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• Obsessed: Derek is first accosted by Lisa at the Christmas party against his will via kissing and groping him.
  You'd Expect: That he would report it to HR and/or his superiors.
  Instead: He tells his coworker Ben, who not only finds the situation funny but also convinces him not to report the harassment due to his past behavior of flirting with his female secretaries.
  • Later on, Lisa then flashes him in the car and sends him harassing emails.
    You'd Now Expect: For him to tell his job or Sharon anyway, as not only is this a pattern, he now also has more evidence.
    Instead: He sits on the information again due to Sharon being upset about her out of nowhere sister being cheated on by her husband, who's leaving her, and Lisa transferring from the job, which foolishly causes him to believe that the behavior has stopped.
  • Towards the climax of the film, Lisa walks in on the babysitter, home alone with Kyle, pretending that she's an old friend of Sharon's and even mimes a phone call with her saying that her presence is okay.
    You'd Expect: For the girl to call her out of her bluff, get her to leave or at the very least protect Kyle from this stranger.
    Instead: The dumb girl falls for her lies hook, line and sinker. Predictably, Lisa briefly absconded with Kyle, with the babysitter's only excuse (if you can even call it that) upon the Charles' learning of the boy's disappearance is her repeated crying out "You said it was okay!"
    Furthermore: Seriously, no locks on the front door at night or removal of the keys from underneath the welcome mat even with this crazy woman on the loose?
• Office Space: The Bobs are brought in by Initech to improve employee efficiency. They find out that Milton was laid off ages ago but was getting paid due to a glitch in the system. Milton's supervisor Bill Lumbergh finds out about this after the Bobs tell him.
  You'd Expect: The Bobs would call in Milton to explain the error and properly fire him. That way he knows and can start looking for another job.
  Instead: They fix the glitch but don't bother telling Milton, which they reason "avoids conflict" because the situation will resolve itself once Milton realizes he isn't being paid. Lumbergh, meanwhile, takes this as free license to treat Milton even worse than he already does, piling even more work onto him, downgrading his working conditions even further, and taking his red stapler.
  The Result: Milton quite reasonably thinks that his paycheck has been routed and keeps asking about it. When Lumbergh takes the red stapler, he hits his Rage Breaking Point and burns down the whole building. No one gets hurt, but Milton successfully makes off with the million dollars that Peter and his friends inadvertently stole from Initech. Even if someone investigated the theft and the fire, they'd find out in turn that Milton was working for years on end without a paycheck, which would be grounds for Milton to bring a civil lawsuit against Initech for wage theft.
• In One Crazy Summer, Hoops and his friends are working on the boat they plan to enter in the race when Teddy has his Ferrari taken in for service.
  You'd Expect: Teddy to remember that Hoops and his friends hate him and trust his expensive and powerful sports car with someone else or at the very least treat Hoops and his friends kindly.
  Instead: He hits Clay Stork.
  Result: The next time Teddy sees the engine from his Ferrari, it's powering the boat Hoops and his friends are using in the race.
• In Oppenheimer, J. Robert Oppenheimer meets President Truman in the White House, advising him not to pursue research on developing a hydrogen bomb due to this likely causing the Soviets to develop one themselves thereby causing a dangerous arms race that would threaten the security of the human species. Truman blows this off, saying that the Soviets will never figure out how to make a nuclear bomb themselves. Meanwhile, Robert feels very guilty for having built the bombs that dropped on Japan.
  You'd Expect: Robert to realize that he is speaking to the one person on the planet who had had the authority to prevent the atomic bomb from being used during the war, and that the fact he didn’t do this means that Truman is the one really responsible for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but accepted that it had to be done. As such, Robert should keep his guilt to himself lest he offend the most powerful man in the world by implying Truman has no regard for human life.
  Instead: Robert says there is blood on his own hands, pissing Truman off, causing the President to call him a crybaby and force him out of the Oval Office, preventing any hope that he’ll enact a non-proliferation policy.
• In Orphan, John confronts Kate about the wine bottles she bought earlier in the movie and then tried to hide from him, which were found by Max and the movie's Big Bad, Esther.
  You'd Expect: Kate to calmly admit she bought the wine to deal with the stress of everything that's been happening but ultimately didn't drink it, and use the moment of weakness to try and mend their failing relationship.
  Instead: Kate cries and whines and blames the situation on Esther (accurately, but given Esther has been manipulating Kate to look like an Abusive Parent - which Kate is aware of, she should be more careful of what she says), then says she thinks about killing herself because of what happened to their daughter and says she only doesn't drink for her children's sake. John even points out how hysterical and manipulative she sounds and promptly demands she go to therapy.
• In Pacific Rim, facing an upsurge in Kaiju attacks, the world's governments decide to abandon the Jaeger program in favor of building a giant wall to stop the Kaiju. Then in 2024, the Kaiju Mutavore breaks through the Sydney wall. The only reason they don't have to nuke the city is because they'd only closed the local Shatterdome the day before, so Striker Eureka is still on hand to take Mutavore down.
  You'd Expect: They'd realize that the wall doesn't work and instead restore funding to the Jaeger program.
  Instead: They continue to maintain that the wall will work, leaving the Jaeger program alone to stand against the Kaiju. The Kaiju are eventually defeated, but only at the cost of all of the remaining Jaegers and most of the remaining experienced pilots.
  You'd Also Expect: If they're not going to cancel the wall, they might think about putting at guns on it. The wall isn't getting rid of the kaiju, just blocking them, and the oceans are kinda important if humanity wants to survive.
