The Biggest Movie Plot Holes Of 2014

Were you paying attention in 2014? If so, maybe you spotted one of these gigantic plot holes - vast logic leaps and looming question marks that took you right out of the biggest blockbuster movies of the year. From conveniences and contrivances to straight-up practical impossibilities, these are the biggest plot holes of 2014.

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Be warned: this article contains spoilers.

‘X-Men: Days Of Future Past’ - Why didn’t Quicksilver help them stop the bullet?

A huge clanger here that’s fobbed off with a throwaway line of dialogue. One early scene shows young mutant Quicksilver (top right) reveal his power of super-speed, effectively slowing time to a crawl so he can stop two bullets from hitting his friends with plenty of time to spare. Why then, when it comes to recruiting a superteam to stop Mystique from shooting President Nixon and ensuring a dark future, does no one in the X-Men think that Quicksilver’s bullet-stopping powers might come in equally handy? He’s just shown himself to be exactly the man for the job! Peter Maximoff’s decision not to come along is addressed (it’s too dangerous, apparently) but Xavier, Magneto and friends don’t exactly protest. It’s a classic case of a movie painting itself into a corner and then refusing to acknowledge it.

‘Interstellar’ - McConaughey going into space hinges on a massive coincidence 

A story about black holes and wormholes was always likely to have plot holes feature too, but what’s surprising about ‘Interstellar’ is that its major plot goof isn’t really related to the wibbly wobbly timey-wimey stuff. Our major beef with Chris Nolan’s epic sci-fi is this: when Matthew McConaughey’s ex-pilot Coop stumbles on NASA’s plan to send a crew into a wormhole to secure mankind’s future, how is it that he waltzes right into the hot-seat - and what would Michael Caine and co. have done if Coop didn’t wind up on their doorstep? It’s all a little too convenient for our liking - we’re all for pre-determined futures and pre-destined fates and all that, but a spaceship with a big McConaughey-shaped hole in it is a touch TOO unlikely.

‘The Expendables 3’ - Stallone’s ridiculous round trip

Ignoring the real issue - that this bunch of OAPs couldn’t even make it up a flight of stairs without stopping for breath - there is a rather major oversight in Sylvester Stallone’s third ‘Expendables’ movie. Mel Gibson’s villain Conrad Stonebanks gives Sly’s Barney Ross an ultimatum: he has 48 hours to rescue his new team or they’ll die. The clock is ticking! Except in those 48 hours, Barney flies 6,000 miles from Romania to New Orleans, has time to stop, fix his plane, pick up his old team, then fly at least another 6,000 miles to ‘Assmanistan’ (a fictional Middle Eastern country) to rescue them. It’s a time-frame that renders Barney’s heroic last act a physical impossibility. Also, newsflash: people cannot outrun explosions. Sorry to break it to you.

‘Sex Tape’ - Nobody understands the Cloud, including the writers

If not a plot hole, this goof is certainly an oversight on the behalf of ‘Sex Tape’’s writers (yes, it had writers). The whole movie hinges around the fact that Jason Segel’s character is an Apple enthusiast and always buys the new model iPad when they’re released every year, giving away the old ones to friends and family. Hilarity ensues (or not) when Segel accidentally uploads his amateur sex tape to his iPad (who uses an iPad for its camera anyway?) and accidentally syncs it with all his old iPads - since given away as gifts - via the Cloud. The thing is, even your luddite granny knows that if you upload something to the Cloud you can delete it and it’ll be removed from any device it’s visible on, which sort of renders the rest of the film’s madcap road trip antics to retrieve the other iPads more than a little pointless.

‘Guardians Of The Galaxy’ - How does the Milano have a tape deck?

Everyone dug the 80s vibe in ‘Guardians Of The Galaxy’ - the post-’Star Wars’ sci-fi feel was palpable, right down to the leather jackets and the funky lasers. It’s not completely anachronistic, because Peter Quill is abducted from 1980s America with his Walkman - complete with Awesome Mix: Vol. 1 on tape - intact. This explains grown-up Quill’s love of 80s power ballads, but it doesn’t explain how his ship the Milano (named after 80s icon Alyssa Milano) is able to be fitted with a full tape deck (see above). Where exactly does one purchase one of those in the outer reaches of the galaxy? Do they have Dixons that far out? Do eBay charge extra for shipping?

