Watch a lot of movies? You know the drill: it’s all about suspending your disbelief at the door – especially during an action movie, where implausible reigns supreme. Here are some of Hollywood’s most outlandish attempts to break the laws of physics – or nature!
Live Free or Die Hard: Car takes out helicopter
John McClane can take a bullet and keep going. He can walk away from a car wreck relatively unscathed. He can cheat death in just about every way possible, wisecracking all the way. But hurtling a cop car through a concrete pylon in order to take out a terrorist helicopter? Kinda unlikely, McClane.
Transporter 2: Flying car chase stunt
Jason Statham is no stranger to head-scratching stunts, but his turn as mercenary Frank Martin in Transporter 2 takes the cake. Basically, after leading a fleet of cop cars through a seaside boardwalk car chase, Frank takes his Audi through a multi-storey car park with police in pursuit. Backed into a corner on the top floor, with cops hot on his tail he floors it through a concrete barrier and launches the car through the air only to land, very conveniently, in another multi-level car park across the road. Wait… wha? We ain’t buying it.
The Day After Tomorrow: Students escape killer frost
When a superstorm plunges the world into an early ice age, only a few smart people are able to survive. Sam (Jake Gyllenhaal) is one of them because his dad happens to be a climatologist and tells him to go somewhere and keep warm (seriously). After Sam and his mates somehow outrun the killer frost, they hole up in a room in the New York Public Library where they burn books to stay toasty and keep the frost out. Nice idea, but totally bonkers. Just like Sam’s dad’s attempt to walk to New York to pick up his son. In a blizzard.
Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle: Save the day helicopter stunt
You gotta love a little girl power, and Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore and Lucy Lui are a fun trio to watch… but the stunt where their lorry carrying a chopper veers off a bridge and into a chasm is beyond dumb. Because instead of dying like 100% of people would in the exact same scenario, the Angels freedive, somehow catch up with the helicopter, turn it on and zoom up to safety before smashing into the bottom of the chasm! Yup, totally believable, right?
Speed: Bus jumps the freeway gap
Don’t get us wrong, Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves did a bang-up job of helming this runaway terrorist bus movie, but in real life if you tried to drive a heavy bus full of passengers over a gap that large in the California freeway, it would basically drop like a stone and everyone would perish in a fiery inferno.
John McClane can take a bullet and keep going. He can walk away from a car wreck relatively unscathed. He can cheat death in just about every way possible, wisecracking all the way. But hurtling a cop car through a concrete pylon in order to take out a terrorist helicopter? Kinda unlikely, McClane.
Transporter 2: Flying car chase stunt
Jason Statham is no stranger to head-scratching stunts, but his turn as mercenary Frank Martin in Transporter 2 takes the cake. Basically, after leading a fleet of cop cars through a seaside boardwalk car chase, Frank takes his Audi through a multi-storey car park with police in pursuit. Backed into a corner on the top floor, with cops hot on his tail he floors it through a concrete barrier and launches the car through the air only to land, very conveniently, in another multi-level car park across the road. Wait… wha? We ain’t buying it.
The Day After Tomorrow: Students escape killer frost
When a superstorm plunges the world into an early ice age, only a few smart people are able to survive. Sam (Jake Gyllenhaal) is one of them because his dad happens to be a climatologist and tells him to go somewhere and keep warm (seriously). After Sam and his mates somehow outrun the killer frost, they hole up in a room in the New York Public Library where they burn books to stay toasty and keep the frost out. Nice idea, but totally bonkers. Just like Sam’s dad’s attempt to walk to New York to pick up his son. In a blizzard.
Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle: Save the day helicopter stunt
You gotta love a little girl power, and Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore and Lucy Lui are a fun trio to watch… but the stunt where their lorry carrying a chopper veers off a bridge and into a chasm is beyond dumb. Because instead of dying like 100% of people would in the exact same scenario, the Angels freedive, somehow catch up with the helicopter, turn it on and zoom up to safety before smashing into the bottom of the chasm! Yup, totally believable, right?
Speed: Bus jumps the freeway gap
Don’t get us wrong, Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves did a bang-up job of helming this runaway terrorist bus movie, but in real life if you tried to drive a heavy bus full of passengers over a gap that large in the California freeway, it would basically drop like a stone and everyone would perish in a fiery inferno.
