The Avengers: a film about a superhero team called The Avengers. The Hunger Games: a film about a girl pitted into a gladiatorial event called The Hunger Games. Quantum of Solace, a film about… physics and naps? Though the aim of most movie titles is to give the audience some inkling as to what the movie’s about, not every film matches this ideal. Hell, the newest Hercules movie, starring Kellen “Hey, I Was in Twilight, Dammit!” Lutz, has almost nothing to do with the story of the Greek hero Hercules other than having a few similar names. But The Legend of Hercules isn’t the only movie to commit the sin of having a title that doesn’t match the content, oh no. Let’s check out a few other mistitled movies to see just misnamed they really are.
Reservoirs Dogs
Reason It’s Mistitled: There’s not a reservoir dog to be found here.
Quentin Tarantino’s directorial debut may have won him a lot of critical praise, but one thing it didn’t do is have a title that makes any damn sense. This film, which depicts the moments before a jewel heist and its aftermath, but not the heist itself, has nothing to do with reservoirs or dogs. One can only surmise that the thieves themselves are supposed to be the reservoir dogs, but what’s not clear is why. Regardless, this film helped propel Tarantino’s career of making masterfully crafted films full of violence and seemingly-endless rambling speeches, and many hail it as the finest independent film of all time.
Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins
Reason It’s Mistitled: The adventure doesn’t really begin here because it doesn’t go anywhere else. There was never a sequel to Remo Williams.
Pro-tip: when titling your film/book/video game or whatever, don’t count your eggs before the chickens have even showed up to the henhouse. A name like Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins seemed destined to fail; it all but screamed “SEEEEEQUEEELS!”; of course, it didn’t help that this adaptation of the popular Destroyer series of thrillers was a little too wonky and a little too under-budgeted to do much of anything other than confuse the general public.
Troll 2
Reason It’s Mistitled: There’s nary a single troll to be found here.
For those of you who haven’t seen Troll 2, I’m going to summarize the plot, and it’s going to sound like a child’s fever-nightmare, so bear with me. Precocious kid Joshua and his family trade homes with another family for vacation (because that’s totally a thing people do), and end up in the sinister hamlet of Nilbog. Nilbog proves to be a hotbed of Goblin activity (Nilbog is Goblin spelled backwards!). These goblins are vegetarians, and trick people into eating food that’ll reduce them into vegetable glop for their consumption pleasure. Joshua’s not alone in his battle against the goblins or their over-acting goblin queen; he’s got the ghost of his grandfather by his side, a grandfather with magic so powerful he can do things like freeze time. Yeah, Troll 2’s pretty damn nuts, and there are so many bizarre lines of dialogue and weird moments that anyone who is a fan of bad movies should definitely give it a watch. So why’s it on this list? Did you see me make any mention of a troll in that plot description? No! There’s not a single troll in the movie! When the director, the belligerent Italian filmmaker Claudio Fragasso, was asked why there weren’t any trolls in the movie, he told the questioner to stop asking stupid questions. Troll 2 is the very epitome of so-bad-it’s-good, so much so that the now-adult star of the film created a documentary about the making of this bit of weirdness.
Pingback: Rocket Llama HQ - » Mistitled Movies: Lies in Advertising
Am I to understand that I’m the only one that understood that Remo Williams was an origin story?
I saw the movie first, and it didn’t interest me in the book series. I didn’t even find out about the book series until almost a year later. There’s too much out there that I’d rather spend my time/money on….