10 Overused Movie Plot Devices We Never Want To See Again

5. In Media Res

Fight Club A personal peeve of mine is the so-called "in media res" sequence in films, which is basically a hoighty-toighty way of saying that a film begins by showing us a pivotal scene from later on in the story, before going back to the beginning and telling everything. At its best, the technique can keep audiences guessing about what they've seen at the start, and within a new context later, can confound expectations viewers have come up with, yet most of the time, it's just a thoughtless, pointless affectation that doesn't help the film at all. Take the sci-fi dud Skyline; this is a film that began by showing us the alien invasion, then went back to the start of the story, and then returned to the opening scene a mere 20 minutes later. Without any additional context and such a speedy repetition of the scene, what the Hell was the point!? One of the few instances of in media res to truly work was in David Fincher's masterful Fight Club, where we later see the opening scene repeated with the new knowledge that Tyler is Jack, and Jack says, "I still can't think of anything", to which Tyler quips, "Ah, flashback humour", referencing Jack saying "I can't think of anything" at the start of the film.
Contributor
Contributor

Frequently sleep-deprived film addict and video game obsessive who spends more time than is healthy in darkened London screening rooms. Follow his twitter on @ShaunMunroFilm or e-mail him at shaneo632 [at] gmail.com.