Unsatisfying or shit endings to films

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

This seems to be a more frequent occurrence these days. Films just can't be tied up satisfactorly.

There are a few different ones:

-Mad twist that undermines the emotional investment in everything that went before it and also makes no sense (eg. Side Effects, Now You See Me)
-The neverending mystery. The film concludes with a reveal posing more questions than it answers (A Scanner Darkly)
-Fuck all. The film decides to end without even pacing itself towards a finish. (The Master)
-Oh Who Knows, the film takes some hyperreal turn for 15 minutes of cheap bullshit to distract from the unfinished plot (Django, Worlds End)

When's the last time you saw a killer ending?

Frankly my dear, I do give a damn.

[Queneau]

The Never Ending Story. I didn't see that one coming.

[clingfilm portent]

Similar to your last one is what the film Berbarian Sound Studio was really badly guilty of. The only thing missing from that film to make it exceptional was a good, or even decent, ending. What we got instead was just a load of effects, some of which were nice, some of which weren't. But it wasn't satisfying at all.

[Bad Ambassador]

The Bourne Legacy stops about two thirds of the way through the story. I was genuinely shocked when the end titles started, as the film clearly wasn't over.

[madhair60]

Haute Tension/Switchblade Romance.  Fuckrot.

[Johnny Townmouse]

I have started to grow increasingly annoyed, irritated and bored by neat and resolved restorative three-act structure style endings to either novels or films. It's so fucking tedious. I know it can be just as irritating when someone attempts to go for an enigmatic, anti-resolution ending (usually one of those bloody Europans, amirite?) but I will take that over Snyder-endings any day.

I watched Trance today and what a load of fucking gash that is. The third act is people telling us backstory with accompanying footage, like a Crimewatch reconstruction. Appalling shite. And McEvoy really has outstayed his welcome for me. Smug bastard.

[Glebe]

I've one of those people who demands a satisfactory conclusion (not that I don't enjoy open-ended, mysterious, artsy endings, mind). One again, I'm buggered if I can think of anything of the top of my head, but there are loads of films that have wound me up for running out of steam and and just, er, 'ending'.

[Johnny Townmouse]

I've one of those people who demands a satisfactory conclusion

[Noodle Lizard]

'Inception' has one of the shittiest endings in recent film history, but strangely most people seem to think it's great.  It's not, it's shit.  It's complete bollocks for a film which has spent the past two and a half hours having Leonardo DiCaprio (read: Chris Nolan) explaining everything that's happening in tediously expository detail to end on a very forced moment of ambiguity.  My suspicion is that Nolan realised the ending itself was very damp, and threw in that final moment just to convince people that it was actually profound, thereby also hoping that the audience might forget how uninvolving the rest of the film is.  An "oh bollocks" ending if ever there was one.

The ending of 'Red State' would have been a bit of a dud too if it hadn't included that final scene with Michael Parks, which really kicks off the credits quite satisfyingly.

[Noodle Lizard]

Similar to your last one is what the film Berbarian Sound Studio was really badly guilty of. The only thing missing from that film to make it exceptional was a good, or even decent, ending. What we got instead was just a load of effects, some of which were nice, some of which weren't. But it wasn't satisfying at all.

I'm with you there.  It's a real shame because the first two thirds or so had real potential, I thought it would easily become my favourite film of the year, but then ... bollocks.  It's as if whoever wrote it hadn't mapped out the story and just kept on writing until he reached the 90 page mark.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Haute Tension/Switchblade Romance.  Fuckrot.

I remember the chainsaw bit being unspeakably grim and psychotic.

Still, she has a wank at the start! A lady wanking in a film!

[Noodle Lizard]

-The neverending mystery. The film concludes with a reveal posing more questions than it answers (A Scanner Darkly)

It's been a while since I've seen it, but I remember 'A Scanner Darkly' ending pretty succinctly. 

Spoiler alert

The rehab place Keanu gets sent to has its patients farming the Substance D flower, and he collects one as evidence for Winona Ryder and the other detectives.  Basically, they'd sent him there undercover (without him knowing) because they suspected the rehab place of producing the drug.

[close]

.

