"Nuking the fridge". The idiom is the film equivalent of “jumping the shark” on television (Fonzie of the 70s sit-com Happy Days water-skis over a shark). It refers to a moment in a film installment that is so absurd that the death knell rings so loudly for the franchise. In Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Harrison Ford climbs into a fridge to shield himself from a nuclear blast, gets hurled hundreds of feet away, then survives. Did we want to see more of the archaeologist’s adventures after that? Naah.
Countless others have nuked the fridge – the Star Wars prequels, Terminator Salvation, Speed, Die Hard, Spiderman, Matrix, Scream – where some incredible plot device or annoying character hastened the film’s downward spiral.
But there are a few which were better than the original. I’m coining an idiom for the opposite of fridge-nuking: flip-cocking the shotgun a la Linda. An homage to Linda Hamilton’s final kick-ass moment, where she finishes off the T-800 by cocking the shotgun with just one arm in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. It marked an even higher point for the James Cameron franchise. I know, my idiom will never be a buzzword. Can’t think of a cuter one right now.
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