5 Famous Movie Characters Who Wasted Awesome Superpowers
Superhero movies are so popular these days that even characters in other film genres are getting superpowers now -- like that movie about the stripper who is also a wizard, Magic Mike. Apparently, Hollywood's top writers are using their prodigious imaginations to come up with the coolest, most desirable powers ... and then doing nothing with them. Seriously, most of these characters use their incredible abilities to do one or two neat things and then forget they have them, when it should have taken them like five seconds to realize that they could have been doing awesome stuff like ...
Pirates of the Caribbean -- Davy Jones Could Have Teleported His Way to Awesomeness
At some point in the series of films based on Johnny Depp being an 18th century homeless man, we are introduced to Davy Jones, the ferryman of the dead who stopped doing his job and was punished by having his face replaced with a squid. That'll show him.
In addition to ruling the seas and having a pet kraken, Davy Jones can teleport anywhere that's involved with the sea. Hell, even his men can teleport; when his heart-in-a-box is stabbed, they all instantly appear next to him. We first see the teleportation when Jack Sparrow is looking at Davy far off through a telescope, then lowers it to find that he's standing right next to him.
Later, Davy teleports between his ship and another ship and even walks through objects. Damn, how did they ever beat a guy who can use these powers in the middle of a battle?
What He Should Have Done:
Because he doesn't use them. Davy just sorta forgets that his powers go further than "looking super ugly," as movie villains tend to do with alarming frequency. When there's a pitched sea battle and the literal key to his heart is rolling around on a ship deck 20 feet from him, Davy looks desperate and worried and then takes time to cross swords with every douche in front of him.
Why not teleport to the key? Or, failing that, just walk through every sword in his way, since he can apparently do that, too? During the entire battle, Davy teleports exactly once, when he should have been jumping all over the place. For instance, not once in this movie does Davy wait until Jack Sparrow charges at him with his sword, then teleport Orlando Bloom's character in front of him and watch as he gets stabbed in the dick. Not once. That sums up everything that's wrong with Hollywood today.
It's like the curse that gave him a squid face also magically prevented Davy from coming up with a use for his powers that wasn't spooking people through jump cuts. Jones conveniently forgets everything about being a maritime god and, as a result, gets his ass handed to him by a drunken moron and his two girlfriends.
Aladdin -- Jafar Could Have Just Hypnotized Everyone
Aladdin is the classic kid's tale of how to lie your way into a girl's pants. The girl in question is Jasmine, the local princess. Jasmine is headstrong and spurns most of her would-be suitors, which saddens her father, the Sultan of Agrabah, because he doesn't want her to grow up to become some lonely tiger lady. The sultan wants someone who will make his daughter happy, so he tells her to marry someone she loves when she's ready.
"Can't you put a little more effort into it, though? I don't think you're showing enough belly."
The sultan's vizier is Jafar, and we know he's evil because, come on, look at the guy's beard. Even before he gets hold of the magic lamp and wishes to become a sorcerer, Jafar already has some pretty cool supernatural abilities: He is able to hypnotize the sultan three different times using his snake staff.
Using his powers, Jafar convinces the sultan to give him his family's ring and, later, his daughter's hand (and the rest of her body). Smooth, Jafar.
What He Should Have Done:
Why is Jafar only using his hypnotic powers on the sultan, though? According to the Disney Wiki, which we hold as the ultimate authority on both Disney movies and arcane magic, the ruby eyes in Jafar's staff caused "those who gazed into them become susceptible to Jafar's suggestions and will." Nothing indicates that the staff only works on the sultan, so why didn't Jafar simply hypnotize Jasmine into saying, "Hey, Dad, I want to marry Jafar," and be done with it?
It would be his greatest mistake that didn't involve facial hair.
Remember, the sultan flat-out says that he wants Jasmine to be happy and pick her own suitor -- in the end, he doesn't care if she marries some lowly thief or a creepy older dude. Therefore, it makes more sense to magically coerce her than it does the sultan. Or, you know, both. And Aladdin, too, while we're at it: When Jafar sends Al to the Cave of Wonders to retrieve the magic lamp, why risk the kid betraying him and keeping the lamp to himself? Jafar could have simply made Aladdin forget about the lamp as soon as he delivered it, rather than try to kill him, and saved everyone a lot of trouble.
Also, the first thing we saw Jafar use hypnosis for was getting the sultan's ring, something the sultan never asks for back, so it's safe to assume that even after the hypnosis wears off the suggestion is still in place. That means Aladdin 2: The Return of Jafar could have been Aladdin 2: Jafar Continues Being Sultan of Everything for the Foreseeable Future.
Last year's found-footage hit Chronicle managed to rake in over $100 million at the box office despite looking like it was shot by an iPhone. The movie answered the question every tormented nerd has always wondered: "What happens when you give a bullied teenager superpowers?" That answer, of course, is "He becomes Spider-Man." Or, in this case, "a psychopath."
In the movie, Andrew-the-bullied-teenager, Steve-the-popular-one, and Matt-the-forgettable-other-guy find an unexplained plot device that gives them telekinesis.
The telekinesis lets the guys fly, shield their bodies from excessive physical harm, and even control lightning, but mostly they use it to act like huge dicks to everyone (so, like teenagers). That is, until Andrew accidentally kills Steve and his mental condition deteriorates, causing him to start exploding things with his brain and destroying the city like an emo General Zod.
Forgettable Matt sees the explosions on TV and senses that his buddy is in trouble (oh, they're psychic too, apparently), so he and his new girlfriend drive there as fast as they can. By the time they reach the city, Andrew has gone even crazier, and it's up to Matt to unleash an atomic wedgie on his super-nerd ass.