  Instead: Whoever had the idea seems to have never thought beyond "wall stops kaiju", and thus all it takes for an undefended wall to be breached is a kaiju pounding on the thing for an hour. Some of the workers even lampshade the uselessness of the endeavor if the kaiju will simply smash it down.
• Pan's Labyrinth:
  • The normally intelligent and bookish Ofelia is given the task of entering a magical room and retrieving a knife that's under the care of a monstrous, sleeping guardian. Said guardian will only remain asleep as long as Ofelia doesn't touch any part of the sumptuous feast that's sitting on the table in front of him.
    You'd expect: That Ofelia would remember every single Fairy Tale she's ever read that featured a situation similar to hers that had gone sour; that she'd remember the admonitions of the very scary-looking faun who'd given her the task, the disturbing, sharp-nailed cenobite-like guardian who is sitting at the end of the table and the time limit that she's working under, AND that she would complete her task and get the hell out of there as quickly as her prepubescent legs could carry her.
    Instead: She stops to dawdle long enough to eat two grapes, thus awakening the ravenous guardian, which proceeds to chow down on the fairies and then try to eat her as well.
  • Also in Pan's Labyrinth, when Mercedes gives the key of the storage house to Captain Vidal, she confirms that it's the only key.
    You'd expect: She would then proceed to tell the partisans she's aiding to bring some explosives or other means to break through the sturdy door.
    Instead: She gives them a duplicate of the key, which they use in their very next raid to steal supplies. This immediately results in Vidal getting suspicious of the person originally in charge of the keys, i.e. Mercedes, and eventually leads to her getting captured, and inches away from horrible torture.
  • Dr. Ferreiro pulls a Mercy Kill on a rebel to spare him from further torture at Captain Vidal's hands. Vidal notices he's dead and chews the Good Doctor out for disobeying him.
    You'd expect: The Doctor to claim that the rebel's death was an accident and that he did everything he could to save him. He is a doctor after all, and could make up a claim that he was too far gone, or simply miscalculated the morphine dose based on the severity of his blood loss.
    Instead: Feirrero gives Vidal "The Reason You Suck" Speech and walks away from Vidal in disgust and resignation. Vidal shoots him in the back.
• In Passenger 57, one of the best moments comes when the Hero's Girlfriend is fighting one of the henchmen near the open luggage door of a moving airplane. She's about to fall out the door, clutching at the henchman's pant leg; he reaches desperately for his rifle, lying a few inches away. Finally he gets his fingers on it, gets it in his grip...
  You'd Expect: he might consider, you know, shooting her.
  Instead: he turns the gun around, and hits her with the butt. Guess who ends up falling out of the plane?
• In Passengers (2016), the colony ship Avalon is taking a group of 5000 passengers and 258 crew to colonize a new planet known as Homestead II. However, since the journey takes 120 years to complete, all of them are kept in stasis while the ship runs on autopilot, to be awoken four months prior to arrival.
  You'd Expect: That emergency protocols would be in place in case the ship suffers a catastrophic failure of some kind. The computer has the ability to isolate damaged systems and reallocate resources to compensate, but no means to physically replace damaged parts integral to the ship's continued functionality. At the very least, you'd expect that there would be an emergency repair crew on standby, to be awoken in such a scenario.
  Instead: The company is so confident in the reliability of its ships (which they market) that not only are the passengers and crew never to be awoken for any reason, the ship lacks the capacity to put them back in stasis completely on the off-chance they wake up unexpectedly. Because of this, when a massive asteroid has hit the ship and damages a critical component, a years-long series of cascade failures occurs as the computer tries in vain to compensate for the lost component. The only reason the ship doesn't explode or tumble into the void of space is that the failures just so happen to awaken a passenger who is a Gadgeteer Genius, and later on a member of the crew who has security clearance, thereby allowing the former to repair the problem once he can properly diagnose it. Even so, because the ship was left with no means to put a passenger back into stasis, Jim and Aurora are forced to live out their lives on the ship, dying before it ever reaches its destination.
• Parasite (2019): The Parks go camping outdoors (because Da-song insisted on it), and Chung-sook is left in charge of the house on the promise that only she will be in the house. The Kim family then throw a celebration party inside the Parks' house eating up their food, drinking their wine and using their bathtub, TV and Wi-Fi.
  But Then: Rain occurs. Plus lightning.
  You'd Expect: The Kims to pull an Oh, Crap! reaction, realize that the Parks will cancel their camping trip because of rain, quickly clean up their own mess and for Ki-Taek, Ki-woo and Ki-jeong to hide since they're not allowed in the house outside of their jobs.
  Instead: They just admire the rain as a sight of beauty and keep discussing on their scheme on how to keep the Parks' house to themselves in the future such as by suggesting to Ki-woo that he marry Da-hye. This of course leads to the trouble of their old housemaid Moon-gwang knocking on the door begging to be let in.
  You'd Then Expect: For them to simply ignore Moon-gwang and not acknowledge her, since she poses an immediate threat to their scheme to live off the Parks' own house and money, and it was hard enough getting her kicked out of the Parks' in the first place.^noteGranted, the Kims were pretty drunk and relaxed at this point and no one would ever have expected anything like Moon-gwang's shocking secret.
  Instead: Kim Chung-sook allows Moon-gwang into the house during the rainstorm. Moon-gwang takes her to the hidden part of the house to show her The Reveal of her husband hidden underneath.
  You’d Expect: The rest of the Kim family to stay upstairs and hide. It is INCREDIBLY dangerous to get caught by anyone, and that includes Moon-gwang. They had good reason to be curious about what Moon-gwang was revealing, but surely they could have been patient and waited for Kim Chung-sook to tell them later after the coast was clear.