‘Transformers: Age Of Extinction’ - Why didn’t Optimus use his flying powers earlier?

In echoes of ‘Star Wars’ prequel ‘Revenge Of The Sith’, where R2D2 revealed that he had the ability to fly all along, the fourth ‘Transformers’ movie had an equally surprising revelation right at the end: that Optimus Prime could fly - and fly into space, at that. There are several moments in ‘Age Of Extinction’ where the ability to fly could be considered quite useful - say, to remove the threat of an alien nuclear bomb and toss into the farthest regions of space. So Optimus Prime is an alien robot disguised as a car who can also fly when the mood strikes him. Hell, why not make him a dinosaur as well?

‘Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit’ - Jack Ryan could’ve easily captured the villain at the start

This is a thumping great plot hole that’s simply inexcusable for an otherwise polished thriller. The problem occurs when Jack Ryan leaves his wife, played by Keira Knightley, to distract Kenneth Branagh’s villain Cheverin, who is known to be planning something very nasty indeed. As Ryan hacks into Cheverin’s office, confirming his dastardliness, Cheverin kidnaps Ryan’s wife Cathy, leading to a frantic car chase around Moscow. Eventually, Cheverin’s car crashes and Cathy is retrieved from his clutches… although Cheverin himself is not captured or arrested or even retrieved in any way. This leaves him free to later carry out his evil plot, which involves the destruction of a nuclear device in Wall Street, which he very nearly pulls off. But it’s all so needless. He was right there, Jack Ryan! Right in that car that you were chasing! You idiot!

‘Gone Girl’ - Amy’s plan could’ve been debunked with a routine medical check-up

Amazing Amy thought her plan was watertight and foolproof, and it was, but for one fairly large oversight - one that was thankfully overlooked by the police too. Amy frames her cheating husband by cutting herself to create a pool of blood that the police will later assume comes from a massive head wound during a struggle - but when Amy is later recovered and examined by medical professionals, no one thinks to ask where the wound was or why she had no scar. In addition, when doctors examined her for signs of rape (which she faked, quite convincingly), they found no signs of her apparent pregnancy or miscarriage (also made up). A lot can be explained away by Amy’s duplicitous nature and her way at manipulating and distorting the facts to fit her story… but it’s still a big question mark.

‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ - There are mountains… in New York

Yes, we’re picking holes in a fun movie about ninja sewer tortoises, and yes we’re fine with that - because this one is just too stupid to ignore. In order to shoehorn in a really quite fantastic downhill chase sequence, director Jonathan Liebesman wants us to believe that there are giant snowy mountains just a stone’s throw away from central New York, where the rest of the movie takes place (see above). One minute, Leo, Raph, Donny and Mikey are chasing Shredder’s crew’s truck in downtown Manhattan, the next they’re sliding on their shells down a nearby Alpine rock. Then a few minutes later, they’re back in the bustling urban city centre. Honestly, it’s almost like this movie was made for children.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2’ - Richard Parker’s hidden message

There are boundless errors in ‘The Amazing Spider-Man 2’ - you’d need a feature all to itself to examine them in full - but one plot hole particularly rankles. The story of Richard Parker, Peter’s father, is confusing to say the least (it was mostly cut out of the final movie), but we were spared the scenes in which Parker Snr finds time to build a hidden subway car inside an old abandoned subway tunnel in which to hide a short video message to his son - a message which could have easily been hidden somewhere way more accessible which wouldn’t take 14 years to uncover. Wouldn’t that be a waste of his time, considering that he knows his card is marked? While we’re at it, how was Richard Parker able to transmit his video message wirelessly from a plane (a crashing plane at that) so easily in the year 2000?

Let us know if you agree with our choices in the comments below.

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