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ifisch t1_j27p9gn wrote

I was really loving the movie until the ending.

Rian Johnson has a habit of writing scripts where the big reveal is....nothing.

In this case, the entire movie was building up to a big clever satisfying reveal, and the reveal was...nothing. Basically there was no big mystery, just a guy acting stupid and obvious.

I get that the big twist is supposed to be that Ed Norton's character is actually really dumb, despite being a billionaire, but is that really a good reveal when the character was acting dumb the entire movie?

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seanmharcailin t1_j27s2sp wrote

The movie isn’t leading up to a twist. It’s leading up to the Whodunnit. The twist is in the very middle, where we learn about the twin swap.

If you’ve paid any attention to the movie you already know Miles is an idiot and the murderer by the time we get there. I mean, you know it when he hands the glass to Duke.

If you were expecting a third act twist, you’re watching the wrong script.

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dalefmcfarlane t1_j27wb1s wrote

You see miles take the gun and the phone too.

But, the glass thing is what primes you to keep your eye on him.

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ebietoo t1_j28xkqa wrote

The casting for this is brilliant. By the time we get down to it, I can’t wait for somebody to knock that smirk off Ed Norton’s face.

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davidw_- t1_j2866x7 wrote

You say that like the genre of the movie is not a clue kind of movie

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TeqTx t1_j28cjrg wrote

What an incredible nonsensical cop out lmao

I can't believe people are upvoting this shit

"It leads to the Whodunnit" Jesus fuck lol

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elainemasi13 t1_j28hhn1 wrote

Ew.

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[deleted] t1_j28i4s6 wrote

[deleted]

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elainemasi13 t1_j29kffn wrote

It is. Creepy that you looked. I double down on the ew.

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ifisch t1_j280qki wrote

Ok but shouldn't the climax of a Whodunnit be the reveal of...who dun it?

I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that in a murder mystery movie.

Also if the big twist is the twin sister thing, that's a pretty lame twist.

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Imbrown2 t1_j27pnhb wrote

I think you really didn’t get what the movie is going for. There’s a whole bunch of stuff going on, and Miles being dumb isn’t supposed to be the singular “reveal” point of the movie. It’s just a part of it.

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ivandragostwin t1_j27slad wrote

Yeah I felt like it was pretty clear the “big reveal” was the fact it was >! the twin sister and they were investigating a murder before they even got there as opposed to random shit happening while on island because he’s an idiot. !<

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drelos t1_j28ffue wrote

And also part of the reveal is the fact Benoit wasn't invited at all he just appeared because Helen asked that.

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ifisch t1_j281ivf wrote

Ok well that's a pretty cheap "big reveal". I didn't find that very clever or satisfying. I was kindof hoping the movie was building to something bigger.

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PunkandCannonballer t1_j27vfro wrote

The film wasn't leading to a reveal. The "reveal" happened halfway through when we learn that Andi is actually her twin sister. Throughout the film Miles makes it abundantly clear he's the murderer. He hands Duke the poisoned glass. He's seen with the gun before "Andi" gets shot. It isn't rocket science. Even the conclusion of the film is telegraphed heavily with the often repeated line about him being remembered in the same breath as the Mona Lisa, him having the Mona Lisa, and him having a very dangerous hydrogen-based fuel in his entire house.

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jerrygreen818 t1_j283vpu wrote

I started to think maybe it wasn't so complicated when all the names were in alphabetical order. Andi. Birdie. Claire. Duke. All the names aren't like that but for a sec I thought I was doing an LSAT logic puzzle.

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Guilty-Presence-1048 t1_j28gqsv wrote

One of the fun twists of the movie is that there were multiple Chekhov's guns. The Mona Lisa override switch and Bron's little saying made it abundantly clear his arrogance would result in the destruction of the priceless artwork.

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ifisch t1_j28120a wrote

Yea that was also really dumb.

"Yea I was gonna power my entire country with this super energy efficient fuel, but since it got some bad publicity, so I'm not anymore" What?!

We literally tolerate insane human rights abuses from Saudi Arabia for access to their oil.

And the whole bit about the fuel being super combustible... how is that a downside exactly?

I get it's probably not a good idea to fill a blimp with it, but combustibility is a pretty good aspect for a fuel source to have lol.

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Zanydrop t1_j282zay wrote

If an inventor blew up his own mansion and the most famous piece of art in history would you want to be first in line to try the new invention?

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BeanieMcChimp t1_j285orc wrote

The problem they mentioned wasn’t that it’s combustible— it was that the molecules are smaller than methane so pipes built for methane would leak the stuff all over.