  Instead: They all hide in the stairwell to overhear the conversation, even worse, clumsily leaning over one another to get a closer listen. Unsurprisingly, once one of them leans in too close, the entire family tumbles down the stairs and lands in a heap directly in front of Moon-gwang.
  And Then: Kim Wi-woo says “dad” in response to his injury, revealing that they are all connected as a family to Moon-gwang. Granted, one can’t control what they say by impulse from an injury, but the point is that they shouldn’t have taken that risk to overhear the conversation in the first place when the stakes were so high. From there, it only goes From Bad to Worse as absolutely everything falls apart.
• In the sequel to Paul Blart: Mall Cop, Paul and his daughter Maya travel to Las Vegas for a security guard convention and wind up stumbling upon an art heist. Midway through the film, Maya accidentally sees the criminals doing their dirty work and winds up incarcerated in a hotel room by them. Shortly afterwards, her Love Interest, Lane, comes by looking for her and bumps into Vincent, the leader of the art-nappers. Lane, unaware of what's happened, asks if he's seen Maya.
  You'd Expect: Vincent to tell Lane that Maya has just gone some other way and lead him away from their dirty work.
  Instead: They immediately pull a gun on him and imprison him in the hotel room with Maya. While we obviously don't want the bad guys to win, it's ultimately because of Vincent and his mooks pulling a random (to them) passerby that they could have ignored or directed away from their scheme that they end up losing, as Lane helps Maya make their escape with a snow globe he had with himself, and they learn the key to defeating Vincent later. (Namely his oatmeal allergy.)
• Percy Jackson: Sea Of Monsters: Luke puts the Golden Fleece onto Kronos' coffin/sarcophagus, which will eventually reawaken him. The protagonists all make a beeline to remove it. They meet opposition, but Tyson shows up and takes care of it, leaving the coffin wide open.
  You'd Expect: Percy runs up to the coffin and removes the Golden Fleece, which is his current main goal. It's right next to him, there's no way he'd miss it.
  Instead: Percy completely ignores the coffin and wastes at least a minute hugging Tyson and saying he's glad Tyson's okay, which is enough time for Kronos' revival to be complete.
• Phantasm: The brothers have just escaped from one of the Tall Man for a second time, and have managed to capture one of his undead dwarf minions in the process.
  You'd Expect: Now that they have a piece of solid evidence that something seriously wrong is going on that hasn't turned into a giant killer fly (long story) they'd follow their original plan and go call the police.
  Instead: They take matters into their own ill equipped hands, and never even consider going to the authorities throughout the entire film, resulting in many more deaths, and several more sequels.
• During the flashback scene in The Phantom of the Opera (1962), which shows how Professor Petrie became the Phantom, it is revealed that he was a composer who took his work to Ambrose d'Arcy, a wealthy lord, for help getting it published. He is furious to then find out that d'Arcy is passing his music off as his own.
  You'd expect: Petrie to explain the situation to the publisher, providing his own handwritten music (which he has plenty of) as proof he is the composer. He could also have his landlady vouch for his identity, as she has heard him playing the melodies many times. Perhaps d'Arcy's influence would make convincing others that he is a thief difficult, but surely it would not be impossible with the right evidence.
  Instead: He breaks into the publisher's building at night and, in a rage, starts tossing what has already been printed in the furnace. A fire breaks out, which Petrie tries to extinguish with what he believes to be water but is actually nitric acid. His face is scarred as a result, and he runs off screaming into the night to live under the local opera house.
• In The Phantom of the Opera (2004), Raoul bests the Phantom in a duel.
  You'd expect: He takes advantage of this moment, either by running him through with his sword or by knocking Erik cold and having someone fetch the Paris police to cart him off to jail.
  Instead: Immediately goes home to plan a Zany Scheme to catch the Phantom, leaving the Phantom lying there in the snow.
• In The Pink Panther (2006), Chief Inspector Dreyfus is investigating the murder of the French football team's coach, and has made the inept policeman Jacques Clouseau the official face of the investigation so that Dreyfus can operate from behind the scenes until he's ready to take over the case.
  You'd Expect: Dreyfus to have developed a fairly rock-solid case by the time he took Clouseau off the investigation.
  Instead: He decides that the killer is a Chinese doctor, due to the coach being murdered with a poison made from Chinese herbs, and the doctor having reason to want the coach dead. On top of this, Dreyfus is never shown to have any hard evidence against the doctor. Turns out it wasn't him, and Dreyfus only manages to avoid causing an international incident due to Clouseau arresting the real killer that same night.
• Pitch Perfect
  • The Barden Bellas are an A Capella group participating in finals. Most of the members are graduating the next year and want to make it their best shot.
    You'd Expect: They would focus on relaxing the team before the performance. Performances tend to go off best when people aren't stressing about how well they are doing.
    Instead: The Alpha Bitch that is Aubrey's predecessor tells her off for being late and not to bungle off her solo. It's a very harsh "The Reason You Suck" Speech that is completely out of line.
    The Result: Despite starting strong, Aubrey starts to Stress Vomit in the middle of her solo. The girls are obviously not winning in the finals, and Aubrey is humiliated.
  • Next school year, professor's daughter Beca is forced to go to college. She wants to go to Los Angeles and build a music career, but her dad puts the kibosh on that. As he tells her, it's free tuition, and an education is important. All reasonable points.
