11 Awful Opening Scenes In Otherwise Awesome Movies

11. The Romance That Nobody Cares About - Cloverfield

The Movie: Matt Reeves' stellar found footage monster movie did a splendid job building suspense throughout its brief 85-minute run-time, aided by impressive visual effects, some clever genre-bending flourishes and a litany of intense set-pieces.

The Scene: The film opens with footage of friends Rob (Michael Stahl-David) and Beth (Odette Annable) goofing off the night after they slept together for the first time. The next series of scenes are from several weeks later, as Rob's friends and family prepare a farewell party for him, essentially introducing all of the principal characters.

Then the party kicks off, and everyone starts recording video testimonials for Rob, leading to some awkward creeping from Hud (T.J. Miller) to Marlena (Lizzy Caplan). Rob finally arrives at the party, and Beth soon follows, creating plenty of awkward tension before the two head off to have a private chat. Word spreads that Beth and Rob had sex (largely thanks to Hud telling everyone), and as Rob and his brother have a heart-to-heart, the action finally kicks into gear...

Why It Sucks: It's a whole 18 minutes before there's even the slightest hint of monster activity in Cloverfield, which for a film running just 74 minutes without credits is a lot of wasted screen time. Few would object to some brief character introductions, but almost 20 minutes of it feels wildly excessive, and considering that so much of it is cheesy, childish relationship drama, what's the point? It doesn't exactly endear us to most of the characters, and yet, the movie succeeds largely in spite of all this padding.