Yahoo Movies 11 superhero movie clichés we're totally over
We love a good superhero movie, and judging by the billions raked in over the past decade, we're very much not alone.
But not all superhero movies are good, and they certainly aren't all packed with brilliant, original ideas. These are the worst clichés that filmmakers need to put down on the ground and back the hell away from.
1. Huge CGI battle finales
While Wonder Woman was well received, almost everyone had the same criticism – that the end fight was a load of CGI nonsense. But filmmakers insist on including them in every superhero movie, as if it's the only climax possible.
Whether it's a battle with a giant turd (Batman v Superman), a flying city crawling with robots (Avengers: Age of Ultron) or a robot samurai (The Wolverine), they all end up confusing, ugly, homogenous and – ironically – anticlimactic.
2. White men called Chris
Don't get us wrong – we have great affection for the white men called Chris. Misters Evans, Hemsworth, Pratt and Pine, we salute you.
But you serve as a symbol of the lack of diversity. Superhero movies are overrun with straight white males from affluent English-speaking countries. The MCU is still waiting for its first female lead after nine years, for pity's sake.
Even Chris Pine knows y'all look the same.
3. Frighteningly beefy heroes
Unlikely female superhero costumes have been part of the landscape for decades, but in movies, for a change, we're currently more concerned with gratuitous male nudity.
Films barely stop short of applying flashing signs to highlight the unnecessary, slow motion unveilings of their unnaturally jacked torsos. Even little (supposedly 15-year-old) Spider-Man has terrifyingly over-defined abs. Give us a Grant Gustin-like skinny guy while poor Chris Pratt takes a pie break in a baggy hoody, we beg you.
4. Daddy issues
You only have to scratch the surface to discover that so many superheroes aren't motivated by altruism but major daddy issues.
Howard Stark is a massive cad and awful father who refers to his son Tony as his (ugh) "greatest creation" – the perfect recipe for the neurotic and unreliable Iron Man we know and love.
Batman's dad died and left him alone, as did Superman's biological father (as for his adopted pops, he gave him terrible advice and then died and left him alone). Thor is desperate to please Odin, the god of never being impressed by anything. Show us a truly healthy parent-child relationship in a superhero and we'll give you a prize.
5. The damsel in distress
Superhero movies are still struggling with gender parity. We've had one decent female-led movie in the 21st century, and the MCU is still waiting for a woman to take a starring role.
Spider-Man attracts endangered love interests like flies, and the fate of the female supporting character is usually to stand around doing nothing until they need saving (unless you're Doctor Strange's Rachel McAdams, who never gets past the standing around stage).
Even deliberate attempts to create a 'strong female protagonist' don't always guarantee results. Take the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie, where for all Gamora's badassery, it's eventually up to Star-Lord to make the noble sacrifice and save her from death.
6. Complicated evil plots to blow stuff up
Villains come in all shapes and sizes, from scheming god Ares and angry alien Zod to vengeful AI Ultron and mastermind Ozymandias. But somehow, no matter how complex the plan, it always seems to come down to causing huge amounts of (utterly tasteless) collateral damage.
Take Jesse Eisenberg's Lex Luthor from Batman v Superman. His plot involved tricking Superman, sneaking a jar of urine onto a senator's desk and breaking into an alien spaceship. Labyrinthine stuff. But all it really came down to was the aforementioned CGI turd blowing up buildings.
Of course, this is all to allow the filmmaker to deliver a gigantic computer-generated finale, but – as we mentioned already – this needs to stop yesterday.
7. The giant sky beam
So you've designed your needlessly complicated plan to blow shit up. But how best to achieve your goal? A discerning megalomaniac like yourself might be interested in our all-purpose Giant Sky Beam™.
It summons aliens from another dimension. It terraforms the Earth. It destroys technology. But whatever it's doing, it always looks exactly the same.
8. Fake deaths
At the end of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Superman dies. Hands up who actually thinks he's dead and not coming back? The habit of knocking off a super-protagonist only for them to be miraculously resurrected is actually quite annoying and detracts from any real peril or emotion – in the same way that we KNOW Wonder Woman is never going to lose the fight with the CGI baddie at the end of her movie. There are sequels to think of.
The MCU is no better. Though it did at least kill off Quicksilver (we wouldn't be all that surprised if he came back), they did the old switcheroo with Nick Fury and with Agent Coulson.
9. Fictional countries
We're willing to permit the odd made-up nation when it's intimately connected to the story or the star's origin – like Wonder Woman's hidden Themyscira or Black Panther's technologically advanced Wakanda. But what's with all the unnecessary fictional eastern European and Middle Eastern countries?
Nairomi? Sokovia? We know that nowhere outside of the US is really real, but at least spend more than five seconds inventing your generic country name.
10. Casting and re-casting the same actors
There are plenty of actors who haven't been superheroes yet, but somehow a lot of the same ones seem to get cast for some reason. Ryan Reynolds as Green Lantern and Deadpool, Ben Affleck as Daredevil and Batman, Chris Evans as the Human Torch and Captain America, Halle Berry as Storm and Catwoman. Not to mention supporting characters JK Simmons in Spider-Man and soon to be Justice League, Benjamin Bratt (in Catwoman and Doctor Strange), Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje in Suicide Squad and Thor: The Dark World.
And yet Sean Penn has never been in a superhero movie. Sort it out!
11. Mistaking dark and miserable for 'realistic'
Why does everything have to be darker all the time? Iron Man's having a breakdown, Wanda's brother's dead and her country destroyed, Cap and Stark hate each other, mum and dad are fighting, etc. There seems to be a perception that making superheroes 'dark' (and miserable) somehow makes them more grown-up, realistic and valuable.
We might blame Christopher Nolan's Bat series for this trend, though to be fair to Nolan, Batman is known as 'The Dark Knight' with good reason.
The deeply mean-spirited Dawn of Justice is the worst example of this, which basically turned Superman into a massive dick and Lois into a bloody liability.
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