Stunts, fight scenes, explosions, gunfights, and car chases: there are a lot of ways violence is portrayed in films. Some are asked of in the scene, needed to tell the story or to build a character or plot. But there are some that are over the top, a little bit too much, and frankly, just too gratuitous. Let's not pretend now, we love them all. The more cars are damaged and destroyed, the more we usually cheer and jump up in our seats. This list is a collection of cars destroyed in films that made us cringe, cry out or sigh in despair, and wished they didn't do it to that gorgeous piece of machinery.
10 A Chrysler Imperial Crown in The Green Hornet
Black Beauty was a cool ride and we know it. It almost is up there with the likes of the Batmobile and other superhero vehicles. But alas, it's still a regular car as evidenced by its destruction in the 2011 film The Green Hornet. The film starred Seth Rogen and his ridiculous laugh, as well as Kato (his sidekick). The other star was, excuse me Cameron Diaz, their awesome car called Black Beauty. Black Beauty is a Chrysler Imperial Crown that looks like a regular car from the outside, but with a few buttons pushed it turns into an arsenal no criminal dares to go head to head with.
9 A Lamborghini Murcielago in The Dark Knight
Bruce Wayne's secret identity is going to be revealed by one of his employees in The Dark Knight, this man is also the Joker's target. So Wayne does what any billionaire would do, race down the road to prevent the same man from being assassinated. He slams his car head-on against the vehicle carrying his employee and saves him. The man who's trying to out him gets saved, thanks to the eccentric billionaire and his now wrecked Lamborghini Murcielago. He could've picked any other car in his garage, why the luxury car worth millions of dollars? Why!!! Our reaction is why.
8 An Aston Martin DB5 in Skyfall
The return of the Aston Martin DB5 was one of the most awaited moments in the Skyfall film. The new James Bond starring Daniel Craig was a huge success and people can't wait to see the Aston Martin DB5 back with Craig behind the wheel. But later in the film, it gets shot up and blown to bits by the antagonist Raoul Silva, masterfully portrayed by Javier Bardem. Q would have shed a tear if he saw how it happened, we're sure some of us did. This gorgeous car appeared first in Goldfinger (1964) and has been the signature ride of the secret agent.
7 A Corvette Stingray in Con Air
The owner of this car in the film Con Air had it coming to him so he kind of deserved what happened to his car. But we still feel bad about it, the Corvette Stingray is such a darling that we can't help but cringe when it gets carried away by plane halfway into the 1997 film.
John Cusack's character "borrows" the Stingray in an attempt to stop the plan of the escaped convicts and he gets to his destination without a scratch on the car. But it gets hooked on a getaway plane and flies away as the owner (played by actor Colm Meaney) looks on in disbelief.
6 Another Lamborghini in Mission: Impossible 3
The second Lamborghini in this list was blown to smithereens by our MI6 team led by Ethan Hunt. In the third installment of the Mission: Impossible saga, Maggie Q rides to an event on an orange Lamborghini Gallardo. As she steps out of the vehicle we couldn't decide which one’s sexier, the driver of the car. Later in the scene, we share her regret before pushing that button and blowing up the Lamborghini Gallardo to bits. They do all that to cover-up the snatch they did on Philip Seymour Hoffman's character. Did they have to blow it up just to escape undetected?
5 A Mercedes-Benz in The Hangover
This Mercedes-Benz got the short end of the stick when it tagged along for the Vegas trip with the boys in the 2009 film The Hangover. It almost gets hit on the freeway, then a naked Asian man, played by funnyman Ken Jeong, gets trapped in the trunk. Its upholstery gets scratched and eaten by Mike Tyson's tiger and even got a tiger kick that broke a window. The car kept getting crashed into by other cars, and it also crashed into other things. But they still manage to drive the Mercedes-Benz 280SE Cabriolet back to the wedding in one piece, at least sort of.
4 A Third Lamborghini in Doctor Strange
Ace surgeon Stephen Strange was at the peak of his career before his hands got crushed in a car accident. The successful doctor was driving a black Lamborghini Huracan and the scene establishes Benedict Cumberbatch's character as an arrogant, self-absorbed and reckless person. He drives fast on a rainy night, talks on his phone, and has no regard for road rules.
The story takes his attitude back down to Earth at the expense of a wrecked Lamborghini Huracan. The Lamborghini spun out of control, tumbled off a cliff, and came crashing down into a lake. We feel equally bad for his wrecked hands and car.
3 A Ferrari in The Rock
Nineties action films have this penchant for destroying a lot of stuff in their scenes, and these are all real, as special effects weren't used as much then. The explosions are real, the fire's real, the car crashes are real, and exploding cars are real cars exploding. All these things happened to the poor Ferrari in Nicolas Cage and Sean Connery's film The Rock. The 1996 Ferrari F355 Spider crashed through shop windows, several parking meters then got plowed by a derailed cable car going downhill. The best scene was a guy telling Cage's character that his Ferrari was destroyed and him answering that it's not his.
2 A Bentley in The Longest Yard
Adam Sandler's movies are rarely films with guns, bullets, explosions and car crashes and all those gratuitous scenes that make action movies awesome. So when we saw his film The Longest Yard and how they wrecked the car there, it had to go on this list. The victim was a 2005 Bentley Continental GT. It backed up hard on a police car and stopped in the middle of an intersection while being pursued by police. The full stop was unusual in car chases, so about eight police cars crashed into the poor Bentley. Now that's gratuitous! Sandler ends the scene by telling his girlfriend (who owns the car by the way) that they should start seeing other people.
1 A Lykan Hypersport in Furious 7
Everything that happened with the Lykan Hypersport scenes may not be all real, but seeing the gorgeous car treated like that was still hard to watch. The Furious 7 boys car-napped it from inside a building, drove it to the lobby, and in a daring escape did the impossible. It jumped from the building it was in, to an opposite building. By the way, the towers were two of the collective Etihad Towers in Abu Dhabi, UAE. All towers were at least sixty floors so that was a really high jump. The Lykan Hypersport was obviously wrecked but Dom and Brian were okay.