    You'd Expect: Beca would agree, go to class, and get her degree. If she wants to graduate sooner, she can stack up on credits and get an honorable bachelor's after two years. The music industry is well-known for taking advantage of all its performers, something that say a business law degree would help with in fulfilling her dreams. She's still young, and there is still time to build up her career.
    Instead: Beca blows off her dad, skips classes, and spends her days mixing music or stacking CDs at the campus radio station.
    The Result: Her dad at first is reasonable after he busts her in her dorm when she's supposed to be attending Intro to Philosophy. He bargains with her to at least join one club for a year, and if she still hates college, he'll help her move to Los Angeles. Later, he withdraws the offer after she gets arrested because he can see she's being irresponsible and spoiled.
  • Incidentally the arrest by itself is a really dumb moment. The alumni Treblemakers come to perform and when Bumper insults them, the alumni challenge the current a capella boys to a throw down. Bumper fakes an injury to get out of it, but Jesse is trying to talk down the guy begging him for a Groin Attack. Beca and Fat Amy go to help Jesse.
    You'd Expect: Beca would pull Jesse away or tell the other guy to back off.
    Instead: She and Fat Amy beat up the guy at his request, and in the scuffle Beca breaks a window with the Treblemakers' trophy.
    The Result: When Fat Amy runs off, the police comes to arrest Beca. You cannot blame her dad calling her out for "property damage".
  • During rehersals for a regional competition, Beca mentions to Aubrey that they have been doing the same set list of songs for quite some time and that they should switch things up by throwing in some new songs, which the other Bellas agree with since they won't be able to win any competitons if they keep using the same songs over and over again.
    You'd Expect: Aubrey would realize that Beca and the other Bellas have a point and would switch out the current set list in favor of new songs.
    Instead: Aubrey, bound by tradition, flat out rejects Beca's request and insists on doing the same routines they have been doing.
    The Result: During the ICCA semi-finals, Beca tries to spice things up by improvising during the usual set list so they won't lose (which they do), causing Aubrey to give Beca an ear-full following the performance, resulting in Beca quitting the Bellas.
• Planet of the Dinosaurs: Harvey and Nyla find a nest of eggs while walking around in a prehistoric planet and feeling hungry Harvey tries to steal some of them in order to have something to eat.
  You'd Expect: Both Harvey and Nyla to leave as soon as they find the nest of eggs considering that the nest of eggs belongs to a dinosaur.
  Instead: A Centrosaurus appears and tries to scare them off for going near her nest and touching her eggs. At this point both Harvey and Nyla realize that they should leave, but the former decides to attack the angry dinosaur with his laser gun even though the latter tries to convince him to back away slowly.
  You'd Expect: Harvey to listen to Nyla and do what she says. That way the Centrosaurus would spare both him and Nyla.
  Instead: He shoots the Centrosaurus with his laser gun which infuriates the dinosaur into chasing him and skewering him with its nasal horn.
• Planet of the Apes (2001): When Leo and Thade are fighting, Thade knocks Leo's gun from his hand which lands a few feet away.
  You'd Expect: Leo to immediately go and get his gun.
  Instead: He waits until Thade sees the gun and when he starts to go for it, Thade pins him down and goes right for the gun.
• Polar: The A-Team has a list of addresses where they believe Duncan is hiding in one of them.
  You'd expect: For them to split up to stake out each address to see which one Duncan is at.
  Instead: The entire team goes through the addresses one at a time, and indiscriminately kill everyone they find in there.
• Poltergeist: The Freeling family have rescued their daughter from a malevolent demon and its almost inescapable dimension located inside their house. The tiny medium lady they brought in to help declares "This house is clean."
  You'd Expect: They'd move out immediately. Not take the risk despite what the medium says and live in Holiday Inn and move their stuff out of the house during the day.
  Instead: The Freelings decide to stay in the house one more night until all their stuff has been moved out. They get attacked again.
• Psycho has Marion Crane's sister, Lila, and her boyfriend, Sam Loomis, posing as a married couple in order to gain access to the Bates Motel and investigate Marion's death. While Lila sneaks into the Bates house, Sam will keep Norman distracted.
  You'd Expect: Sam would try to make their conversation as civil as possible and avoid topics related to Marion's death.
  Instead: He started making up some accusations toward him about the hotel, including trying to have Marion killed to get the $40,000 she had stolen from her employer. This makes Norman agitated enough to realize that his house has been raided by the two, which resulted in him knocking Sam out and almost killing Lila while dressed up as his mother if it wasn't for Sam's interference.
• Pulp Fiction:
  • Jules is interrogating Brett on his betrayal of Marcellus Wallace. Jules gets fed up with Brett stammering "What?" over and over.
    You'd Expect: Brett to stop stammering "What?".
    Instead: Brett keeps saying "What?".
    The Result: He is eventually shot and killed by Jules.
  • Hitmen Vincent and Jules are driving in a car, with their new acquaintance Marvin riding in the back seat. During the ride, Vincent wants to ask Marvin about his opinion on the current topic of conversation.
    You'd Expect: Vincent to put the damn loaded gun down before he makes his point.
    Or: Unload the gun.
    Instead: He casually lays the gun on top of the seat of the car, pointed directly at Marvin's head.
    You'd Then Expect: Marvin to say something about the gun currently pointed at his face.
    Instead: He says nothing.
    The Result: The trope I Just Shot Marvin in the Face is named.
  • As a result of scamming Vincent's boss, Marcellus, by winning the fixed fight he was supposed to throw, Vincent has been told to find and kill Butch. He visits Butch's appartment but doesn't find him here and has to use the bathroom.
    You'd Expect: Vincent to take his gun with him to the bathroom, or at least have a spare with him, in case Butch decides to show up for whatever reason.
