Disney Endings (modern day's Deus Ex Machina)Who doesn’t like seeing the hero prevail after enduring 90 minutes of hardship? Of course we want Indiana Jones to get the girl and the treasure, or for Brewster to get the whole $300 million.
But that’s not what I’m talking about. I mean the kind of denouement that is nothing but a cheery end to a film that’s winding down and has to end sometime, so the directors just shoot the good guy winning and go have coffee.
Take Changing Lanes for example. It isn’t worth watching twice, but while watching it, I'm really growing concerned about where this feud between Ben Affleck and Samuel L. Jackson is going to end. Could it end up getting physical? Would one of them have to die?
Not to ruin a completely mediocre film, but what’s the magic cure for a brutal and ugly clash between these characters? A friggin' chit-chat! Affleck goes over to see Jackson’s wife - throwing out one of those cheesy side-grins of his - and he explains what’s happened.
Wow. How bloody exciting. A bit like the climax of 300 but…not.
How about the ladies’ favorite flick Pretty Woman? I can understand Gere’s character needing to go slumming: we’ve all been there. I can understand him defending her from the likes of George Costanza’s hairy mitts. I might even understand him learning to loosen up a little while this street-rat introduces him to more proletarian habits such as burping or the Arsenio Hall “whoo, whoo, whoo” thing.
But giving up the inevitable top-shelf ladies that a billionaire could pull for a prostitute? Umm…nahh. I'm not saying Hollywood needs to echo real life, or there'd be no Die Hard, but we at least need to feel like the ending wasn't just some slapdash scene hurried through because the studio was out of money.
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You mean giving up the women that marry him only for his money? Geee...who'd want that?
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