Modern movies are incredibly, painfully dull.

Once you look past the CGI Krakens, volcanos, blue aliens and explosions, that is.

From Aquaman, Avengers: Infinity War and Jurassic World to Titanic, Avatar and the many Star Wars sequels, movie watchers near and far are subject to a cruel and unusual punishment:

A terrible movie that pretends to be good.

What does that mean?

Well, nowadays studios are too afraid to tackle a complex story–ya know, the kind of story people re-watch a thousand times, the kind with amazing actors who execute their roles with stunning skill, or the kind with an ending that makes you shed tears every time you think about it. No, it’s too much of a risk to invest the time, energy and money required to build a truly memorable story.

Instead, the studio will dumb it down.

Wayyyy down.

By throwing forty minutes of condescending narration around a base of “ooh, pretty colors” and “omg, is that Jason Momoa/literally ANY other hot guy?” the studio will make enough money to be satisfied and stop torturing their bored viewers.

Just kidding!

Now it’s time for sequels.

And more sequels.

And more sequels.

“[I hate] more than two sequels, because then it just gets boring,” says sophomore Crystal Camacho. “It just takes away the excitement of the movie.”

It’s sad, really; no matter how many movies they make, how many writers they sacrifice to the movie gods, or how many female love interests they kill off for “character development,” studios will never understand that their cash cow is long dead and the franchise is over.

Similar to when Rose screamed, “I’ll never let go, Jack!” studios hold on to the ghost of the storyline they once had, wondering what went wrong.

Even the actors get bored (50 movies later).

Before actors’ contracts expire, studios have to hash together some sob story about killing them off (RIP Wolverine) until they resurrect them through their new-and-improved superhero who is just as contrived, stereotypical and uninteresting as the original.

Or, of course, they can just magically make up a new protagonist to try and kick some life into their broken and abused series (a la every Star Wars movie ever).

But it gets worse.

There’s something even more disturbingly painful about watching screenplays nowadays:

Plot holes. So many plot holes.

From walking to Mordor instead of just using the giant flying eagles they were riding earlier (thanks, The Hobbit) to running from dinosaurs in high heels (Jurassic World, why?), plot holes and narrative impossibilities have plagued movie watchers for years.

Apparently, directors think our tiny, phone-addicted lizard brains won’t notice!

It’s as if writers take the Wheel of Fortune, fill it with random “twists,” and throw darts to see what they’re going to do next–without explaining anything! (Seriously, if I see one more dead mother come back to life for no reason, I will scream.)

How fun.

And the endings to these movies. 

Why do they suck so much?

You’d think that after suffering through two hours of dull, duller and dullest, the ending would be the good part.

But no.

Studios manage to ruin that, too.

Those excruciating 120-or-so minutes always end with the main character (or, in Infinity War’s case, the big purple bad guy, Thanos) staring off mysteriously into the sunset, determined to survive, conquer and look super cool. Seriously, the final scenes of modern movies leave much to be desired–they’re just plain bland. There’s nothing funny, cool or unique; the bad guy dies, the good guy gets the girl, and half the universe is dead (but it’s okay because most of them were just extras).

After two hours of subpar content, the movie ends, the screen fades to black and the crowd is quiet.

“What did I just watch?” they all ask themselves, regretting all of their choices.

Finally, after a few moments of stunned silence, the audience begins a halfhearted round of applause that dies out faster than their collective will to live.

Note: This article is satire; not all modern movies are terrible.

Just most of them.