13 Awesome Opening Scenes In Otherwise Terrible Movies
4. Ninja Assassin
The Opening Scene: The film begins with a mob boss, Hollywood (Sung Kang), getting a tattoo, when he receives an envelope containing black powder. The elderly tattooist recognises it as a sign that a ninja will be coming, which Hollywood and his gang laugh off, mere seconds before one of the gang has his face sliced in half (complete with extremely detailed gore). The gangsters all panic and start firing wildly, as the unseen assassin picks them off one by one, with a number of hilariously gratuitous kills, heavy on CGI-assisted blood and guts. Hollywood is eventually killed (having his hands and head sliced off), before the old tattooist comes face to face with the ninja he himself encountered almost 60 years earlier, and the ninja finishes him off as the movie's title is displayed.
The Rest Of The Movie: If this opening 6 minutes set the tone for what was to come, then Ninja Assassin would have been a fun, wildly over-the-top gorefest that didn't take itself too seriously. Though the action scenes were praised by some critics, the plot and characters were almost universally panned, because the movie simply doesn't have much in the way of personality outside of its grisly fight scenes, and even they become tiresome when it has nothing else of interest to show off.
3. X-Men Origins: Wolverine
The Opening Scene: The first 8 minutes of this otherwise unfortunate Wolverine movie are electric, kicking off in the mid-19th century as young Wolverine and Sabertooth witness the murder of their father, before Wolverine murders the assailant (who turns out to be his real father) with his now-apparent mutant bone claws. The pair flee into the night, match cutting to the duo as adults (now played by Hugh Jackman and Liev Schreiber), taking part in the American Civil War, both World Wars (including a great visual homage to Saving Private Ryan's D-Day sequence), and the Vietnam War, using their mutant abilities to wreck anyone who gets in their way. After Sabertooth kills a fellow soldier, the two are sentenced to a firing squad execution, which they obviously survive as the scene comes to an end.
The Rest Of The Movie: Talk about a giant missed opportunity. Despite game performances from Jackman and Schreiber, the script is an absolute mess, tonally all over the place and most criminally completely butchers the Deadpool character by taking away his mouth and drastically altering his appearance. For those opening 8 minutes, though, it seemed like everything was on course.