intervenes, and both Bletch and Trevor become the last victims of Heidi's massacre.
• In Meet the Parents, Mr Jinx, the pet cat of the Byrnes family escapes one day, and family patriarch Jack has the entire household search for him. While checking around at the local animal shelters, Greg - the boyfriend of Jack's daughter Pam - discovers another cat that looks very similar to Mr Jinx, and it occurs to him that if he were to pass the cat off as Mr Jinx, Jack would be overjoyed with him.
  You'd Expect: Greg to perhaps think about it and then leave it at that. There's no guarantee he'll be able to keep the ruse up for a long period of time, and he's already on thin ice with Jack and the rest of the Byrnes family as it is. Or he would bring a family member to the shelter and ask them if its Mr. Jinx to show that he's trying to find him.
  Instead: Greg goes ahead with it. The real Mr Jinx is found that same evening, and to make matters worse, Greg's cat destroys the Byrnes's living room while they're out. The result is that Pam and Diana - Jack's wife and Pam's mother - the only members of the family who had his back at that point turn against him, and Greg is ultimately kicked out of the Byrnes home.
• Megan is Missing:
  • Megan meets a random guy named Josh on a chat room. She doesn't know what he looks like; when asked about his web-cam, he claims the dog ate it. Megan quickly likes him; Josh convinces Megan to meet each other in person.
    You'd Expect: For Megan to have reservations about it. Or simply not go.
    Instead: She heads off to meet "Josh" and is kidnapped.
  • Later: With Megan still missing, her friend Amy goes to her favorite spot, a bridge, to record her video diary.
    You'd Expect:: For Amy to make sure she's not being watched by suspicious characters.
    Instead: She ignores her surroundings and is also kidnapped by "Josh." The End.
  • Earlier in the film, Amy goes to the police with information concerning Megan's kidnapping.
    You'd Expect: The police not to reveal anyone the informant or even the fact that they were tipped off ("Josh" could easily deduce that Amy ratted on him if the news reports about an "anonymous tip" in the case), and possibly place Amy and her family under police protection, as she is their best lead towards finding out what became of Megan.
    Instead: They reveal Amy's identity to the media, who in turn air her real name and face on television.
    Result: The police lose their only lead on the case as "Josh" kidnaps Amy not long after to mercilessly torture and rape her before silencing her permanently.
    You'd Also Expect: After seeing her identity as the informant in the Megan case exposed on television, Amy not to leave her house or the company of other people.
    Alternatively: She could come forward to her parents about "Josh", who could take measures to protect her like being with her at all times, hiring her a bodyguard, going to the police and demanding police protection, or skipping town until "Josh" is caught.
    Instead: Amy leaves the house alone to go to her favorite spot under the bridge and gets kidnapped by "Josh" right afterwards.
• The basic plot of Men in Black 3 is that J has to travel back in time to 1969 to Set Right What Once Went Wrong, namely Boris the Animal, who has broken out of a lunar prison in the original timeline, goes to 1969 to kill K in revenge for K shooting his arm off and putting him in prison. As a result, K is unable to release the ArcNet, a shield that prevents Boris' race from invading Earth, which leads to their extinction. J is pointed in the direction of a man who has a device that will enable him to travel back in time. When J gets to him, he is hesitant to let J use it.
  You'd Expect: The man not to keep a log of previous users of it, or at the very least hide it out of sight.
  Instead: He hides it in plain sight, ie the table top.
  Even Worse: He can't help but look at it whilst denying its existence.
• Minority Report:
  • Anderton is racing to prevent a murder. He is armed with foreknowledge imagery of the crime, but it stymied when confronted with a row of identical houses.
    You'd expect: He would turn out a siren, loudspeaker, or simply shout out that the police were outside of the building.
    Instead: He takes several seconds to figure the one detail that was different about the correct house, then quietly races into the building to surprise the murderer.
  • Far more importantly, when that same future-viewing device shows him and several coworkers that he will commit a murder himself, along with a heaping helping of details including the exact time and general location, he runs. We'll grant him that, since the machine saying you will commit a murder is by itself enough to get you arrested and indefinitely cryogenically frozen with apparently no trial. However, what he does next is totally nonsensical.
