11 Unnecessarily Flamboyant Scenes Wasted In Terrible Movies

2. The Plane Crash - Knowing

The Scene: Professor John Koestler (Nicolas Cage) realises all too late that he's about to witness a catastrophe, as a plane crashes into the freeway he's on and bursts into flames. Cue a two-minute, single-take shot of the plane crashing and John running around the wreckage, looking for survivors and trying to extinguish a number of people he finds still ablaze. Why It's Unnecessary: This shot is beautifully executed by director Alex Proyas, and it reportedly took two days to get right due to technical issues with the camera fogging up. Despite how fantastic the shot is, it's still part of a laughable sci-fi fantasy about a guy using a list of numbers to try and prevent the end of the world. Oh, and there's aliens. Or angels. Or whatever those things at the end were. Knowing is for the most part a silly thriller that takes itself far too seriously, and a scene of such artistic competence feels wildly out of place in what is otherwise a clumsily assembled sci-fi flick. When the rest of the movie sucks, why bother going to so much effort?