I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998)
The Ending: For the second movie in a row, Jennifer Love-Hewitt is startled by the sudden and thoroughly improbable appearance of the murderous fisherman. First time round it turned out to be a dream, but this time… we don’t know! The film cuts to black before we are told.
If It Had Made Sense: It would explicitly have been a dream. Or she’d explicitly be dead. Does anyone care how he got under her bed in the first place? We’ll just leave it…
The Devil Inside (2012)
The Ending: You’re a budding filmmaker whose constructed an effectively nasty horror film. Why oh why would you end it with a URL? As illogical as it gets!
If It Had Made Sense: They would have decided to film an actual ending. Revolutionary, we know…
The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
The Ending: Somehow, Batman manages to make his way back to Gotham from Bane’s desert-set prison in the nick of time, before flying a nuclear bomb out to sea, and somehow escaping en route. Hmmm.
If It Had Made Sense: Bats would have bitten the bullet.
Sad as it would have been, it seemed the more logical ending.
Reservoir Dogs (1992)
The Ending: Joe is aiming at Orange. White is aiming at Joe. Eddie is aiming at White. So why does Eddie fall before White can get a second shot off?
If It Had Made Sense: Orange would have produced a gun and put one in Eddie. The story goes that Chris Pen’s squib malfunctioned, which is why he falls before White shoots again.
The Lost World (1997)
The Ending: The boat containing the T-Rex pitches up at San Diego with the crew all dead… and the T-Rex still in its container.
Seems fishy to us…
If It Had Made Sense: It would have done, had a brief scene showing a raptor fleeing the ship not been cut from the finished film. D’oh!
Donnie Darko (2001)
The Ending: Donnie travels through a time loop, voluntarily taking the hit and sacrificing himself in order to restore the natural order of things and thus saving his family’s lives. Or something like that.
If It Had Made Sense: If you follow Richard Kelly’s audio commentary, it does tally up, but only when taken in context of a host of material not actually disclosed in the film. On first watch, with no external knowledge, it doesn’t make much sense at all!
The Happening (2008)
The Ending: It turns out that that mass wave of suicides was caused by some angry plants.
Yes, plants.
If It Had Made Sense: You could still have had the biological disaster angle, but with the plants releasing a fatal toxin rather than projecting some form of mind-control that saps humanity’s will to live.
The Life Of David Gale (2003)
The Ending: David Gale’s plan to expose the flawed and unjust nature of the death penalty involves him planting his fingerprints on a murder scene.
However, he is also charged with rape…
If It Had Made Sense: It’s probably best that it doesn’t.
Do we really want to see the film in which this all tallies up?
The Village (2004)
The Ending: The village is revealed to be a fenced off rural retreat in present day America, where somehow the elders have the funds and contacts to ensure by whatever means necessary that nobody from the outside word ever comes in to bother them. Or flies a plane overhead.
If It Had Made Sense: Hmmm… they could have… what about… nope. There’s no saving this one!
Magnolia (1999)
The Ending: A beautiful, brilliant finale in which a sudden downpour of frogs puts the seal on three hours worth of slow-burn character development.
Great it may be, but it’s not big on logic.
If It Had Made Sense: The cast of characters would have worked their issues out in their own sweet time, rather than in one beautifully choreographed sequence.
Wouldn’t have been as good, mind…