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ifisch t1_j2a8yo9 wrote

....ok so just use it in powerplants built to contain molecules smaller than methane....or just get some new pipes

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Asiriya t1_j28agct wrote

But that’s why it’s a solid?

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PunkandCannonballer t1_j28fao7 wrote

Not to insult you or anything, but Norton's character literally says this after the explosion. Andi's sister then says very simply that no one is going to buy the "miracle fuel" from a billionaire that blew up his own house and the most famous painting in the world with said fuel and calls him a dumbass for not seeing that very obvious conclusion.

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ifisch t1_j2a97wh wrote

Yea ok and she's obviously wrong.

Like "oh I was gonna use this fuel that would cut my electricity bill by 90%, but I heard it caused a fire that burned something important so I'm not anymore...." what? Never in a million years.

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PunkandCannonballer t1_j2aaaw7 wrote

"Let's release, to the public, a fuel source that could explode an entire home, and literally the only instance we have of it running a home resulted in that home not only blowing up, but the destruction of the most famous painting in the world. Oh, and add to that the billionaire who is backed the idea is an idiot that stole the idea that got him his fortune and murdered the woman who initially had the idea."

She's OBVIOUSLY correct. You'd have to be a fucking basket case to not only use that fuel, but to also okay it for widespread use. Imagine if every house on a block uses it and one blows up? Then they all would. It's a mind-bogglingly stupid idea.

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ifisch t1_j2abqzq wrote

Millions of homes are powered by nuclear power. Do you think that means they have Uranium fuel rods in their walls?

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PunkandCannonballer t1_j2aiyys wrote

You're seriously ignoring everything the film is telling you. The person who invented it is described as "sketchy." Lionel said he needed at least two years to see if it was safe for use, and didn't want to use it in a manned mission. Andi said it had the potential to "literally blow up the world." It literally blew up a billionaire's home and the fucking Mona Lisa.

The film isn't presenting the fuel source as a viable alternative to fossil fuels, it's giving a BUNCH of reasons to conclude that the fuel source is questionable at best, insanely dangerous at worst, and backed by an murderous idiot.

Also, you're comparing nuclear power which has been around for decades to a new power source that literally has only one single live test and that test resulted in an explosion that burned the Mona Lisa. These aren't even remotely the same. The aftermath of the hindenberg or the chernobyl meltdown should be enough to tell you that people don't just throw away caution after a spectacular disaster simply because something has potential to be beneficial.

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ifisch t1_j2aytoy wrote

I am saying that Rian Johnson doesn't seem to know much about how power generation works.

He either didn't do the research or if he did do the research, and didn't care.

A fuel source that "results in an explosion" isn't a bad thing. Ever heard of an internal combustion engine?

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PunkandCannonballer t1_j2ce2ql wrote

Are you trying to say that an internal combustion engine has blown up priceless works of art and the first time it was used it blew up a home? Because don't think you're making the important distinction between something that creates combustion on purpose in a controlled way and something that accidentally blows up.

This is his entirely fictional fuel source and in his narrative we learn from trusted characters to question the veracity of the fuel source and believe it to be too dangerous to use. We learn from the questionable characters that it's a fuel source to be used immediately. Who do you think is in the wrong in this situation? The murderous idiotic billionaire who blew up his house and the Mona Lisa because he wouldn't take the necessary cautionary steps or everyone who tried to stop him and his fuel source? You'd have to be an idiot to think that something that is literally shown blowing up a home and isn't tested beyond one single instance is something that could be considered a viable energy source.

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TeqTx t1_j28cmx5 wrote

There's no point arguing with people about how awful this movie was on all levels

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volantredx t1_j27w739 wrote

The point is that everyone fails to realize he is a moron. The whole reason he isn't a suspect at first is that he seemed too smart to do something so obvious, but the reveal is that he isn't and the obvious solution is true.

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Logrologist t1_j286b3r wrote

Just watched this myself, and the more stand-out obvious thing that didn’t make sense from a writing standpoint (at all), is >!why didn’t he also shoot Blanc? In fact, once he saw him on the island, why wasn’t he the only one he killed? Benoit was the only one that posed an actual threat, he had no way to defend himself (or to flee), and since Miles clearly knew he killed the sister (especially after seeing the death announcement), why wouldn’t he just shoot Benoit?!<

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obyteo t1_j27pq4f wrote

Similar opinion here, I liked the setting and the development but once we got to the big 3rd act reveals things got really dumb real fast and not just from the bad guy but from the good person, it seemed nonsensical how they arrived to the destruction instead of something like recording the bad person confessing or something like that...