    Instead: He leaves it on the kitchen table.
    Result: Butch finds it when he has to return to his apartment to retrieve his precious watch. This immediately makes him suspicious, and he proceeds to shoot Vincent with his own gun when he emerges from the bathroom, unarmed.
    Additionally: Earlier in the movie, Vincent was present when Butch was getting his instructions from Marcellus to throw the fight. After Marcellus left, he made it a point to purposefully harass Butch and call him names. Making it all the more likely that Butch would later shoot him on sight instead of trying to spare him, which Vincent should also have considered when leaving his gun on Butch's kitchen table.
• Rambo:
  • In the 2008 film, Rambo is ferrying a group of missionaries to Burma when they run into pirates. Rambo tries to negotiate with them, but the pirates refuse to leave without Sarah, the lone woman of the group, leaving Rambo with no option other than to brutally kill the lot of them.
    You'd Expect: The missionaries to accept that under those circumstances, Rambo had little other choice, and that they wouldn't hold it against him too much.
    Instead: They're utterly disgusted with him, with the leader of the group even telling Rambo that whatever the situation, violence is never a suitable answer.
  • Rambo: Last Blood: Rambo, on the hunt for Gabriela, finds the heavily-guarded headquarters of the sex-trafficking ring that's kidnapped her.
    You'd Expect: Rambo to scope out the place as much as possible beforehand, and then use stealth to take down the guards one by one as he gradually works his way inside (which is exactly what he does when he goes after Victor Martinez later on).
    Instead: He approaches the house directly, is surrounded, gets the shit kicked out of him, and only lives because Hugo Martinez decides to let him off with a nice scar and a concussion.
• Rampage (2009):
  • In Rampage: Capital Punishment, Bill rounds up a bunch of network executives as hostages for his message (put on a CD) to come across. He notices a female hostage of his glaring at him, and he tells her off on this.
    You'd Expect: She look away and stay quiet like everyone else is doing.
    Instead: She tells Bill that her sister was the Chicken Den girl from the first movie (Bill shot her in the stomach), and she wants him to die or get caught or whatever. Bill gets angry, and orders a male hostage to beat her senseless until she sustains a serious head injury.
  • In Rampage: President Down, Bill goes to Washington D.C. by train, shoots the United States President, Vice President and Secretary of Defense then leaves by train again to go into hiding in a forest. The FBI use Surveillance Drones to deduce Bill is hiding in an underground bunker in the forest somewhere in central America, and Bill catches sight of the drone spying on him. The FBI arrive at the forest for battle.
    You'd Expect: The FBI to spread out in a sparse and circular distribution so that Bill can be cornered.
    You'd Also Expect: Since they're in a forest, they use the trees as cover, and bring their own shields.
    Instead: They charge in like a mindless Soviet Union offensive which leads to Bill immediately gaining the upper hand from the beginning of the battle. He blows up more than half of them with explosives and an M136 AT4 rocket launcher, uses an M60E3 machine gun to wipe out most of whoever was fortunate to flee the explosions and ultimately finishes them off the few remaining ones with Guns Akimbo two M4A1s and a handgun.
• In Rampage: President Down, angry left-wing anarchist Bill Williamson goes to Washington D.C. by train, shoots the United States President, Vice President and Secretary of Defense then leaves by train again to go into hiding in a forest. The FBI use Surveillance Drones to deduce Bill is hiding in an underground bunker in the forest somewhere in central America, and Bill catches sight of the drone spying on him. The FBI arrive at the forest for battle.
  You'd Expect: The FBI to spread out in a sparse and circular distribution so that Bill can be cornered.
  You'd Also Expect: Since they're in a forest, they use the trees as cover. Or bring their own shields.
  Instead: They mindlessly charge in like a mindless Soviet Union offensive which leads to Bill immediately gaining the upper hand from the beginning of the battle. He blows up more than half of them with explosives and an M136 AT4 rocket launcher, uses an M60E3 machine gun to wipe out most of whoever was fortunate to flee the explosions and ultimately finishes them off the few remaining ones with Guns Akimbo two M4A1s and a handgun.
• Rat Race:
  • The Cody brothers decide to split up in order to double their chances of winning the race, and go to a locksmith to have a copy of their key made.
    You'd Expect: The two of them to keep quiet about the race around strangers.
    Instead: They openly talk about how they're racing to Silver City in order to open a locker in the railway station containing $2 million. The locksmith overhears, and decides to steal their key and go after the money himself.
    You'd Expect: The locksmith would give the Cody brothers two identical cut keys, so that they don't notice the theft.
    Instead: He gives them two uncut keys. As a result, the brothers realise almost immediately that they've been robbed, chase the locksmith down and manage to steal the key back.
  • Whilst driving on the highway, Randy Pear accidentally burns one of his fingers, and unintentionally flips off a female biker. His wife Bev decides to apologise and explain things to the biker.
    You'd Expect: That she would be able to do so without resorting to obscene hand gestures.
    Instead: She flips off the biker in order to demonstrate what happened. That, combined with Randy accidentally insulting the biker, results in the Pear family getting attacked by a load of bikers wielding baseball bats. They subsequently crash their car on the stage of a meeting of World War II veterans. Randy, who burnt his tongue during the chase steps forward to explain things.
    You'd Expect: That after two seconds at the most, Randy would realise that he's unintelligible, shut up, and get another member of the family to speak.