What He Should Have Done:
Wait, what? We already told you they can fly. We've seen Matt play football in the clouds. He's almost beside himself with worry for Andrew ... so why does he waste precious minutes getting into a car and driving instead of just flying to him? Shit, if we had powers, we wouldn't drive anywhere. Or walk. We'd fly to pick up the freaking mail.
Here's what Matt got from driving: forced detours, closed roads, traffic, police roadblocks, and immeasurable wasted time. Here's what he risked from flying: a bunch of bugs in his hair, maybe.
Even if Matt doesn't want his girlfriend to know he has powers, he could just say "Stay here, I'll be right back" or "Hey, look behind you! It's John Stamos!" and fly off (that always works). Or, screw it, just let her see -- she discovers his powers anyway when levitating Andrew hurls his dad to the ground and Matt saves him. She definitely finds out when Matt flies into the air 10 seconds later, and just in case she's super dumb, she certainly finds out when she and her car are taken by Andrew to the top of the Space Needle.
Ella Enchanted -- Ella Could Have Become God
We probably don't need to repeat the plot of Ella Enchanted for you, but we'll do it anyway, just in case you're hazy on the details. In the movie, Anne Hathaway has a curse that forces her to do anything she's told to do -- literally anything. When someone says "hold your tongue," she grabs her own tongue. When someone says "kick some butt," she instantly goes all Neo on some dudes and kicks their butts, despite not knowing anything about martial arts.
The curse can even break the laws of physics (even though movies with magical curses are usually super realistic); when someone says "Freeze!" she becomes suspended motionless in midair.
"Dear God, someone please unfreeze me; underwear wasn't meant to ride like this."
The movie follows the many problems the curse brings to Ella's life (her stepsisters bully her, Cary Elwes tries to turn her into his own personal assassin) while she tries to romance Prince Creepy Dude from NBC's Hannibal.
What She Should Have Done:
Just told herself to become the most powerful being in the universe. Seriously, it would have been that simple.
It takes Ella almost the entire movie and a staring contest with herself in a mirror to realize what a fifth grader would instantaneously: that you can tell yourself to do things. When she sees herself and says "You will no longer be obedient!" she breaks the curse -- but that was thinking too small. Ella can basically do whatever she can phrase as an order, regardless of whether it's even possible. For instance, she could have solved her bullying problem by just looking at herself and saying "Turn into Godzilla and stomp those bitches to death."
Even if we assume that Ella somehow didn't find out about the existence of mirrors and reflecting surfaces in general until she turned 18 (she did live a sheltered life), she had a friend played by Minnie Driver who knew about the curse and could have helped her out -- it would have been as easy as grabbing her friend and saying "Hey, tell me to become super rich and immortal and beloved by everyone forever."
She basically had a cheat code in real life, and when she finally realized it, she used it to get rid of her superpower. Nice going, dumbass.
Wreck-It Ralph revolves around a video game universe inside arcade machines, like Tron but with less techno and Lebowski beards. Fix-It Felix Jr. is the main character of the aptly named game Fix-It Felix Jr., and rather than just going around stomping on shit and shooting fireballs like a lunatic, Felix's ability is that he can fix anything he touches: objects, places, vehicles ... hell, when someone beats him up, he just taps his face with his hammer and it's like new again.
Wreck-It Ralph is the bad guy in Felix's game, who goes through a bit of a vocational crisis and ends up escaping it to become a hero. Ralph winds up in a racing game called Sugar Rush, where he meets an annoying little girl named Vanellope. When bad guys start destroying the Sugar Rush world, all the characters evacuate the game ... except Vanellope, because she's actually a game glitch (like Missingno in Pokemon, but less useful), so she can't leave. Ralph and Felix nearly die trying to save Vanellope until the menace is finally defeated.
What He Should Have Done:
Fix-It Felix could have saved everyone a lot of trouble if he had just done what his name says and fixed Vanellope. A glitch is an error in the game's code, right? So why doesn't Felix just smack Vanellope in the mug and go celebrate in a copy of Custer's Revenge?
At this point, they know that Vanellope was actually glitched by Sugar Rush's evil King Candy so he could keep winning the game. We saw Felix fixing the race track to make it so the race could be won, and we saw him fix his own face, meaning he can fix both game damage and characters -- in fact, he fixes literally everything except the most important error, which proves he's even worse at his job than Mario is at actually cleaning pipes.
Despite being so inept, Felix not only returns to his game unharmed, but ends up getting hitched with a hot female soldier from a game called Hero's Duty ... although, considering the game that's a reference to, there's a huge chance Felix's wife is actually a bored teenage guy with acne problems.
Nathaniel loves superpowers. He'd like to recognize and thank DavidIsGreat for his help. To see some entries that didn't make it, see Rich's blog here or follow him on Twitter. Josh wants to be your BFF on Facebook and Twitter.
For more terrible of wastes of powers, check out 6 Magical Movie Items They Wasted on Bullshit and 5 Powerful Sci-Fi Technologies Wasted by Their Own Movies.
If you're pressed for time and just looking for a quick fix, then check out 4 Ways Porn Is Baffling the Internet's Biggest Companies.
And stop by LinkSTORM to learn why Wolverine is missing his calling as a chef.
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Related Reading: Ready for a look at the superpowers that would suck in real life? Click here. If superpowers that exist in real life is more your thing, click here and discover men who are immune to cold AND electricity. Feeling a little spiritual? Catholic saints have superpowers too. Of course, the most powerful force in the universe isn't God- it's bees! They can sense thunderstorms, super-heat their opponents, and even make miracle substances.
