Movie Goofs

Cloverfield

• The dirt and sweat on Rob's shirt changes as they walk through the subway tunnel.

National Treasure: Book of Secrets

• Boom mic visible: After Riley jumps into his shiny red Ferrari, a reflection is seen in the car's paint on screen left.
  
  
• Continuity: Mitch surrenders his gun before joining forces with Ben Gates to search for the treasure. On the balancing 'table', Mitch jumps up to the rope and a gun can be seen hanging from his belt on the back of his trousers. In the next shot as he climbs the rope, the gun is gone and it is never seen again.
  
  
• Continuity: During the chase scene in London, the Range Rover gets the front end damaged when it hits the back of a large truck. In later scenes during the same chase, sometimes no damage appears on the vehicle.
  
  

• Factual errors: When John Wilkes Booth is told to leave the saloon that he is in, just before the assassination of Lincoln, it shows him traveling to Ford's Theater by horse. In fact, the saloon that Booth visited just before the assassination is actually right next door adjoining Ford's Theater and now the present location of the Hardrock Cafe' DC.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: Obvious floodlights hidden behind rocks throughout the climactic cave scenes.
  
  
• Factual errors: Dr. Appleton says that the Indian language is Olmec. However, the Olmec people inhabited south-central Mexico, and their language nor culture never reached 2,000 miles north to present-day South Dakota. Therefore, the entire premise of the city of gold is misplaced by a continent.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Ben Gates is speaking at the conference in the beginning of the movie, the camera is panning back and forth around the one column. On one of the first pans around the column, if you look closely, you will notice that the voice of Gates does not match his lips in the shot.
  
  
• Factual errors: Riley says he got some information via the Freedom Of Information Act "in '66". The Act, however, did not become law until 1974.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: While sitting in the Gates' household using his laptop, the apple on Riley Poole's Black MacBook is not lit up, yet Riley is working on the laptop. The apple on MacBooks lights up when the screen is on, because the light to illuminate the symbol comes from the light used to illuminate the screen. Therefore, MacBook Poole is working on is asleep or turned off.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): Olmecs did not perform human sacrifices.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): Esteban, the slave whom they say described the gold city did it, but much after his shipwreck in Florida. He was with Cabeza de Vaca, and it was monks whom claim to have seen the city, not Esteban.
  
  
• Factual errors: Gold was barely, or completely unknown to the ancient Olmec culture. Of course further cultures found it, and used it, but it was a couple hundred years later.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): When the character Abigail Chase (Diane Kruger) talks about the seal which refers to the President's Book of Secrets, she mistakenly says that the scroll the eagle holds is instead of the olive branch, which can clearly be seen in the eagle's left claw. The scroll is actually replacing the arrows that are usually in the eagles right claw.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: In the scene where they are under the Temple in the City of Gold, Ben Gates yells "Come on Ed" instead of Mitch.
  
  
• Factual errors: At the end of the movie when Riley Poole gets his Ferrari again, you can clearly hear him letting go of the clutch without having the car properly in gear. At the same time you can see that the car has F1 paddle-shifters on the steering wheel, which means that the car doesn't have a manual clutch, making the mis-shift sound impossible for this car.
  
  
• Factual errors: Abraham and Mary-Todd Lincoln are shown as the only occupants of the presidential box at Ford's Theatre, but Major Henry Rathbone and his fiancée Clara Harris also sat in the box with the President and First Lady. After shooting President Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth stabbed Major Rathbone in the arm before jumping down to the stage.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): Ben states that the expression "your name is mud" derives from the lifetime disgrace of Dr. Samuel Mudd, who administered medical care to Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth. But the phrase was used more than 30 years before the assassination, and was based on the obsolete use of the word "mud" meaning "a stupid person".
  
  
• Factual errors: When the group see an altar and exclaim that "this will really crack open the study of the language", the writing visible is Chinese seal script, completely unrelated to Olmec.

I am Legend

• Factual errors: All the flags shown hanging from various buildings in New York City are in perfect condition. These flags would have been torn and faded from three years of hanging in the weather.
  
  
• Factual errors: Robert Neville is a Lieutenant Colonel but his insignia in the shots portraying him in his military dress uniform are golden, which indicate the rank of Major.
  
  
• Continuity: Bite marks on the left shoulder of Dr. Neville disappeared during the final scene.