    You'd expect: Knowing when and generally where he is supposed to commit the murder, he would immediately go to the place furthest from it and stay there until the deadline passed. After that, he could turn himself in at his leisure as proof the vision was flawed, or argue that he prevented it himself. Whatever other crimes he may be guilty of in running, there's no way they could hook him for murder if he deliberately acted contrary to the vision. Anderton himself actually suggests this, only to be talked out of it based on some shaky logic.
    Instead: Convinced this was a plot to frame him, he follows the vision as precisely as possible to find out who's responsible, committing many illegal acts. When at the end of the time limit he realizes he is standing outside the very building his future victim is in, he charges in and confronts the guy, who turns out to just be a very bribed man who then uses Anderton to commit Suicide by Cop. That's right, in trying to prove his innocence he knowingly charges right into the scene of the crime, and nearly commits it. Clearly, he never heard about Self-Fulfilling Prophecies. While he does in fact avert the prophecy by not murdering the man, said man grabs the gun and Anderton fires reflexively, meaning ultimately the difference is so insignificant that he's still on the hook for murder.
  • Egregious security errors on the part of the headquarters. Access is controlled via retinal scan.
    You'd expect: Once Anderton goes on the lam, they would lock out his retinal scan. He has access to the entire facility, after all. Once he's captured and put into lockdown, they'd doubly make sure to lock out his retinal scan, especially since he switched out his eyes and had demonstrably used the originals to subvert their security once already.
    Instead: Anderton manages to breach the security of the Temple, using his retinal scan, and steals one of the Pre-cogs. After he's arrested and detained, his wife uses his eye AGAIN to gain access to the jail.
• Midnight in Paris
  • Owen Wilson's character wants to give the woman he's in love with a pair of earrings.
    You'd Expect: He has money, and he's in Paris. There are literally hundreds of jewelry stores he could go to.
    Instead: He tries to steal a pair of his fiancee's earrings, almost gets caught doing it by her and her parents, and some completely innocent hotel maid nearly gets arrested.
• In Mike Bassett: England Manager, the title character's habit writing his squad list on the back of a box of Benson and Hedges cigarettes ends up resulting in his secretary unwittingly adding two lower-league footballers, the 47-year-old Ron Benson and the grossly overweight Tony Hedges to the squad list circulated to the press (for argument's sake, we'll say that said secretary made this mistake because she was so rushed off her feet dealing with Bassett's general incompetence).
  You'd Expect: That in the ensuing press conference, Bassett would blame this on a prankster and clarify that Benson and Hedges aren't actually part of the squad.
  Instead: He claims that I Meant to Do That, and that age, weight and the division one plays in shouldn't be an obstacle to being selected for England. The assembled press don't buy this for a minute, and mockingly suggest that Bassett might want to pick Lambert and Butler, or Peter Stuyvesant for the next match. And then Bassett actually names Benson and Hedges as substitutes for the match, wasting two of the five substitute slots that teams had for World Cup qualifying games back in those days.
• Mission: Impossible Film Series:
  • In the first movie, Kittridge believes that someone on Ethan's team has been leaking information to their enemies. At the end of a staged mission, it appears that Ethan is the only one left alive.
    You'd Expect: Kittridge to wait until they've actually confirmed that everyone on his team is really dead before deciding who they think is guilty. Also, even if they're sure of his guilt you'd think that they would wait until they have him at gunpoint before making their suspicions known.
    Instead: Kittridge instantly assumes it's Ethan and tells him to his face while sitting only a few feet away from him across a table, with none of his backup team close enough to restrain Ethan if he tries to hurt Kittridge or take him hostage. While dealing with a man that they believe was responsible for the brutal murders of his own team.
  • In the fourth movie, Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, Ethan infiltrates the Kremlin to try to get info on someone codenamed "Cobalt", but comes up empty. At the same time, the guy codenamed "Cobalt", Kurt Hendricks, breaks into the executive armory room, kills a guard by breaking his neck, steals the nuclear "football" briefcase, and hacks into Ethan's team's radio frequency. Ethan then aborts the mission and as he tries to leave the Kremlin, happening to spot Hendricks at the armory room.
    You'd Expect: Ethan to notice the briefcase that Hendricks (Cobalt) was holding (though he didn't know that he was Cobalt, but still, he was carrying a suspicious briefcase) or even the opened door to the executive armory where he got the nuclear football case and maybe turn around after passing him and stop him, and thus averting the explosion of the Kremlin.