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pijinglish t1_j27um2f wrote

His comeuppance isn't arrived at via the napkin, or the loss of his company, it's in the unavoidable fact that he'll be forever known as the idiot who destroyed the Mona Lisa.

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TheLisan-al-Gaib t1_j2822b3 wrote

I imagine the French government would lock his ass up, wouldn't they?

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obyteo t1_j289ks8 wrote

Yeah but that wasn't the original plan, Helen found the key evidence and for some reason took the original in front of the killer who, by this point, still should have a gun... And when he burns it she and Blanc figure the destruction plan out, which depended on her being able to reach that button before the guy with a pistol on hand. Pretty dumb ending.

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Guilty-Presence-1048 t1_j28hkq9 wrote

It's twofold. The first is the Mona Lisa. The second is the legal consequences coming from the disruptors turning on him. He'll be destroyed, not just his reputation but financially too.

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sjfiuauqadfj t1_j27tm7o wrote

recording a confession is pretty cliche, but thats where miles played it smart because he doesnt actually confess so theres nothing to record

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Guilty-Presence-1048 t1_j28hg3h wrote

Exactly. He feigns incredulity when she says he burned the napkin. The whole thing was the other "disruptors" protecting him with lies and then turning on him as the final beat to the plot.

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obyteo t1_j289sif wrote

I expected something clever like that being a dummy napkin for him to burn and be confident he's clear or some other clever method, not here Helen remember you can make the house explode and survive unscathed to then press a button that makes the Mona Lisa burn before the killer with a gun stops you...

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hisokafan88 t1_j27wq81 wrote

Miles is revealed as an idiot from the second he admits to not being the one who created the boxes, his weird way with words, and the reveal he did not put the murder mystery together. Everything about him is pugnacious and despicable and it's only rhe absolute spectacle of the island (and the sycophantic behaviour of the guests) that brightens his dimwits for barely an hour of the screen time. That is not a twist. It's a sad revelation to a foregone conclusion. Like Brendan finding Emily dead in a sewer.

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akisamekoetsuji t1_j27vb7n wrote

I digress, but I feel like the inherit trait of mysteries and big-reveal stories is that after the build up, if done correctly, we always expect something we couldn't possible imagine but that is never a case or ,I doubt, even a possibility.

I love mysteries but endings almost never live up to the expectations. iono..

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speak-eze t1_j27yzcl wrote

I think it's the opposite - that any of them were a viable possibility. I feel like for whodunnit movies, most viewers don't want some big "out of left field" twist to be the answer. They are given multiple possibilities that all makes sense along the way, and you just don't know which one it is.

If you are given all those options throughout the movie, and then none of them are the answer and its something else entirely, that would make the rest of the movie seem completely pointless imo.

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mavyapsy t1_j28cj9k wrote

I quite liked it because it subverts the expectations of a traditional whodunnit. When you watch one you always expect an elaborate murder scheme with a crazy motivation that no one ever expects. I like watching whodunnits, and my mind immediately starts trying to piece of what crazy elaborate scheme and motivation led to the murder based on the tiniest clues in the background.

Like the murder mystery game miles tried to stage which was solved within seconds of it starting.

When it was revealed that the whole thing was done by an incompetent moron who basically had no idea wtf he was doing the whole time, to me it was a hilarious twist on the genre as a whole

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ifisch t1_j2acufs wrote

I think we're saying the same thing. He subverted your expectations because you expected something elaborate and clever, but instead he gave you....nothing.

Cool. Thanks Rian lol

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ebietoo t1_j28ypyk wrote

. It is untrue, what you say about Rian Johnson and endings. Think about Brick, think about Looper. Those are not “nothing” endings. Hell, think about Knives Out— actually, I guess you are; and are expecting twists right up until the end in this movie too. But he made it explicit from the title on down through the course of the movie, that the apparently complicated puzzle was in fact obvious and in plain sight the whole time.

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NCBaddict t1_j27rhr1 wrote

Are we allowed to say this on the internet? As someone who liked Knives Out, this was hella disappointing. It’s not clever to lampshade the use of the obvious suspect twice in a row.

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sjfiuauqadfj t1_j27tps3 wrote

its extremely clever if you engage the movie for what it is, which isnt a real whodunit

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NCBaddict t1_j27zypd wrote

“yOu juST woULdn’T gEt iT” - Joaquin Phoenix, after I wasted 2 hours of my life

Rian Johnson, Todd Phillips, and Adam McKay oughta get an island together where they circle jerk each other for being much smarter than their dummy audiences

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