Thor & 7 More Movies & Shows That Totally Butchered UK Geography

All movies and TV shows, except documentaries, are works of fiction. When settling in to watch them, the viewer understands that they will, to some degree, need to suspend their disbelief. 

In the Marvel Cinematic Universe alone, there are plenty of examples, with its principal cast of characters possessing incredible abilities and powers. Given that these are superhero movies, this is an easy pill to swallow, but when a film or TV show messes with something more familiar, like geography, it is harder to let slide. 

With so much of the movie world having been historically shot across North America, it is always a delight when a film opts to shoot in the UK instead. The last few decades have seen an influx of big blockbuster movies filmed on these shores, and although many, such as The Dark Knight Rises, use the locale as a double for other places, some firmly plant their stories here. This is all fine until it becomes apparent that no one involved in the project has taken the time to consult a map. From travelling hundreds of miles on foot in only a couple of hours to creating their own tube stations, it appears that the movies just do not care for factual accuracy.  

These impossible feats of geographical traversing are lost to those outside of the UK, but for us residents, it can become a horrible distraction that threatens to derail an entire film. But who are the worst offenders? Here’s a guide to some of the prime suspects.

1. Thor: The Dark World (2013)

There is nothing that the residents of London hate more in film than when they mess with the London Underground. The interconnected subterranean tunnels ferry millions of people each day across the city in tubes that are a backbone of the city’s infrastructure. 

For those outside of London, travelling on the tube can be a daunting prospect as it can be confusing to navigate. Even superheroes need help, and in Thor: The Dark World, Thor finds himself a little lost. He boards a tube at Charing Cross and asks someone for directions to Greenwich, at which point he is given very bad information.

Thor is told to take the train for three stops, but considering that the only tube lines that stop at Charing Cross are the Bakerloo and Northern lines, depending on the line and direction, three stops would place Thor at either Regent’s Park, Lambeth North, Goodge Street or Kennington. All of these are miles away from Greenwich. His actual route (with the least amount of changes) would be to go one stop south on either line to Embankment, then swap onto the Circle or District line and travel five stops east to Monument before switching to the DLR for the final leg of the journey. 

2. Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991)

The UK has changed a lot since the time of Robin Hood, but the country has not grown. Buildings have been built, and more cities have formed, but the island itself has not doubled in size. This makes it very hard to believe the initial journey of Robin of Loxley in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. 

Robin arrives back in England in Dover, as highlighted by the famous white cliffs. As he arrives, he states that he’ll be with his father in Nottingham by nightfall. Now I’m not sure what the average walking speed was back then, but a quick search reveals that Dover is approximately 197 miles from the Midlands city. Even if Robin had 12 hours of daytime, he would need to walk over 16 miles an hour without stopping to achieve this. 

Robin’s journey would have taken far longer than that, however, especially as he walks the wrong way. During his walk, he stops off at Hadrian’s Wall, a landmark that is around 180 miles north of Nottingham. If Prince of Thieves is therefore to be believed, Robin travels 380 miles in less than a day. Unlike Thor: The Dark World, which is routinely called out, this glaring inaccuracy flew under the radar upon its initial release. The original audience was clearly too distracted keeping Brian Adams’ ‘(Everything I Do) I Do it For You’ at number one in the charts for 16 weeks. 

3. Sherlock Holmes (2009)

Guy Ritchie was born and raised in England and spent a lot of his youth in and around London. The director also rose to fame with films Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch, which featured cockney gangsters. Surely then, someone who grew up in England and made a name for themselves on films set within London wouldn’t be making any geographical errors in their films? 

Sadly, this is not the case, as his 2009 film, Sherlock Holmes, is riddled with them. First off, when Irene spends all of 30 seconds running through the sewers under Parliament, she emerges at Tower Bridge, a location over two miles away. Tower Bridge can then later be seen in the background when Watson and Holmes arrive at Nine Elms, but in reality, it is around the river bend from that location and would not be visible. The film also claims that the Grand Hotel is located in Piccadilly Circus when it is actually found in Trafalgar Square. 