    Instead: He just passes him, and doesn't even notice the opened door to the armory, and ends up not being able to stop Hendricks because he then sets off the explosion, knocking Ethan out, and framing the United States and the IMF (Impossible Mission Force), causing the President of the United States to disavow IMF by initiating Ghost Protocol.
• The Monster (2016): When two EMTs arrive on a roadside scene of carnage to find a mauled woman, her banged-up daughter, and a man's severed arm. The mother and daughter are screaming that they've been attacked by an animal and that it isn't safe to stay there. The EMTs get the mother and daughter loaded into the ambulance.
  You'd Expect: That then they would call the police and immediately rush the two to the nearest hospital.
  Instead: The EMTs just abandon the two so they can start wandering around the road and venturing into the forest to examine the scene. Needless to say, it doesn't end well.
• Monsters:
  • Andrew's admittedly drunken decision to sleep with a random woman simply because Samantha shot him down isn't so bad considering he's single. She probably only rejected him due to fact he was so drunk or maybe conflicted over being still technically engaged. But the true error of judgement comes the morning after when his fling ends up stealing Samantha's passport and Andrew's cash. Leaving your valuables unattended with your room door wide open is a bad idea in general. Moreso with a stranger still in your bed.
  • Sam, too, for leaving her passport with Andrew who she technically didn't have to see again before getting on the ferry, alongside the fact that she stormed off in a huff while leaving said passport behind.
• Mortal Kombat (2021): Shang Tsung is sending assassins aligned with Outworld to kill Earthrealm contestants before the Tournament begins so that Earthrealm would have to forfeit, a gambit he has being pulling off successfully for centuries.
  You'd Expect: Raiden would put a stop to it immediately, and well before this point. It's his job to moderate the rules of the Mortal Kombat Tournament — a tournament put in-place by the Elder Gods to keep realms from invading each other without discretion — on Earthrealm's behalf. It is even mentioned the one realm killing another realm's fighters is a blatant breach of the rules, a fact Shang Tsung brags about because no one is stopping him. Plus the fact that these assassins are also killing random civilians — like when Sub-Zero killed Scorpion's wife and son — could fall under "invasion".
  You'd Also Expect: That he would see right through Shang Tsung's "conflict outside Mortal Kombat is not forbidden" excuse as the BS that it is — since Sub-Zero and Reptile were sent to kill the heroes by Shang Tsung deliberately because they were trying to cheat — and use him invading his temple as an excuse to take out Shang Tsung, or at least take him to be judged by the Elder Gods for his breach of the rules of the tournament.
  Instead: He does nothing but sit there and pout about the quality of his fighters as Shang Tsung literally invades his home, taunts him to his face, gives his minions permission to ransack the place and tries killing all of his fighters in their own dojo. It literally takes losing his best fighter and having another defect for Raiden to even begin bending rules in the heroes's favor, showing he could have intervened at any point and simply chose not to until now.
• Mortal Kombat: Annihilation:
  • Right at the beginning of the film, when Shao Kahn pulls his invasion of Earth, Raiden establishes that as long as he has the power to stop Kahn, the invasion will never take place. Kahn then boasts that as long as the portal between Earth and Outworld remains open, Earth is his for the taking. They then have a brief fight in which, although Kahn lands the opening move, Raiden soon afterward utterly trounces him.
    You'd expect: That since Raiden has such a huge advantage, he'd just KILL KAHN RIGHT THEN AND THERE. After all, it was already established in the first Mortal Kombat movie that his powers don't work in Outworld, but here they're on Earth and his powers work just fine, plus the merger between realms hasn't yet proceeded far enough for him to have lost any power.
    Instead: Raiden gives Kahn a moment of reprieve, in which Kahn manages to secure a whip from a minion and rope Sonya, getting her as a hostage as a result.
    Speaking of which, you'd have expected: That Sonya, considering the situation, would've been a lot more on her guard up to that point.
    Instead: She just stands there and gets roped into the hostage situation. This directly leads to Johnny Cage's death moments later, as outlined below.
  • Shao Kahn tells Raiden to surrender or he'll kill Johnny Cage, to which Raiden basically says he'd then easily kill all of Kahn's generals with his glowing lightning cage. Kahn says that Raiden would never let one of his precious humans die. Raiden offers to trade himself for Johnny. Kahn tells Raiden to bow at his feet, causing Raiden to drop the cage. Shao Kahn then shouts, "Fool!" and snaps Johnny's neck.
