Nothing takes me out of a movie than when a hero or key character does something incredibly stupid. When a plot is set in motion by a character doing something completely illogical, I just can't follow along. I don't care and most times I feel no sympathy for the heroes. The last episode of "True Blood" featured a couple of these moments and the series "Heroes" basically got all of their tension out of people acting illogically.

What makes matters worse is when the same person who pulled the stupid move to get the protagonists into trouble is also the same person who figures out how to get them out. Maybe it reminds me too much of the workplace in which people are often inexplicably given credit for saving the workplace from a disaster they themselves created but it is something that I find incredibly annoying. I had to stop watching "Heroes" because of it. The supposed Heroes caused at least 75% of their own problems. Watching them clean up their own messes just didn't interest me and when one season was promoted as the heroes fighting off a government plan to round them up, I was rooting for the government. How can you root for people who keep putting the world at risk?

One of the more recent examples of this was in "Fringe". The lead character is kidnapped and almost experimented on, her lover had earlier turned out to be a double-agent, every week she's finding more crazy things happening around her, someone is obviously out to get her, and then her sister and niece come and ask to stay with her and she says it's fine. No problem. She literally had just escaped her captors and then moments later apparently sees no problem whatsoever with her loved ones crashing at her pad. Needless to say, we're supposed to be stunned when the niece immediately find herself in harm's way.

The bottom line is that if the inciting action of a movie is a mistake of some sort, it has to be an honest mistake that most of the audience would have made. If someone does something stupid or completely illogical, it throws off the rest of the film. The foundation of the script is weak and there might not be anything that happens afterwards that can save it. If your character do stupid things, odds are that your movie is going to seem stupid.