• Crew or equipment visible: SPOILER: When Neville is in the dark warehouse looking for Sam, he enters a bathroom. When his flashlight hits a mirror, he ducks and shields the light, but there is still a circle of light from the camera behind him.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: SPOILER: Neville states the lab doors are made of Plexiglas (acrylic), but when the so-called Alpha Dark Seeker smashes them the sound is breaking glass.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: SPOILER: After Neville's dog Sam dies and slips to the laboratory floor, you can see the dog still breathing.

Atonement

• Anachronisms: In the section of the movie set in 1935, there is a scene where Robbie is daydreaming and the image of a four engined bomber crosses the screen. The image is of a Short's Stirling (the tail configuration is markedly different to the Lancaster), an aircraft which did not enter service until 1939.
  
  
• Factual errors: On arriving on the beach at Dunkirk, Robbie is told of the sinking of the Lancastria and the loss of 3000 men. This event actually occurred 17 days later on June 17 1940.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: When newsreel footage from the War mentions Queen Elizabeth, some have incorrectly assumed this is referring to Queen Elizabeth II, who was not crowned until 1952. However, the film actually shows Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, wife of King George VI, who was indeed 'Queen Elizabeth' at the time.
  
  

• Continuity: In the love making scene in the library, Robbie pulls down the strap of Cecilia’s dress and she pulls her arm out. In the next shot it is clearly up and over her shoulder again.
  
  
• Factual errors: The BEF was a professional army and was not staffed with conscripted prisoners.
  
  
• Anachronisms: The second No 19 bus in the shot is a post war vehicle.
  
  
• Continuity: In the fountain-scene, Cecilia pulls her blouse over her head before she steps in the fountain. But when she rises from the water and dresses again, the buttons of the blouse are open.
  
  
• Continuity: During the library scene, Cecelia slips her shoe off while making love but when Briony interrupts, we see that both of her shoes are still on.
  
  
• Continuity: When Briony is watching Cecelia and Robby at the fountain we see the strap of Cecelia's slip fall and she fixes it. When we see the scene the second time, this does not happen.
  
  
• Continuity: When Briony is watching Cecilia and Robbie by the fountain, Cecelia goes to pick up the vase to the left of Robbie so it is concealed by Robbie's figure, when we see the scene again from Cecilia and Robbie's point of view, Cecilia takes the vase from the right of Robbie (as seen by Briony).
  
  
• Continuity: During the fountain scene, when Cecilia gets out from the water, her "hairdo" changes according to the point of view: as seen by Briony, there's wisp in the middle of her forehead, than we see the scene again and the wisp is gone. Also, the stance of Robbie's right leg when Cecilia has gone and he's at the fountain is different from one scene to another: first it's under his left leg, then it's above.

Alvin and the Chipmunks

• Continuity: In close-up shots of Dave's house, his unit number is 1958, but in long-shots of the area, the unit numbers are in the 1500s.
  
  
• Continuity: You can see a poster on a record store with the chipmunks wearing their sweaters before Dave makes them.
  
  
• Continuity: In the lobby, when the chipmunks climb out of the tree, they run past a girl in a pink top twice.

Michael Clayton

• Continuity: In the final scene as Michael Clayton crosses the road and gets into a taxi that is in traffic, a silver 4x4 is clearly seen behind. As the camera switches to inside the cab, the silver 4x4 is gone from the view through the rear window.
  
  
• Continuity: When Michael Clayton spots Arthur Edens in the back alley, we see Arthur carrying a bag of bread. In the beginning of the conversation, one bread in the middle is missing its top, which apparently may have been eaten. In the following shots, we see the same bread full, without the missing top.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: It is stated that Michael started with the firm in 1990, and has been with them for 17 years, making the year 2007 as expected. His birthday is also described as being in 1959, but at another point while speaking to Marty he reflects on his state in life and claims to be 45 years old -- he should be 47 or 48. He may, however, be exaggerating his youth.

• Continuity: When Clayton is in Arthur's loft and he picks up the red book from the coffee table, you can clearly see the folded slip of paper sticking out from the bottom. A moment later, as he's flipping through the book, he almost doesn't see the paper because it's all the way inside.

• Continuity: SPOILER: During the conversation between Karen Crowder and Mr. Verne, in which she authorizes Verne to take action against Clayton, her left coat collar switches back and forth from being turned up to laying down between her over-the-shoulder and frontal shots.