    You'd Expect: Raiden then instantly brings the energy cage back up, and uses it to kill Kahn's generals.
    Instead: Raiden just stands there until Kahn blasts him through a wall.
    On the subject: Rather than kill Johnny For the Evulz, Kahn should have just accepted Raiden's offer. Without Raiden, the protagonists would literally have never gotten anywhere close to figuring out the plot and subverting it, because Raiden was the only one in the group with the knowledge to put it together. Kahn blew the entire plan just because he felt like being a dick.
  • The gang splits up. Liu Kang and Kitana are sent to go find Nightwolf. During their journey, they have a brief intimate moment that's broken up by the cyber-ninja Smoke. Liu takes on Smoke and proceeds to get his ass handed to him.
    You'd expect: Since Smoke is metallic, that Liu would use his Fireball technique (y'know, the same move he used to finish Shang Tsung in the first movie?) and give himself an edge.
    Instead: Liu continues to get his ass kicked, only being saved by Sub-Zero at the last moment.
  • Sub-Zero and Scorpion fight. Sub-Zero gets knocked off a ledge and is dangling over a river of lava below, so Liu Kang rushes to save him. Scorpion, seeing Liu coming, disappears. Kitana is left standing by herself.
    You'd expect: Kitana just handled a bunch of mooks perfectly fine on her own, and Scorpion's just been established as an enemy who's able to teleport, so Kitana should be on her guard, right?
    Instead: She just stands there holding the Idiot Ball and gets grabbed from behind by Scorpion. She doesn't even try to fight back.
  • Midway through the movie, after Sonya has gotten to Jax and they've escaped the attack on them at their military base, they're trudging through a desert area where Jax complains that he can't understand what's happening. He asks for an explanation from Sonya and demands to know what he's going to be putting his life on the line for.
    You'd expect: For Sonya to give Jax even a dumbed-down summary of the situation, even if, as she says, "(she) can't explain it." After all, it's not as if she's just gotten into the situation herself, right? She's already been through the Mortal Kombat tournament, she's already gotten an explanation from the first film about the whole point of the tournament, and she's been briefed at the start of this film about what's been happening. A simple "Our world was part of an inter-dimensional tournament, we won, but the host decided not to abide by the rules and just to screw us over instead, so now we have to defeat him before he completes his six-day takeover plan" would have gone a long way, right?
    Instead: She grumbles about nobody telling her why Johnny had to die (of which Jax naturally has no idea what she's talking about), the two argue a bit, and then Sonya stomps off...and gets ambushed by Mileena moments later. Poor communication almost kills her here.
• In the very first Mothra film, an entertainment promoter, upon meeting the tiny Twin Priestesses of the eponymous Physical God, decides to make them stars in mainland Japan.
  You'd Expect: that he'd start with his strong suit: Cutting a (probably unfair) deal.
  Instead: the promoter just kidnaps them, leaving himself open to countless criminal charges, with kidnapping, false imprisonment, and enslavement being only the most obvious, then compounds his error by having them perform their sacred music (with orchestral backing!) on live TV. Oh, and he does this in a world where kaiju and other supernatural phenomena are demonstrably real, and quite well-known.
• Mr. Saturday Night: Say what you want about Buddy and his career, but his booking on The Ed Sullivan Show was baffling to say the least.
  You'd Expect: Buddy to be booked on another day after The Beatles performed, considering they were the hottest music act around, or at least have him perform as an opener before they came along so he wouldn't bomb.
  Instead: He was put on immediately after The Beatles performed, with the audience too excited from the band, they completely ignored his act, leaving him to fling insults at the audience and Ed Sullivan himself. While he shouldn't have ran his mouth like that, you can't really blame him for his frustrations.
• The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor:
  • In the film's prologue, the sorceress Zi Yuan casts what she claims is an immortality spell on the titular Dragon Emperor, but is in fact a curse that will transform him and all his followers into terracotta statues. Before this becomes obvious, the emperor tells Zi that she will marry him, and threatens to have her lover, Ming Guo, torn apart by wild horses unless she agrees to be his bride. However, Ming shouts out that he's doomed no matter what she does, so there's no point agreeing to marry the emperor.
    You'd Expect: Zi to try and keep the emperor talking until the curse kicks in and immobilizes him and his followers, then she can free Ming from the horses.
