15 Awesome Plot Twists That Totally Saved Awful Movies

1. Judgment Day Actually Happens - Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines

The Twist: General Brewster (David Andrews) gives his daughter Kate (Claire Danes) and John Connor (Nick Stahl) access codes to Crystal Peak, a fortress where they believe they will be able to shut down Skynet's core and prevent Judgment Day. Once they arrive, however, they realise this was wrong, and it becomes clear the facility is a fallout shelter, with the General simply sending them there to survive the attacks.

Skynet spreads throughout the Internet and cannot be stopped, Judgment Day happens just as planned at 6:18pm, wiping billions of humans off the face off the Earth, and the movie ends with the sequel-tease that "the battle has just begun."

Why It Saves The Movie: Alright, so it might be a bit of a leap to call Terminator 3 "awful" on its own terms, but it certainly feels that way when compared to James Cameron's masterful original two movies. The solid action and decent acting is constantly undermined by a thoroughly goofy tone (who can forget the Elton John glasses and "Talk to duh hand"?), and an overwhelming feeling that T3 is just a totally needless sequel after T2 tied everything off.

Then that ending comes along and completely blows everyone away (literally). There was no reason to expect anything more than Connor and Brewster saving the day, but nope, director Jonathan Mostow served up a shockingly bleak finale that gave the movie (and the franchise) a suitably beautiful, tragic and poetic ending, with no more sequels needed to further tarnish the legacy, even if studios couldn't just let the series rest easy.

What are your favourite twists from otherwise terrible movies? Shout it out in the comments!