    Instead: He rants on, seemingly unaware of what he sounds like, and flips the veterans off as part of his "explanation". To make matters worse, the Pear family showed up in Adolf Hitler's car, Randy sounds like an angry German, and unknowingly looks like Hitler himself. One of the vets mistakes him for the real thing, and fires at the family with a revolver.
• Re-Animator: Herbert West uses dead bodies to test his reagent, each and every one of them is revived as a mindless feral zombie.
  You'd Expect: He'd realize that his reagent causes more trouble than it's worth and destroy the formula.
  Or At Least: Try to synthesize a new reagent that helps heal the brain so that the undead will keep their humanity.
  Or Possibly: Get in the habit of heavily restraining every one of his test subjects.
  Instead: He keeps on reviving dead bodies and makes no changes to his formula.
  The Result: The zombies keep causing chaos and innocents keep getting hurt.
• In Replicas, neuroscientist William Foster's family is killed in a car crash. William steals medical equipment from the company he works for in order to clone new bodies for them and transfer their neurological data over, effectively bringing them all Back from the Dead. Unbeknownst to him, his boss Jones is aware of what he is doing and is letting him proceed so he can take the technology and make billions selling cloned soldiers to the military. William succeeds in his efforts, bringing back his wife and two of his children (he didn't have enough equipment to save Zoe). At this point, Jones comes in and reveals he knew what William had been doing.
  You'd Expect: For Jones to explain that William has just cured human mortality and tell him that all he has to do is give him the algorithm and they can change the world together and make billions selling use of the technology to victims of death both natural and unnatural. Hell, it doesn't even need to be a lie.
  Instead: Jones admits he's planning to make a clone army and tells him that his family is a loose end that needs to be disposed of, despite the fact that said family is actually living proof that their technology works. His stupid ass is lucky that William's robot clone beats the idea into his head later on, instead of just killing him.
• Repossessed: At the climax of the movie, Father Mayii and Father Luke lament that they've tried everything to exorcise The Devil, including "sex, drugs and rock n' roll."
  • You'd Expect: The Devil to keep his mouth shut, or at least continue taunting them for their failures.
  • Instead: The Devil snaps that he hates Rock n' Roll. The priests promptly perform Devil with a Blue Dress, which finally exorcises The Devil from Nancy and sends him back to Hell.
• Riding in Cars with Boys:
  • Bev giving the erotic poem she wrote to her crush at the party.
    You'd expect: That Bev would wait for her crush to be alone to give it to him, and/or ask for his phone number to recite it to him privately.
    Instead: She gives the poem to him directly- while he's with a group of friends.
    The Result: He reads the erotic poem out loud in front of his friends, thus humiliating Bev.
  • Likewise, Bev and Fay leaving their kids out in the snowy yard, while they dry weed in the house.
    You'd expect: That Bev and Fay have their parents babysit their kids that afternoon, so that the kids would be supervised (and warm), and would not know anything about their mothers doing something illegal.
    Instead: They leave Jason and Amelia outside in the snow, and Bev's cop father comes by to give Jason his coat. Then Jason tells him about his mother drying weed.
    The Result: Both Bev and Fay are arrested, and Fay is bailed out by her brother who forces her and Amelia to move away with him to Arizona, promising to give them free housing- on the condition that she never talks to Bev again. And on top of that, Fay is forced to use the money that they earned (from the weed) to bail Bev out, thus plummeting Bev's dream even further.
• Rise of the Planet of the Apes:
  • Human protagonist Will has been dosing his father with his experimental brain-boosting drug, ALZ-112, developing the drug on his own after his company had scrapped development because of a bungled presentation. After seven years of not only full reversal of his father's Alzheimer's, but improved brain function, Dad starts to develop resistance to the virus that delivers the drug into his system and deteriorates rapidly as his Alzheimer's returns with a vengeance. Nevertheless, Will goes back to his boss and tells him the drug works, but only temporarily.
    You'd Expect: Will to consider investigating the possibility of using immunosuppressant drugs or other ways to reduce human immune response to the delivery mechanism, which are widely used in organ transplants.
    Instead: He starts in on a more-aggressive virus designed to beat the immune system. Soon enough, his boss has his own moment when he sees how effective the treatment is on apes and brings in many more apes to experiment on, refusing to listen to Will's pleas to slow down on testing because they don't know the potential effect this more aggressive viral strand will have on humans. The virus turns out to be both the catalyst for the titular "uprising", and causes the implied Class 3a Human Extinction Event that allows enhanced apes to take over the planet.
  • Just as Will's father starts suffering Alzheimer again, he leaves the house and spots Hunsiker's sports car in front of him.
    You'd Expect: That Hunsiker would bother to keep the car doors locked and have the keys with him all the time.
    Instead: Not only are the car doors open, but Hunsiker also for some reason forgets his keys in ignition. Charles, believing that this is his car due to his brain deteriorating, unknowingly hijacks his neighbour's car and trashes it around.
    Result: Hunsiker starts bullying the senile man until he ends up attacked by Caesar who witnessed all this from the attic. This leads to Caesar being sent to the animal shelter and soon enough breaking other apes out, leading to the uprise.
  • The new strain of ALZ-112, ALZ-113, has been developed and is currently being tested.
    You'd Expect: The scientists would analyze it thoroughly to find any negative side effects to make sure it is actually safe for humans. In addition, you'd except that they would use liquid dosage, given that it is mostly suited for people with Alzheimer and would hardly be distributed for anyone else.
    Instead: The Gen-Sys scientists never bother trying to study it for any of it, with Jacobs himself being more interested in gaining money than following safety measures and thus throwing away Will's concerns. For added stupidity, they aerosolize the virus right off the bat. After ALZ-113 escapes the Gen-Sys facility and spreads across the world thanks to Franklin, it becomes unstoppable and decimates the human race in a matter of several years.