    Instead: She instantly refuses, promptly resulting in Ming's grisly death. Moreover, she is severely wounded and nearly killed by the emperor, before the curse finally takes hold and transforms him and his followers into statues, allowing her to escape.
  • Later on, the resurrected emperor succeeds in gaining immortality and shape-shifting powers, with which he kicks the asses of the heroes and steals a dagger which is the only weapon in the entire world capable of killing him, before turning into a winged dragon and returning to the ruins of his palace.
    You'd Expect: The emperor to drop the dagger into an active volcano, the ocean or the middle of the Gobi desert. Basically, anywhere where the good guys would have little-to-no chance of finding it.
    Instead: He keeps it on his person, which rapidly comes back to bite him on the butt when...
  • Zi Yuan, who has sacrificed the immortality she formerly possessed in order to help stop the emperor, takes him on in combat and then impales herself on his sword in order to steal the dagger.
    You'd Expect: Zi to immediately stab the emperor and put an end to his plans once and for all.
    Instead: She doesn't do anything once she's got the dagger, leading to the emperor just shoving her wounded body off the sword and off a cliff, which quickly causes her to expire.
    You'd Then Expect: The emperor to jump down to the bottom of the cliff, take the dagger back, and then maybe take the hint that he'd be better off disposing of it.
    Instead: He just walks off and doesn't try to retrieve the dagger. Rick and Alex quickly take it from Zi's corpse, and after a climactic fight with the emperor finally succeed in destroying him once and for all.
  • While the above is going on, the emperor's newly-animated Terracotta Army is marching towards the Great Wall of China, which for some reason will make the army immortal and indestructible when it passes the wall. However, via the earlier sacrifice of Zi Yuan, zombified versions of Ming Guo, workers whose bodies were buried in the wall, and various other people who the emperor had killed over the years, come to life and start attacking the army.
    You'd Expect: That the emperor and/or his newly-appointed general, Yang, would have his army fan out in different directions, sacrifice some of them, and let the remainder pass the wall while Ming Guo and his army are tied up. Having a slightly smaller army isn't going to matter much when said army is immortal.
    Instead: The emperor and Yang send the army into Ming Guo's army non-stop, and just stand there looking vaguely annoyed as the terracotta soldiers are cut down one-by-one.
• Muppets Most Wanted: While the Muppets are on a world tour, Kermit has his identity stolen by a criminal frog named Constantine and sent to a Russian gulag.
  You'd Expect: The Muppets (or at least Piggy, Fozzie and Scooter) would notice that Constantine doesn't act or sound anything like Kermit and immediately demand to know who he is and what he's done with Kermit.
  Instead: They all fall for it (except Animal) - Constantine claims that his voice sounds off because he has a cold, coughs once, and then doesn't even bother acting like he has a cold for the rest of the film. Meanwhile, Kermit is stuck in the gulag worrying that his friends have abandoned him (which, to be honest, they kinda did).
  Eventually: Walter starts to become suspicious and points out to the others that "Kermit" has been acting weirdly.
  You'd Expect: The other Muppets would listen to him.
  Instead: They ignore him like Jerkasses.
  Then: Walter is still suspicious and does some investigating. Eventually he and Fozzie discover that Constantine has stolen Kermit's identity and go with Animal to break him out of the gulag. Kermit is understandably angry when he finds out that no one except Animal noticed that he'd had his identity stolen and chews Walter and Fozzie out for it.
  You'd Expect: That Fozzie would apologize.
  Instead: He just shrugs and says that it's not as bad as it sounds. Not that it really matters because Kermit forgives him and Walter almost immediately after that.
  During the Climax: Kermit and Constantine are finally seen standing next to each other in front of the other Muppets.
  You'd Expect: The other Muppets would immediately be able to tell which Kermit is actually Kermit.
  Instead: They STILL can't figure it out.
  Fortunately: Piggy is able to get Kermit to reveal that he is the real Kermit. Constantine is eventually sent back to the gulag and the Muppets get off scott-free for harboring an escaped convict.
• The Music Box: Laurel and Hardy are idiots in all their films, but this example particularly stands out. They finally get the piano up the stairs, only to be informed by a postman that they could have just drove round a nearby hill.
  You'd Expect: They simply get the piano inside and finish the job.
  Instead: They take the piano down the stairs all over again and go round.
