Hooniverse Asks: What's the Most Unrealistic Car Movie Stunt Ever?

GoneIn60
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

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  1. PotbellyJoe★★★★★ Avatar
    PotbellyJoe★★★★★

    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.

  2. GTXcellent Avatar
    GTXcellent

    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

    1. Tiberiuswise Avatar

      It gets a pass in my book because I see it as more of a magical ability than a stunt.

    2. Vairship Avatar
      Vairship

      Where we’re going, we don’t need aerodynamic wings…or propellers or any other visible means of propulsion!

    3. Rover 1 Avatar
      Rover 1

      But less unbelievable than Dick Van Dyke’s ‘Cockney accent’.

  3. smalleyxb122 Avatar
    smalleyxb122

    Tuesday answer: The train sequence in Torque.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07efco-yaGg

    1. KAC Avatar
      KAC

      How about the turbine bike chase?

  4. Tanshanomi Avatar

    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

    1. Maymar Avatar
      Maymar

      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.

    2. Rover 1 Avatar
      Rover 1

      Yeah, but it WAS an actual stunt done with a real car, not some special effect.

      1. Tanshanomi Avatar

        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.

  5. 0A5599 Avatar
    0A5599

    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.

    1. ptschett Avatar
      ptschett

      Also: counting how many times they pass the same green Beetle.

      1. Batshitbox Avatar
        Batshitbox

        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.

  6. Tiberiuswise Avatar

    I’ll go with the rocket car jump in Hooper. If the Trans Am was black, maybe…

    1. JayP Avatar
      JayP

      Still fun to watch…

      1. Hatchtopia Avatar

        I… Have no words.

      2. Tiberiuswise Avatar

        I cry every time the ’69 Mach I goes into the ditch.

      3. Vairship Avatar
        Vairship

        They sure store their gasoline in odd places in that town!
        Also, what’s Roscoe P Coltrane doing in that movie at 2:50? 😉

  7. engineerd Avatar
    engineerd

    Winnebagos are *not* capable of space travel.

    1. Tiberiuswise Avatar

      Shut your whore mouth!

  8. Alan Cesar Avatar
    Alan Cesar

    This one is from the (terrible) comedy, Speed Zone. It passes because it’s deliberately a joke. I just thought it was worth sharing:

    1. mzszsm Avatar
      mzszsm

      Thank you, I had forgotten what film that was from and started to think I mis-remembered Canonball Run.

  9. mzszsm Avatar
    mzszsm

    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

  10. Citric Avatar
    Citric

    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.)

    1. engineerd Avatar
      engineerd

      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.

    2. mzszsm Avatar
      mzszsm

      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.

    3. Citric Avatar
      Citric

      This is the chase, btw:

      1. mzszsm Avatar
        mzszsm

        I believe they used a dreamcast to render this, good for them. Also goosiverse is serving pages again.

  11. Tiberiuswise Avatar

    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!

  12. smokyburnout Avatar
    smokyburnout

    thanks to “Great Film Moments” on YouTube
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ew_Jbqrlj2g

    1. Sean McMillan Avatar
      Sean McMillan

      this was the first one that came to mind

  13. Harry Callahan Avatar
    Harry Callahan

    Blues Brothers. The whole effing movie.

    1. John Elwood Vukovich Avatar
      John Elwood Vukovich

      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.

  14. John Elwood Vukovich Avatar
    John Elwood Vukovich

    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… 🙂