Watchmen
Zack Snyder loves big, over-the-top scenes chocked full of drama, but the thing is: Patrick Wilson as the Nite Owl is not supposed to be cool, and true to the comic, he isn't. And, while Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" may be a great song, it might be one of the most overused in film history. In the theater, the ending fiery "orgasm" actually made the audience burst out laughing — which, while true to the comic, is just too much on film.
Avatar
Okay, fan people — this may anger some of you, but it appears that intertwining your hair-tail is "better than kissing," which makes us feel a little uncomfortable about what Jake Sully had to do to train his flying pterodactyl. Also, "We are mated...for liiiiiife?" Oof.
Showgirls
For a movie that has become legendary in its badness, this particular scene oscillates between being totally silly and attempting a meaningful attraction. Hearing Kyle MacLachlan grunt and watching Elizabeth Berkley flail about in an overdramatic pool scene is just too much. If you can make it to the end of this clip, you are stronger viewers than us.
The Matrix: Reloaded
This is the second time we've used this clip, but the tribal-rave-techno-sex-drum scene is just too much. It is too much.
Munich is a great movie, and we get that Eric Bana's character has become so obsessed with the events of the 1972 Olympics that it infects his most intimate moments. Yet, the dramatic, sweat-spraying cry of desperation he emits is, well, unrealistic. And, this crazy YouTube remix only exacerbates the awkwardness.
The Rock
"That's interesting. That's...very compelling." Those are the words that Nicolas Cage says during sex. We don't have anything else to add.
Spanglish
Here is an example of a sex scene that was supposed to be funny-bad, but it ended up just bad-bad, and a pretty over-the-top depiction of marital sex, at that. Poor, one-dimensional Téa Leoni is so unbelievable that the sex looks like what men think women do in their middle age.
Breaking Dawn, Part One
He breaks the freaking bed. Yes, we are supposed to have that be a metaphor for desire or whatever, but we have waited freaking four full movies to see them do it, and all we get is a dreamy indie song and Bella already reflecting on what a "wonderful" night it was. Can someone please let us know how the pillows got ripped? How did they get ripped?!
Poor Marisa Tomei has had to have a lot of very strange sex in her career, but watching her pretty emotionless encounter with Philip Seymour Hoffman, who collapses on her afterwards...? Seriously, people. Even we are unfulfilled.
Body Double
Nothing quite like cheesy, soap opera music interspersed with "Frankie Goes To Hollywood" to get us in the mood. Also, Brian De Palma clearly cast Craig Wasson because of how acutely he portrays the spirit of desperation, but in this scene, he comes off as just perverted. Also, what is he doing to her breasts?
Highway
You would think that a sex scene between Jared Leto and Selma Blair would be really hot, but somehow it just isn't. Maybe it's whatever landed on Jared Leto's head. It may be threatening her.
Don't Look Now
Hey, don't shoot us. This is a classic "sex scene," but the frenetic cuts and the awkward angles send us spinning. Also, Donald Sutherland's "O" face feels particularly awkward. We may be wrong, but it feels overly long and too gratuitous.
Shortbus
You'd think the sex in a movie about a pre-orgasmic sex therapist would be fun and relatively tongue-in-cheek. Unfortunately, Shortbus', um, shortcomings were in the sex department. Sure, the entire movie is one big NC-17 screw-for-all, but none of the coital scenes were sexy. Perhaps that was John Cameron Mitchell's point; to make a movie that depicted sex in a "real" manner rather than through the glitz of a Hollywood lens. Call us prude, but sex clubs, auto-fellatio, and a threesome climaxing with a cast-sung rendition of the "Star Spangled Banner" is just as unsexy as it sounds.