4. 28 Years Later (2025)

In 28 Years Later, after glimpsing Doctor Kelson’s location, teenager Spike makes the decision to take his sick mother, Isla, to see him. This mission involves leaving their sanctuary on Holy Island and travelling across the mainland. 

Although the film never explicitly explains the duration of the journey, Spike and Isla can’t be travelling for that long, especially given Isla’s illness. Despite this, the pair are seen walking from Holy Island and past Sycamore Gap, via the Angel of the North. It is a day’s walk alone from Holy Island to the Angel of the North, and a further 13 or so hours on foot from the Angel to the Sycamore. These timings do not account for time to eat or sleep, and given Isla’s declining health, there is no chance the journey is anything shorter than a few days, yet it appears as though it has just been a few hours. 

Later, Spike is seen once more leaving Holy Island, before being accosted by infected near Cheddar Gorge, a location 360 miles away. 

5. Talamasca: The Secret Order (2025)

Talamasca: The Secret Order is the third show, alongside Interview with the Vampire and Mayfair Witches, set within the world of Anne Rice’s Immortal Universe. The plot moves from New York to London as recruit Guy goes undercover as a Talamasca spy. His mission is to find out what exactly is happening with the London office and the vampires they are meant to be monitoring. 

For anyone who has spent any length of time in London, it is hard to focus on the mystery subplot due to the show's butchering of the capital. The series was shot in Manchester with several locations intended to double as London, and while that is fine in theory, the team needed to work harder at finding matches. Early on, Guy arrives at Tottenham Court Road tube station, and as he steps outside, he is on a street that does not resemble it at all. Similarly, Guy is tasked with hiding out in Soho, an area that, despite what the show tries to have audiences believe, does not have cobbled streets. 

Also, London Waterloo station, as seen in the Season 1 finale, does not look remotely like that, and the station in question is very much Manchester Piccadilly, where the scenes were filmed. 

6. Restless Natives (1985)

Underseen Scottish comedy, Restless Natives, follows two friends who decide to liven up their mundane routine by becoming modern-day highwaymen. Clad in wolf and clown masks, the duo begin holding up tour buses, and in the process become folk heroes as they follow the teachings of Rob Roy and Robin Hood, redistributing their money amongst the city. 

However, during the film, the Forth Road Bridge is crossed, leading to an instant arrival in the heart of the Highlands. The said bridge connects Edinburgh with Fife, a location that is several hours from the Highlands. 

7. Transformers: The Last Knight (2017)

Michael Bay’s film series about space robots that disguise themselves as cars is not a property grounded in reality, but a little more effort into reading a map would have been appreciated. 

After spending time in other parts of the world, for Transformers: The Last Knight, the Transformers franchise arrived in Britain. The plot itself is ridiculous and posits the idea that the legend of King Arthur is intrinsically linked with Autobots and Decepticons, but it also gets some geography on the tiny island of the United Kingdom very wrong. 

At several points, the film heavily implies that the city of Oxford and the White Cliffs of Dover are close to one another. Characters are seen repeatedly zipping to and from these locations in only a matter of moments, rather than the approximately three-hour car journey it really is. Not only is the journey longer by distance, but the route also involves travelling on some of the most congested roads in the country, meaning that Optimus and Co. would be trapped in gridlock for at least a portion of their journey. 

8. Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning (2025)

For a globe-trotting franchise, the Mission: Impossible films spent a lot of time in the UK, primarily in London. Over the course of the eight movies, Ethan Hunt saved humanity countless times. And yet, there was one thing that even Agent Hunt could not prevent: the undoing of key London geography. 

Across the series, the films made a multitude of errors, such as in Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation, when Isla Faust crosses Westminster Bridge headed towards the South Bank in one shot, and then in the next scene is walking from Lambeth Bridge towards Westminster Bridge. 

The worst mistake of all, though, was saved until the very last film. During Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning, Ethan and his team are seen lurking around Trafalgar Station… which does not exist! Considering the money that the Mission: Impossible films had at their disposal, and that they shot footage at a variety of other real-world locales, why they couldn't pick one of the 272 real Underground stations is a brain-melting mystery.