  • During testing of the new strain, which has been aerosolized for easy delivery, there's an accident when they administer it to an ape (Koba) and one of the researchers is exposed by said ape trying to break free and knocking his respirator mask off.
    You'd Expect: They'd quarantine his ass on the spot, along with everyone in the room.
    Instead: They do nothing, and he's allowed to go home and eventually infect others, including an airplane pilot. Goodbye human race.
  • Speaking of Franklin himself, after falling sick he tries to contact Will about ALZ-113.
    You'd Expect: That he would wear a mask, a respirator or have any other form of face protection just in case. Or, for that matter, try and contact Will by distance, such as phone or email.
    Instead: He doesn't bother wearing any of that and accidentally wanders into his neighbour's house instead. When Hunsiker tries to get him out, he sneezes on him, kickstarting the pandemic. Hunsiker himself is little better - instead of calling the police, he goes to directly confront a man who is visibly sick. Granted, ALZ-113 would have spread anyways, but going directly to a person who is acting suspiciously is still a wrong decision.
  • When the ape uprising begins, Caesar manages to knock Dodge out and drag him and Rodney into the cells. As his group trashes the animal shelter, Dodge regains his senses and notices that his cell is not locked unlike Rodney's.
    You'd Expect: That Dodge would immediately retreat to call for backup/hit the alarm. He won't stand a chance against Caesar, much less against the rest of his troop.
    Instead: He goes for a shock baton and then starts approaching Caesar, who is holding a fire hose aimed at him. Ignoring the obvious danger, he still tries to rush Caesar, having apparently deluded himself into thinking that Caesar would not have the gall to actually shoot him with this. As result, Dodge gets sprayed with water, and because he was holding a shock baton in his hand that was charged beforehand, he gets electrocuted to death because of his own stupidity.
• Road to Perdition: In the shootout between Sullivan and Maguire, Sullivan shoots a lamp which shatters and cuts up Maguire's face, leaving the latter screaming and writhing in pain.
  You'd Expect: Sullivan, a seasoned mob enforcer, takes an extra ten seconds to finish Maguire off while he's incapacitated. There was nothing preventing him from doing so, and no good reason to leave him alive.
  Instead: He runs away, allowing Maguire to eventually recover and continue his pursuit. Sullivan pays for this decision with his life.
• Robin Hood (2010). King Philip of France has mustered an army to conquer the English.
  You'd Expect: They would land somewhere without a very high, very level bluff from which England's famous archers have perfect aim towards their troops, and they would get the hell out once they saw that they were pinned on three sides with archers to the front and cavalry to their left and right flanks, and the sea to their backs.
  Instead: They continue right on with the landing, even as their army is being felled in swoops by English longbowmen and subsequently ground into the mud by the cavalry. Whilst some of their men are being crushed to death with their own boats.
• RoboCop
  • RoboCop (1987):
    • Dick Jones demonstrates a combat robot (ED-209) in a public office of OCP, hoping for it to be mass-produced for use in Detroit.
      You'd Expect: That he'd have the combat robot not loaded with live rounds for this demonstration, in case something goes wrong (imagine that) and it doesn't stop being aggressive even after throwing down your weapon on the ground.
      You'd Also Expect: That he would have run this test in controlled circumstances, first, where this kind of screw-up would have been caught and fixed ahead of time.
      Instead (!!!): He has the ED-209 loaded with live rounds for the demonstration, and wouldn't you know it, it malfunctions and kills one of the board members, Kinny!
    • Dick Jones knows that Clarence Boddicker just ratted out their connection to Robocop, who is on his way to deal with him.
      You'd Expect: He'd exercise his right to remain silent, for Robocop can record everything he says and will use it against him in a court of law.
      Instead: He hypocritically engages in Evil Gloating before Robocop escapes.
      To Make Matters Worse: At least Boddicker can rightfully argue he was the victim of Police Brutality and say that his confession was coerced; Jones has no such excuse.
    • Later on, Robocop returns to OCP headquarters and confronts Jones during a meeting.
      You'd Expect: He'd immediately head for the hills. Chances are, he'd be out of the building before someone thinks about undoing Directive 4 on Robocop.
      Instead: He takes the Old Man hostage. The Old Man fires him on the spot, thereby ending his protection under Directive 4 and elbows Jones, leaving Robocop free to shoot Jones.
    • Leon Nash has a chance to get at RoboCop while Murphy is confronting Boddicker.
      You'd Expect: He'd use his Cobra Assault Cannon, an anti-tank gun, to take Murphy out.
      Instead: He gets into a crane and dumps scrap metal on Robocop, which only impedes him, not kill him.
      Result: Anne Lewis uses the Cobra to take out Nash.
  • RoboCop 2:
    • Omni Consumer Products' Security Concepts division has been trying to create a successor to RoboCop, dubbed RoboCop 2, ala RoboCop 1, all of their test subjects have been recently slain officers, only these officers were Driven to Suicide by the conversion. Dr. Faxx concludes that Alex Murphy's strong moral convictions were what kept him from offing himself.
      You'd Expect: Having quite literally the exact mental conditions necessary for a stable transplant, she would select the appropriate officer from the police and help him transition into his new role. Please note this is exactly what her predecessor Bob Morton did, and it worked brilliantly. And if she can't find a willing cop, she could always pick a civilian that falls under similar criteria.
