I don’t know about you but I’m not a fan of fantasy movies. No, I like my movies to be grounded in reality. That doesn’t mean that I can’t enjoy a story like Harry Potter (spoiler alert – Snape kills Dumbledore) but that’s just because everything in those movies tends to operate by an accepted universe and things don’t generally violate those parameters.
It’s a different case when a movie – even a goofball adventure – presents something that defies both the film’s conventions and basic logic. Consider the movie Live Free of Die Hard, not a bad movie, right? Well, that scene with the jet and the collapsing freeway ramp simply went too far over the top in defying physics and logic for me. When it comes to car movie stunts – jumps, wheelies, Rockford moves inside malls, the same criteria applies.
Some stunts are played extravagantly on purpose – the flying Pinto scene in the Blues Brothers for one – and those are typically presented with a wink and a nod and are in line with the tone of the rest of the movie. Sometimes however, a pivotal set piece ends up being so wildly unbelievable that it can taint what is an otherwise good flick. That’s what we’re looking for today, the goofball car stunts that defy physics and logic. You know you know them, now it’s time to share ’em!
Image: dailyderbi
Hooniverse Asks: What's the Most Unrealistic Car Movie Stunt Ever?
By Robert Emslie
Sep 16, 2015
Kamil Kaluski 
Jeff Glucker
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJVb3BtojY4
Any stunt in any of the Herbie films, but especially the LiLo one with her father, Batman.
It’s like Meet the Parents level of beating the same drum to try to add comedy to a situation that stopped being fun/funny 4 problems ago.
No snark ’cause I still really enjoy this movie, but if the question is the most unrealistic car movie stunt, well…
http://walkwithmidge.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/chitty-chitty-bang-bang.png
It gets a pass in my book because I see it as more of a magical ability than a stunt.
Where we’re going, we don’t need aerodynamic wings…or propellers or any other visible means of propulsion!
But less unbelievable than Dick Van Dyke’s ‘Cockney accent’.
Tuesday answer: The train sequence in Torque.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07efco-yaGg
How about the turbine bike chase?
I am temped to say the Astro-Spiral Jump in The Man With The Golden Gun. Don’t get me wrong, the Astro-Spiral remains THE MOST AWESOME hell-drivers stunt EVAR*, but it didn’t belong in a movie.
http://www.motoringme.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Bond_Cars_2.jpg
*One of my favorite childhood moments was seeing the All American Thrill Show do the Astro-Spiral live at the 1975 Erie County Fair
That was pretty emblematic of the Moore-era Bonds – do something technically impressive, if a little shoehorned in (which, let’s be honest, a significant portion of the Bond franchise owes its existence to shoehorning things in), and then throw on some slide whistle, in case it seems like a good choice.
Yeah, but it WAS an actual stunt done with a real car, not some special effect.
Which is exactly why it didn’t belong in the movie. To have engineers at calspan work it out over several years: cool. To try to convince me that Roger Moore looked at an old Bridge in southeast Asia and on the spur of the moment went “that might work with zero preparation”: Not cool.
It’s a continuity error rather than an unrealistic stunt, but I am unable to appreciate the Bullitt chase without counting hubcaps as they come off the Charger.
Also: counting how many times they pass the same green Beetle.
Also, I’m told if you look closely and know your San Francisco geography McQueen goes airborne about three miles from where he touches down, but that happens in Dirty Harry, The Rock, and pretty much every movie in San Francisco.
I’ll go with the rocket car jump in Hooper. If the Trans Am was black, maybe…
Still fun to watch…
I… Have no words.
I cry every time the ’69 Mach I goes into the ditch.
They sure store their gasoline in odd places in that town!
Also, what’s Roscoe P Coltrane doing in that movie at 2:50? 😉
Winnebagos are *not* capable of space travel.
Shut your whore mouth!
This one is from the (terrible) comedy, Speed Zone. It passes because it’s deliberately a joke. I just thought it was worth sharing:
Thank you, I had forgotten what film that was from and started to think I mis-remembered Canonball Run.
There was nothing unrealistic about Cannonball Run. Nothing I tell you!
http://carsmedia.ign.com/cars/image/article/635/635169/cannonball-run-feature-20050728115651431.jpg
Makes me sad to put this here because to the eyes of this three year old it was the most incredible: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8CzZrDCusg
The finale chase in XXX 2, where a CGI Cobra drives on the train tracks might be unrealistic, but at least it looks impressively fake.
(Anyone else having the desktop version of the site not update? I could post a video but I’m on a phone because of that.)
It’s not updating for me. I thought it was something with the web service here at work as it is updating fine on my phone. I’ve tried both Chrome and IE and cleared cache, but the last post I see the last call from yesterday.
Same here, even if I use http://hooniverse.info/2015/09/16/ this hooniverse asks is the only page showing. I do know that http://hooniverse.info/2015/09/16/cadillac-doesnt-care-if-you-dont-buy-cadillacs/ also was posted today cause CCC linked to it. Maybe the goose that lays the golden egg has turned-up her bill to an hooniverse article quoting adage, assuming said goose has not been cooked already. Anyway, done all the usual tricks.
This is the chase, btw:
I believe they used a dreamcast to render this, good for them. Also goosiverse is serving pages again.
I find nothing unrealistic about the chase scene in The Dukes of Hazard movie. Nothing that a little AC/DC in the background can’t fix. If you want realistic, you got it!
thanks to “Great Film Moments” on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ew_Jbqrlj2g
this was the first one that came to mind
Blues Brothers. The whole effing movie.
In the original article, they said that the entire Blues Brothers movie got a free pass because darn near every scene with the car(s) in it was over the top.
The naked chick riding the Honda motorcycle in the ORIGINAL “Vanishing Point” movie. That stuff NEVER happens in real life. At least not to me… 🙂