[Johnny Townmouse]

I like the general grimness of European endings. I think contemporary films like Rosetta, Hidden, Dancer in the Dark and Stolen Children tap into that Bergman tradition of finding a more literary influenced ending that is less about narrative resolution, and more about movement and the acknowledgement of change.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

The eighties knew how to end a film. Every bad guy dead then making out with the female lead on a yacht as the camera pans out to a tropical island and the credits.

[Mini]

It's been a while since I've seen it, but I remember 'A Scanner Darkly' ending pretty succinctly. 

Spoiler alert

The rehab place Keanu gets sent to has its patients farming the Substance D flower, and he collects one as evidence for Winona Ryder and the other detectives.  Basically, they'd sent him there undercover (without him knowing) because they suspected the rehab place of producing the drug.

[close]

.

I watched it today and that is right. Brilliant film.

But the day before I watched Exam, which desperately needs a satisfying ending and fails to deliver. Plus it's eerily like The Apprentice.

[eluc55]

-Mad twist that undermines the emotional investment in everything that went before it and also makes no sense (eg. Side Effects, Now You See Me)

One that immediately springs to mind is the ending to X-Men 3.

The whole film pivots around the promise of a drug that "cures" mutants and turns them into normal humans... and throughout the film, various key characters are injected, either by choice or by force, turning them into normal humans again. At the very end of the film, even the mutant leader, Magneto, gets struck with a needle and loses all of his powers.

And the final sequence, before the credits roll? Magneto is playing chess and suddenly realises that he can still move metal... albeit, very slightly. Cue a knowing look to camera and cut to credits.

In effect, the entire film is rendered totally irrelevant by one naff attempt to tease another sequel. If Magneto can potentially regain his powers, then what's stopping any of the other characters regaining them as well? And if the injection doesn't work long term, then really there was never any threat to the mutant in the first place - and the whole war and most of the character's choices throughout the film are totally irrelevant. All those characters that took the injection to be cured; give it a few years and their lives will be miserable again. All those characters that were forced to take it and want to be mutants; they're only inconvenienced for a short while, before they can resume whatever they were doing. Even by the standard set by the rest of the film, it's such a terrible ending.

[BritishHobo]

'Inception' has one of the shittiest endings in recent film history, but strangely most people seem to think it's great.  It's not, it's shit.  It's complete bollocks for a film which has spent the past two and a half hours having Leonardo DiCaprio (read: Chris Nolan) explaining everything that's happening in tediously expository detail to end on a very forced moment of ambiguity.  My suspicion is that Nolan realised the ending itself was very damp, and threw in that final moment just to convince people that it was actually profound, thereby also hoping that the audience might forget how uninvolving the rest of the film is.  An "oh bollocks" ending if ever there was one.

The ending of 'Red State' would have been a bit of a dud too if it hadn't included that final scene with Michael Parks, which really kicks off the credits quite satisfyingly.

I'm not normally a cynical type, but the preceding film was so dull that the big mysterious ending struck me as existing purely to create a question Nolan hoped would live on on message boards and in discussion of cinema for years to come. Might as well have had a tramp dance by wearing a sign saying 'Ooooooh, mysteeeeeeerious!' for all the fucking worth it had.

[BritishHobo]

I still really like the ending to Now You See Me though. I always despise movies with end twists that basically render the entire plot thus far a complete misdirect (The Perfect Host), but Now You See Me was clear from the start that you're basically watching a flashy magic trick (and given that it's a movie and they can make anything happen, a trick without a solution is a waste of time), urging you to look at the bigger picture and not get misdirected by certain details - and I don't think there's many holes in the reveal, if any at all.

Spoiler alert

There's one or two scenes where, alone, he acts in the role of the FBI agent, but I'm pretty sure that in both those cases it's to keep up pretences for if his French partner comes across him, as she does both times. And it makes more sense to be him than any other character - it makes perfect sense for him to take the role as head of the investigation, because then he can bungle it at every turn and ensure the magicians aren't stopped. Which then explains why he does bungle it at every turn, stubbornly refusing to heed their advice about misdirection. It's completely sound, I think.

[close]

[Noodle Lizard]

I'm not normally a cynical type, but the preceding film was so dull that the big mysterious ending struck me as existing purely to create a question Nolan hoped would live on on message boards and in discussion of cinema for years to come. Might as well have had a tramp dance by wearing a sign saying 'Ooooooh, mysteeeeeeerious!' for all the fucking worth it had.

