Most Enjoyable Film Clichés

From the 'big speech' to the winning underdog, these tropes tickle
By Harry Kimball,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 5, 2009 6:05 AM CDT

Sometimes clichés can ruin a movie. But for some Onion AV Club writers, a good one can't be beat. A sampling:

  • "The big speech scene": The idea that we can all be "eloquent enough to meet the demands of any moment, like Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman," gets Zack Handlen's attention. "I have no idea if Sam’s talk about stories at the end of The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers is good or ridiculous, because it just gets to me in a way that renders me useless."

  • "The classic training montage": Tasha Robinson is floored by the exercise-set-to-music trope. "There’s something appealing about the idea that the energy and focus of a single song could carry through weeks or months or years of hard work."
  • "The evil rival team": Erik Adams doesn't care who knows he liked D2: The Mighty Ducks, and black-clad Team Iceland is "the only reason to root for a rag-tag bunch of losers like the Ducks."
  • "Underdog makes good": "There’s something about these stories that works on more than just a wish-fulfillment level," Noel Murray writes. "They have the reassuring quality of myth, or religious ceremony."
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