40 (Mildly) Infuriating Movie Plot Holes You May Not Have Noticed Before

"The way the Marauders' Map works...wouldn't Fred and George have SEEN Peter Pettigrew sleeping in bed with Ron every night on the map?"

"I like to imagine there was a conversation behind the scenes like this: Ben Affleck: 'Wouldn't it be easier to train astronauts to be drillers than it would be to train oil drillers to be astronauts?' Michael Bay: 'Shut the [hell] up.'"

Hades (James Woods), king of the underworld, wants Hercules (Tate Donovan) dead. He puts his best henchmen, Pain and Panic (Bobcat Goldthwait and Matt Frewer), on the job. They tell him he’s dead. And Hades believes them, for quite some time!

But, as we know, they’re dead wrong.

Hercules may be super strong. But Hades is, without exaggeration, the king of the underworld. Why didn’t he double check that Hercules was actually dead? Just by, like, looking around? He lives and works in the place where dead people go. Wouldn’t Hercules have shown up?

"Mel Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix find out that water is toxic to the aliens...yet the aliens have been fine walking around with all the natural humidity in the air on a planet made up of MOSTLY water."

In literally every single Christmas movie, none of the parents believe in Santa, yet every year there are several unexpected presents under the tree and no one questions it.

In Tangled, everything revolved around Rapunzel seeing the lights on her birthday, but Mother Gothel could have just lied about which day she was born.

She wants to be where the people are. So Ariel, The Little Mermaid herself, makes a deal to gain legs and lose her voice, just so she can go above the sea and fall in love with Prince Eric. Complications, often involving charades, ensue.

But why didn’t she write on a piece of paper to Eric about what was going on? After all, we see her write in English earlier when she signs her name for the deal.

Fans asked animators this question at an event. The animators just smiled and said, “Next question.”

The kind of plot hole that gives directors and scriptwriters nightmares can be found in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider – Angelina Jolie’s fun but flawed video game adaptation from 2001. The film focuses on Lara Croft’s mission to protect the world from the Illuminati, who are planning to use an artefact called the Triangle during a solar eclipse to inflict devastation on the world – a peak 00s plot if ever we’ve heard one. We learn that the Triangle is split into two parts, and after acquiring the first of them in Cambodia, Croft sets off on another perilous journey to retrieve the second in Siberia. The problem is, we already know the Triangle can’t work without both halves, so all Croft had to do was destroy the half she already had in her possession and the job would be done.

"Oh, this human-made computer virus magically works on their alien technology, too, because that's how computers work."

In A Quiet Place, instead of making shelter near the waterfall (i.e. the only place where the killer monsters couldn't hear them), they lived on a noisy farm.

In Monsters University, Mike and Sully didn't meet until their first year of college, but in Monster's, Inc. they claimed to be friends since elementary school.

"How did Marty’s dad not recognize that his son grew up to be the person that helped him get the girl he wanted? Like, he didn't even think he looked remotely familiar later in life."

We know — most of the Nicolas Cage adventure flick is renowned for its calm, patient accuracy. But there’s something seriously off about the famous moment when Cage’s Benjamin Franklin Gates steals the Declaration of Independence.

Other than the sheer lunacy of those words put together in that order.

When Ben reads the Declaration later, we see it starts with “We the people”. But that’s the opening to the Constitution, not the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration begins with “When in the course of human events”. Either Ben made a serious miscalculation, or that’s a huge filmmaking error!

The MCU got a fun jolt of unorthodox humor with 2015’s Ant-Man, starring Paul Rudd. Rudd’s superhero can shrink down to the size of an ant and back. But there’s a rule that he’s told often: His mass doesn’t change. He weighs the same tiny as he did normal.

If taken seriously, this would render essential moments, like ants picking a tiny Ant-Man up, impossible. It would also mean he couldn’t sneak around vents — his weight would collapse them instantly. And in Captain America: Civil War, his growing bigger wouldn’t give him super strength.

In the Star Wars series, the lack of air and differences in gravitational pull should have affected everyone on each new planet, especially since they're different sizes and don't have the same atmospheric pressures.

Gremlins has three rules for dealing with the title creatures: Don’t put them in sunlight. Don’t put them in water. And don’t feed them after midnight. If you do any of these, you’ll risk turning the cuties into destructive, bloodthirsty creatures.

Simple enough, right? Let’s look closer…

“Don’t feed them after midnight.” Technically speaking, it’s… always after midnight. And, simultaneously, before midnight. 12:01am is both one minute after midnight and 23 hours and 59 minutes before the next midnight. Is midnight the only time you’re allowed to feed them?

Our brain hurts!

In Toy Story, if Buzz was so convinced he was a real space ranger, why did he adhere to all of the standard toy rules, like "playing dead" when a person was in the room?

In X-Men: The Last Stand’s finale, Phoenix Jean Grey is literally tearing reality apart and ripping people into nothingness. Wolverine battles his way to his unrequited love, skin ripping from his adamantium frame. His life is being destroyed. But,weirdly, not his pants. They seem to be made from something even stronger than adamantium. No peek of a Wolver-willy for us then.

In Home Alone, Kevin's mom wasn't able to call him from Paris because the phone lines were down, yet Kevin was somehow able to call and order himself a pizza.

In Men in Black, Earth was literally going to be blown up in an hour, but only two agents (one of whom was a newbie) were sent to save the world.