• Mutant Chronicles: The Brotherhood stopped and sealed the Machine centuries ago. They have devoted themselves to keeping the knowledge of the machine alive and stopping it should it get free.
  You'd Expect: The Brotherhood, in the centuries between them sealing away the machine and present, would protect the hole the machine is kept in.
  Instead: Two mega-corporations unknowingly open the hole thus causing the Zombie Apocalypse.
• In Neighbors, Mac, Kelly and Jimmy forge a letter to their neighbors at Delta Psi Beta convincing them they're off suspension and that they can hold their party after all.
  You'd Expect The trio to do the research so that their letter appears legit as possible.
  Instead Jimmy puts a Hebrew taunt in the forged school seal instead of its Pretentious Latin Motto. While the fraternity still gets a third strike, the taunt lets Teddy know who's to blame. Everyone else calls Jimmy out on his mistake before they actually won.
• At the end of Night of the Living Dead (1968), Ben goes upstairs to investigate the sound of gunshots and sees a rag-tag group of vigilantes and local policemen blasting away the few remaining zombies.
  You'd Expect Ben to shout to the militia for help and come on out to meet them.
  Instead he stares out the window in a rather emotionless fashion, whereupon a pair of rednecks see him in the window, think he's a zombie, and shoot him, after taking a noticeable amount of time to line up a headshot that he could have easily gotten out of the way of before said redneck pulled the trigger.
• In A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, Will Stanton has gained wizard powers in his dream and is about to finish Freddy Krueger off.
  You'd Expect: Stanton had better keep away from Krueger and beat him from afar, since Freddy relies on his razor glove to kill his victims.
  Instead: Will inexplicably runs towards Freddy. Freddy takes advantage of Will’s mistake, grabs him, says, "I don't believe in fairy tales", and stabs and kills him.
• In Noah, a loose retelling of the bible story, Noah believes that he and his family will be the last people on earth, since the only other woman, aside from his wife is infertile, thus ending sin and purifying the Lord's creation. When said girl (Ila) becomes pregnant on the ark (as Noah's wife asked a priest to make her pregnant through God):
  You'd Expect: That Ila and Shem, as Noah has made it abundantly clear that he is determined to make God's creation pure again by ending the human race, would know that he would not be pleased with Ila being pregnant, thus allowing the human race to continue, and not tell him about this, and immediately start to secretly build a raft to escape in before he notices Ila's growing stomach and discovers the truth himself.
  Instead: They tell him immediately after discovering Ila's pregnancy, and naturally Noah is furious, and says that if their child is a girl, he will kill her when she is born.
  And later, when they actually do try the escape raft plan:
  You'd Expect: They would make their escape at night, while Noah is asleep.
  Instead: They try to make in the middle of afternoon in broad daylight, and Noah catches them, and burns the escape raft.
• In No Country for Old Men, Anton Chigurh is arrested by a cop and taken to the police station; the two are alone.
  You'd Expect: The cop to lock Chigurh in a jail cell.
  Instead: The cop turns his back on Chugurh to sit down at his desk and make a phone call, apparently trusting that he won't do anything untoward. Chigurh strangles him with his handcuffs, gets the key to unlock them, and steals a police cruiser. Immediately after, Chigurh, in his cruiser, pulls over a random motorist and gets out to talk to him.
  You'd Expect: The driver would wonder what the hell someone who looks and dresses like the Grim Reaper and carries a captive-bolt pistol would be doing driving a police cruiser and pulling him over, figure out something's not right, and then take off, or, at the absolute least, ask Chigurh about his lack of standard police attire.
  Instead: The driver complies with Chigurh's request to step out of the car and is shot in the head. Chigurh steals his vehicle.
• North By Northwest: Roger Thornhill goes to the UN in New York to speak with Lester Townshend and find out who was impersonating Townshend. One of the Big Bad's mooks throws a knife at Townshend, causing Townshend to collapse into Thornhill's arms.
  You'd Expect: Thornhill to leave the knife as-is, and yell out, "Get a doctor! He's been stabbed! Someone threw a knife at him!"
  Instead: Thornhill yanks the knife out of Townshend's back, getting his prints all over the knife and looking very much like he'd done the deed. A photographer catches his picture while he's holding the knife.
  Even Worse: Thornhill bolts from the building and goes on the lam, making his innocence look even more in doubt.

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