      Instead: She selects Cain, a sociopathic crime boss and dealer of the Fantastic Drug Nuke, on the basis that his desire for immortality is similar to Murphy's strong dedication to duty (y'know, the thing that makes him the perfect Robocop) while his addiction will act as a method of controlling his behavior.
      Result: She's right to the point that he's a stable transplant. But without Murphy's strong moral compass, he predictably goes berserk during his unveiling to the press. She also goes about this is a pretty cruel way, shutting off his life support system and talking with a surgeon after the operation to remove Cain's brain while said surgeon is holding Cain's skull — right in front of Cain's brain. Johnson is quite right to pin the blame for the mess on her.
      You'd Also Expect (!!!): For her not to actually have Nuke within sight of Cain during the demonstration.
      Also Instead (!!!): Said Disastrous Demonstration is set off by the Old Man waving a can of the stuff in front of Cain.
      You'd Also Also Expect (!!!): For OCP to actually learn from the ED-209 clusterfuck from the first movie.
      Also Also Instead (!!!): Faxx took a half-measure, turning off his gun. However, she likewise waved the remote to reactivate it in front of Cain.
      Result: Cain grabs it, turns the gun on, crushes the remote and starts his rampage.
      For Added Stupidity: During said berserk moment, Faxx continues to look at RoboCain with pride like she wants him to win. She's arguably nearly as unstable as Cain himself at that point.
    • Robocop was just disassembled by Cain's men.
      You'd Expect: To dump him and the parts somewhere other than where they do.
      Instead: They dump him right in front of the police station as a message, allowing him to eventually be rebuilt.
    • RoboCop is a heavily armed cyborg.
      You'd Expect: That he's also have a nonlethal weapon.
      Instead: He doesn't, which allows Hob to escape after his programming forbids him from shooting the little bastard.
  • RoboCop 3:
    • A robber decides to rob a doughnut shop.
      You'd Expect: Even beyond the steretype of cops liking donuts, that he'd notice the crapton of cop cars in the parking lot and opt out.
      Instead: He doesn't and goes through with it, trying to rob the place.
      The Result: He's greeted by the sight of a bunch of cops training guns on him the second he yells at the cashier.
  • RoboCop (2014):
    • A man in Tahran is part of a group who intends to show the American people by sacrificing themselves, but don't want anyone else to get hurt, so he tells his son to stay inside where they go out to face the ED-209s.
      You'd Expect: The son to listen to his father.
      Instead: He grabs a knife from the kitchen and joins in.
      The Result: The kid is killed and the knife wouldn't have done anything against a heavily-armored and heavily-armed robot, anyway, so he died for nothing.
    • OmniCorp is hours away from revealing the rebuilt Alex Murphy as RoboCop.
      You'd Expect: They do a bit of rehearsing for any questions he might be asked, maybe let him rest a bit to get ready. In this situation, Alex has to do little more than smile and wave; any abilities he might be asked to demonstrate he already has installed.
      Instead: They decide to upload years worth of surveillance video backups from the Detroit Metropolitan Police Department's database, allowing his robotic brain to scan the logs for various crimes.
      Result: When the logs catch up to the day he was blown up, he's triggered and goes catatonic, forcing Dr. Norton to basically shut off his emotions to fix him in time for the press conference. The only reason it doesn't blow up in their faces is because of the next moment of idiocy. Speaking of which...
    • Thomas King is wanted for murder, arson, and rape.
      You'd Expect: King to be smart enough to not to be near a police station during a public event.
      Instead: He decides to stop by police headquarters during the unveiling of RoboCop.
      Result: It's thanks to King's decision to show his face that OmniCorp's screwing with Murphy's brain didn't blow up in their faces. Murphy, who was automatically scanning the crowd in his effectively doped-up state, spots King, calls out to him, and tases him when King tries to make a break for it.
    • During the climax, OmniCorp CEO Raymond Sellars is holding Murphy's family hostage and Murphy can't do anything as Sellars's is a red asset, meaning he's safe from OmniCorp's products going after him.
      You'd Expect: He'd be smart enough not to taunt Murphy.
      Instead: In a moment of Bond Villain Stupidity, he does exactly that, gloating and threatening Murphy's family. Murphy musters enough Heroic Willpower to override the red asset programming and shoot Sellars dead.
    • Dr. Norton has just brought Alex Murphy online as a cyborg for the first time, in doing so bringing him out of the coma he'd been in since he was injured. Alex is understandably disoriented, and unaware yet that he has become a cyborg. Dr. Norton is trying to be gentle and orient Alex to what's happened to him without freaking him out or provoking him. His assistant, Kim, is monitoring readouts and documenting the ordeal on her tablet.
      You'd Think: Kim would keep her mouth shut and let the more experienced doctor handle his patient.
      Instead: Kim starts lecturing Alex about amputees and phantom limb syndrome.
      Result: Alex freaks out and nearly kills Dr. Norton, and then tries to make a run for it. Dr. Norton is forced to deactivate Alex remotely to keep him from escaping. Now Alex has a bad first impression of what's been done to him, and Dr. Norton has to talk him down from wanting his plug pulled in the followup scene.
• In the low-budget horror schlockfest Rock 'n' Roll Nightmare, the entire band and their girlfriends are alerted to the sound of manager Phil screaming in terror in the basement. Unable to find him at the basement, Randi, the girlfriend of lead vocalist John Triton, suggests that they look for Phil upstairs. Triton says that "it sounded like the scream came from down here."
  You'd Expect: The gang to remain in the basement and keep looking for Phil.
  Instead: In less than a second, Triton goes "right, let's look upstairs," immediately agreeing to his girlfriend's bonehead suggestion.

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