Sometimes, plot twists are great. They fill you with wonder/shock/horror, and serve to make you look at a situation in a new light. Take The Empire Strikes Back's epic plot twist: I AM YOUR FATHER.
The whole audience went ZOMG ZOMG ZOMG ZOMG ZOMG.
Other times, directors and writers put too many plot twists into one movie until you're left with a sort of "WTF just happened" feeling after the movie is over.
In confusing movies, you'll get many problems: Too many plot twists, nonsensical storyline, or just WTF WAS THAT?!!!!
Here's a poll of the most confusing movies of all time.
gashoe13
The only two movies on the list that I've seen are Matrix Reloaded and 2001: A Space Odyssey.
And I'd prefer forgetting that Matrix Reloaded ever existed, so I'm just going to talk about 2001. It wasn't that confusing. The opening scene establishes that the Monolith was a critical step in human evolution. It appeared to the monkeymen, it spurred them on to advance, and such became mankind.
Fast-forward many millenia, and mankind is again at the footsteps of advancing. We'd begun space exploration, we'd created primitive artificial life (the HAL-9000), and the Monolith once again reappeared. David Bowman passed through the depths of the Monolith, died, and was reborn as a Child of the Stars. He had to die in order to shed his frail human body and make the transition into virtual godhood.
And that is what 2001 was. A celebration of the idea that science and wisdom and technology can make men into gods. Mankind and the monkeymen were only gifted with the key to the next step in their advancement once they had already sufficiently advanced. Meanwhile, the Monolith itself is alien technology, created by someone far more advanced than us.
This brings up the question that if the Monolith was merely technology (a kind of computer, if you want to draw such an analogy), then where are the beings who designed and created such technology? No one knows. Perhaps they are on a higher plane than even the Monoliths, and that even Dave Bowman cannot perceive of them yet. Or perhaps they are all dead. With nothing to show for it but a bunch of Monoliths which pursue the creators' purpose even though the creators are long-gone. Perhaps the existence of the Monolith is like an alien being finding a usable CD after humanity has gone extinct. Maybe the lesson here is that gohood-through-technology accomplishes nothing for the creators, as the technology outlives the creators. Maybe the point is that the Creators are dead and long-gone, and that the remaining technology had nothing better to do than to target mankind as its master. In any case, the Monolith is virtually a God. A god which was built and constructed, and whose purpose it is to advance alien races such as ourselves who have deemed themselves worthy. The Monolith is a god. It is a technological god designed and built by something that we have never seen. So...maybe it's a commentary on the nature of god. That whole situation is very similar to the common atheistic question, "if something can't come from nothing, and if god created everything, then who created god?"
This movie isn't necessarily confusing/thought provoking on it's own merit, it's just kind of a big mess.
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