Films that don't make medical sense, Part 1.

Now, I love a good film as much as the next... film enthusiast.

However when you have studied science, films can get really frustrating sometimes. Film-makers love to gloss over facts for the purpose of the plot, which I can swallow up to a point, but some errors are SO glaring, they make me squirm uncomfortably in my seat. I actually find it easier to believe something that's completely ridiculous (people can fly, Harry Potter is magic, etc) than some half-truth that was almost believable, but just not quite!

So here are 3 of my favourite completely medically wrong films:

Number 3: Limitless.

Premise of the film- an amazing drug that allows you to use 100% of your brain, be super-smart, super-focussed, achieve amazing things, etc. Okay, let's assume that somehow they managed to invent a drug like that, and that using 100% of your brain literally translates to being dramatically more intelligent and having an amazing memory.
(Um, our brains are big for a reason, all those synapses and neurotransmitters and action potentials are travelling throughout our brain to actually do something... Otherwise what's the point of us evolving a large brain? We'd use a part the size of a goldfish brain but we just created a LOAD of extra padding?)

But my biggest problem with the film is this... if the pill lets you "use 100% of your brain", what benefit does he get from taking about 10 a day?


Number 2: Mission Impossible 3

So in this film they invented bombs that you put into someone's brain, to kill them from the inside. Sounds terrible, but... all is not lost! You can stop the brain with... an electric shock, say from a defibrillator.
But wait, Tom Cruise, doesn't a defibrillator have some bad effects, say, stopping a person's heart?
No, he helpfully explains, you "just shock her again and bring her back".

...So that's okay then.

Cut to the end of the film, where Tom Cruise ends up with a bomb in his head. Crap, where's a defibrillator when you need one to stop your heart, then start it again, because it's essentially an on-off switch for both head-bombs and hearts?

But he's a super-awesome spy, so he improvises a defib in that well-known fashion- by pulling some electric wires out of the wall and zapping himself. Then entrusts himself to his wife, a nurse, to bring him back.

Point 1- wall-wires are AC. I don't even KNOW what that would do to your heart. Also I doubt it was the correct voltage. Voltage of chinese wall-wires anyone?

Point 2- He then spends a good minute in full cardiac and respiratory arrest, while his wife has to shoot some bad guys.

Point 3- His wife then performs about 3 cycles of CPR, then 2 cardiac thumps, which magically bring him back to life! He didn't even need to be plugged in again!

Point 4- He's then totally awake and alert and fine; no burns from the electric shock, no bad effects from a few minutes of hypoxia to all his vital organs, no broken ribs from the CPR.

...RIGHT.

Number 1: Terminator Salvation, or why my cousin won't go to the cinema with me any more.

Okay, so in this Terminator film, as well as humans and robots, there is a half-human, half-robot person. Who was created as a medical experiment about 30 years before the rest of the film, but somehow didn't decompose or age, but okay.

Then, halfway through the film, he gets punched in the heart. So badly, in fact, that his heart stops and he requires CPR. The only person around who can do this has broken his arm or something, but that's fine, because I heard that crawling up to someone and smashing your elbow into their chest in a manner that honestly looks more like a wrestling move, totally works. Especially when you do it a total of 3 times.

But it's okay, everyone, because he found some electrical wires and plugged the guy in! And as we have already learnt, this works exactly the same as a defibrillator, and the guy recovered instantly and was up and running.

However, now we have another problem. Broken-arm CPR-giving guy is now SUPER injured, in fact he is in heart failure.

Cue dramatic moment in the film. Important guy is dying. Half-robot guy knows what he has to do. "Take it". He says. He gives his heart to the broken-arm CPR guy.

Hey, why not give him the heart from the half-robot guy? It's not like his heart is totally damaged from being PUNCHED BY A ROBOT or anything. And he'll totally be the same blood group and tissue type, because that would not be an extraordinary coincidence for 2 unrelated people.

They go on to perform the heart transplant in a GAZEBO, in the middle of the desert. The transplant is performed by the only medic available, who in the last film was a practising VET...

I started laughing in the cinema hysterically, and just shouted at the screen "This is the most ridiculous thing I have EVER SEEN! A heart transplant? What the hell?!"
Or something along those lines. I got shushed. People were annoyed. My cousin was positively embarassed.

I'm sorry, movie makers, there are some things I can swallow, and even enjoy, but this is not one.
To recap: HEART TRANSPLANT, in a TENT, in the DESERT, from a guy who got PUNCHED IN THE HEART BY A ROBOT, who was then subsequently ELECTROCUTED performed by a VET. I would have a lot of trouble coming up with something LESS feasible than that!