Top 10 Most Boringly Obvious Film Titles
#10 – Hot Tub Time Machine
Well well well, we wonder what this film is about? With a title as stupid as that, you sort of hope for a so-bad-it’s-good movie to go with it. Sadly, this is a cruel and miserable world and hopes are for the feeble-minded; the film is terrible. More terrible than the title. What could we call it to trick the clever film critics into thinking it might possibly be an OK flick? This caused some debate amongst the BFF staff, with the worlds “tub” and “ghost” being bandied about a little too freely. In the end, we decided on The Chernobly Squirrel, after the plot-integral Russian drink and the bushy-tailed rodent that seems bent on causing trouble. Don’t tell us you wouldn’t be interested in watching THAT little beauty.
#9 – Saving Private Ryan
Tom Hanks gets tasked with a difficult mission in this flick; can you guess what it might be? Oh yeah, he totally has to go and save someone called Ryan. Who is also a private. So that’s that pretty much covered. What could you call it instead? Hmm; it’s tricky, very tricky. What about Sole Survivor, to relate back to the Sole Survivor Policy? Yeah. It’s not going to win any prizes, but it’s vague enough, huh?
#8 – Machine Gun Preacher
The film title of Gerard Butler’s latest flick makes me want to vomit just a little bit, but that could be a personal issue. Machine Gun Preacher. MACHINE GUN PREACHER?! Hmm, I haven’t seen this one yet, so I have no idea about the plotline. If I were to hazard a guess, I’d say it was about, I dunno, a PREACHER with a bloody big MACHINE GUN. Yiesh, They should’ve taken my advice and called it Fully Automatic Liberation. It’s so edgy, isn’t it? Three words that sound quite deep and, at the same time, so very empty… it means nothing but says so very much. And if Fully Automatic Liberation existed, you can bet the Tarantino fans would be FLOCKING to the cinemas.
#7 – Honey, I Shrunk The Kids!
Now what sort of paternal mishap could happen in THIS film? Maybe he loses them in the supermarket, or he accidentally sells them to a travelling tribesman, or he… oh. Oh, he shrinks them, does he? Of course he does. So that’s THAT surprise ruined forever. You know what might be better? Quarter Of An Inch. It’s a little bit edgy, a little bit dirty and racked with intrigue. RACKED with it. So much more enjoyable.
#6 – Snakes On A Plane
Uh-huh. Now, we actually quite (despite ourselves) enjoyed Snakes On A Plane and, to be honest, any other title would be grossly misleading to paying audiences. However, and it’s a big however, if we were going to slap an obscurity onto it, we’d call it Scaling New Heights. Whaddaya mean that’s stupid? If you can think of a better one, we’d be interested to hear it…
#5 – Zack And Miri Make A Porno
Meet Zack and Miri. You know what they’re going to spend their time doing throughout the plot of this movie? That’s right, they’re going to make a porno. Whilst this simultaneously fails as both a premise AND a title, we do feel it is our duty to sweep in and save the writers from themselves. How about Coffee Shop Camera? Or Star Whores? Or The Amateurs? SO MANY OPTIONS THAT WERE SEEN AND NOT TAKEN!!!
#4 – Throw Momma from the Train
They say trailers can give away too much, but what about a title that pretty much hands you the entire plot in five easy words? Ridiculous. How about we call this one Split By The Same Volcano instead? Ooh, yeah. You like that, huh? It’s so deep. So very deep and meaningful. We’ve just lifted that line out of the script; arthouse poetry is a doddle.
#3 – Alien vs. Predator
Looky looky! Do you think this film might possibly include the villain of Alien being pitched against the terrible creature that is Predator? Maybe? OF COURSE IT BLOODY DOES!!! I don’t care anymore. I just don’t care. It’s a stupid film anyway, with 2D characters and terrible dialogue, so why should I extend the hand of friendship to the AVP makers? Because I’m a wonderful, generous and generally life-affirming person, that’s why. They should call it The Ultimate Prey. Make the trailer ultra-mysterious. Reveal absolutely nothing until the film happens and, just maybe, you might lure in an unsuspecting audience before word gets out about the terrible sci-fi plot hash…
#2 – Three Men And A Baby
You can SEE that this film is about three men and a baby from the picture slapped on the DVD cover; why does the title have to hammer it home as well? You know what’d be an improvement? Latin. Latin would make this better in so many ways. They could have called it The Triumvirate; it would’ve sound all mysterious and religious and dark, wouldn’t it? People would’ve flocked to the cinema, waiting to be confused, and found themselves confronted with Tom Selleck, Steve Guttenberg and Ted Danson doing silly things with an infant. But that would’ve been fine, because it would have been POP-IRONY (or something similarly clever, anyway).
#1 – Toy Story
We love Disney. Disney is the KING of giving us amazing movies despite their oh so obvious titles. Look at Sleeping Beauty, or Beauty and the Beast, or The Hunchback of Notre Dame. There aren’t many surprises when we get to the plot, but it’s never an issue. Kids don’t really care about that stuff; if they did, don’t you think See Spot Run would’ve bombed when it first went on sale? Toy Story is, needless to say, one of our favourite Disney flicks but, should we rename it for the purposes of sounding extremely cultured at the next kiddy film festival, it’d be The Eternal Companions. Because, you know, the toys love Andy unconditionally. It’s beautiful, isn’t it? Go ahead, wipe away a tear if you want to. I’ll wait…
Do you have an alternative film title of your own? Dazzle us with your wordplay below…
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