That's pretty much what I said (albeit better worded, admittedly).

[BritishHobo]

Oh aye, didn't mean to seem like I was disagreeing with you or anything. Your criticism of it just reminded me of how much it fucked me off.

[zomgmouse]

I remember feeling quite let down by the ending of The Machinist.

[Mister Six]

I'm not normally a cynical type, but the preceding film was so dull that the big mysterious ending struck me as existing purely to create a question Nolan hoped would live on on message boards and in discussion of cinema for years to come. Might as well have had a tramp dance by wearing a sign saying 'Ooooooh, mysteeeeeeerious!' for all the fucking worth it had.

Whereas I thought it was a cute wink at the audience. The slight wobble had a hint of humour about it.

It still wasn't a very good film though.

[HappyTree]

'Inception' has one of the shittiest endings in recent film history...on a very forced moment of ambiguity

I would agree that it's not a great ending, but for precisely the opposite reason. I never felt it was in any way ambiguous at all and left the cinema thinking "Why did the shot linger long enough for me to see the top wobble and begin to fall?" I had assumed it was supposed to leave me in doubt, but it didn't. Maybe just a matter of the editing being out by ½ a second, in my view.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

I didn't have a problem with the Inception ending because the story and the emotional journey felt complete anyway, and the end was the director handing the rest to the audience. In a generous way, not to say that it was meaningless.

X Men 3? - In effect, the entire film is rendered totally irrelevant by one naff attempt to tease another sequel. If Magneto can potentially regain his powers, then what's stopping any of the other characters regaining them as well? And if the injection doesn't work long term, then really there was never any threat to the mutant in the first place - and the whole war and most of the character's choices throughout the film are totally irrelevant. All those characters that took the injection to be cured; give it a few years and their lives will be miserable again. All those characters that were forced to take it and want to be mutants; they're only inconvenienced for a short while, before they can resume whatever they were doing. Even by the standard set by the rest of the film, it's such a terrible ending.

I haven't seen it but that seems standard fare for the genre. Most fans would, I think prefer the X Men world to still contain superpowers, and also to never actually end. So they get what they want.

[BlodwynPig]

"Silencio"

[eluc55]

I haven't seen it but that seems standard fare for the genre. Most fans would, I think prefer the X Men world to still contain superpowers, and also to never actually end. So they get what they want.

A teaser for the next film is common, yes. But not one that completely undermines the entire plot of the preceding film and most of the moral questions and dramatic beats running through it.

Add the fact that, at the time, X-Men 3 was supposed to the "last" major x-men film, so an open ending wasn't needed and closure was.

Finally, if you don't want some of the franchise's core mutants to be cured/left without powers, then don't have them lose those powers in the first place. Have other characters lose their powers (permenantly), instead. Or choose characters that the series can cope without (ie. not Magneto).

The problem with the ending isn't that it's a naff hint at a sequel. It's the fact that it totally undermines the entire film, just for a naff hint at a sequel. 

[SteveDave]

Kill List. Goodbye.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Finally, if you don't want some of the franchise's core mutants to be cured/left without powers, then don't have them lose those powers in the first place. Have other characters lose their powers (permenantly), instead. Or choose characters that the series can cope without (ie. not Magneto).

I suppose with X-Men, a bit like with Superman the whole losing superpowers thing is the main point of tension/threat to use in such films. And they wouldn't use characters no-one cares about because then no-one would care.

The horror genre is really shit but at least it's understood that baddies don't die- if a new film is made it doesn't matter what happened to them in the previous one, they just made it, somehow.

[holyzombiejesus]

Kill List had a great ending.

Breaking the Waves, however, was an utter load of dog eggs.

My mum went to see The Usual Suspects at the cinema and rang me up, raving about it. When I asked her if she enjoyed the big reveal at the end, she said she didn't know what I meant and she hadn't understood that bit of the film at all. The daft cow.

[Noodle Lizard]

Breaking the Waves, however, was an utter load of dog eggs.

You mean the bells ringing in heaven thing?  Yeah, that was daft.