Five songs that completely ruined movie scenes
Music and movies go hand in hand, it’s always been that way right back to the very beginning and 1927’s The Jazz Singer, the first film to feature synchronised music and dialogue. Since then there have been hundreds of thousands of iconic scenes made more so thanks to the choice of song.
You can immediately conjure up some of the best moments in cinema history like The Doors ‘The End’ from Apocalypse Now, Martin Scorsese using ‘Layla’ in Goodfellas or Chuck Berry’s Johnny B. Goode in Back to the Future.
But sometimes, just occasionally, filmmakers get it very wrong indeed. They’ll decide on a piece of music to go with the action on screen that just simply doesn’t work at all, leaving you puzzled as to who exactly decided on the pairing and why.
Here are just a few examples of when music doesn’t match the movie, leaving everyone a confused mess and wishing they’d just used sound effects instead.
Five songs that completely ruined movie scenes
Prince – ‘Partyman’ in ‘Batman’
There was big fanfare when Michael Keaton and Tim Burton teamed up in 1989 to release a rebooted Batman franchise, and for the most part it all worked out fine. The film looked good, it was a huge hit and in Jack Nicholson they found a very convincing Joker, although of course his was much more a cartoonish affair than Heath Ledger’s Oscar winning turn in Christopher Nolan’s film. Critics and audiences enjoyed the darker tone of the film and it brought in more than $400m at the box office.
But it was almost completely derailed by a bizarre scene set to a song by Prince in which Joker and his henchman start dancing around in a museum in a laughable fashion while the diminutive pop genius does his whole late ‘80s dance pop thing. Awful.
No Doubt – ‘Just a Girl’ in ‘Captain Marvel’
Captain Marvel was a great slice of superhero action with a fine turn by Brie Larson in the title role. Released in 2019, it was packed full of superb special effects, some decent comedic moments and an effective reproduction of mid-1990s America. It was subject to some review bombing due to the insecurities of Marvel-obsessed basement dwellers, but the worst thing about it was one particular fight scene jarringly set to ‘Just a Girl’ by Gwen Stefani-fronted rockers No Doubt.
While the general sentiment is supposed to be ironic (we think?) in that Brie Larson is ‘Just a girl’ and yet kicking everyone’s backsides, it doesn’t work. At all.
Elton John – ‘Bennie and the Jets’ in ’27 Dresses’
Ok, so first off, 27 Dresses is one of the worst, most hateful films in cinematic history, alongside the equally eye-gougingly pretentious 500 Days of Summer, and so doesn’t actually need any ruining.
But it is pushed even further into the abyss of effluence by an absolutely horrendous scene featuring Katherine Heigl and James Marseden in which they start singing ‘Bennie and the Jets’ and then everyone joins in, then they’re up on the bar and by then the open lounge window next to the TV is looking increasingly appealing despite the fact you’re six storeys up.
Nirvana – ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ in ‘Pan’
The makers of the movie Pan, the 2015 Peter Pan prequel that featured Hugh Jackman as a pirate and *checks notes* Rooney Mara as the Native Indian Tiger Lily, made all kinds of bad decisions on their way to the film losing an estimated $50million at the box office.
But none so egregious as one scene that featured a bunch of dirty-faced kids in a cave cheerfully singing along to ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ by Nirvana while punching the air. This scene is specifically why Kurt took the early way out, despite it being released 20 years after his death.
Leonard Cohen – ‘Hallelujah’ in ‘Watchmen’
Watchmen, rather like Captain Marvel, is a superhero movie done right – Zack Snyder’s three hour epic from 2009 featuring a raft of memorable characters, stunningly realised fight scenes and a fantastic soundtrack packed with Bob Dylan songs.
But for reasons unknown, Snyder decided at one point to have a steamy love scene underpinned by the gravelly voiced Leonard Cohen doing Hallelujah, as Nite Owl and Silk Spectre get it on gratuitously in latex to a song about suffering.
