The 6 Most Absurd Moments from Superhero Movies

Superhero movies are inherently absurd, and if you regularly make special trips to the theater to see them, you should feel bad about yourself. We know we do. Here are some moments that made us feel especially ashamed of being grown men who still watch movies about people with make-believe powers.

Superman: The Movie


After Lois Lane is killed during an earthquake, Superman throws a hissy fit and flies around the planet at such furious speeds that the Earth actually begins rotating in the opposite direction. The actual result of flying around the world really fast would be that you might see some satellites going about the same speed as you. However, the result in Superman is a special effects extravaganza in which falling boulders and collapsing bridges are shown (gasp) in reverse. As you watch this, your first thought will be to get pissed off at how ridiculous a concept this is, and your second thought will be to get even more pissed of at the fact that the Earth, in her infinite wisdom, had decided to swallow Margot Kidder whole, and Superman had to go and fuck everything up.

X2: X-Men United


Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) gets into a fight with some Asian chick who has claws just like him. It's supposed to be some big, exciting one-on-one battle, but it's basically just a girl and a slightly more manly girl (the Asian chick) trying to scratch each other's eyes out. It should be noted that Jackman was in a catfight with Rebecca Romijn in the first X-Men movie. Together with Russell Crowe in LA Confidential, it' starting to look like "Australian guy hits woman" might replace "black dude cracks wise" as Hollywood' new go-to ethnic stereotype.

Batman


The Joker is going to kill everyone in Gotham City by releasing some big sinister balloons, or something. Batman swoops in with his Bat-plane and uses a Bat-mechanical balloon-grabbing hand to snatch the deadly balloons and carry them away to where they'll harm people who deserve it more. A resentful Jack Nicholson then shoots Batman out of the sky with a handgun (yes he shoots a plane out of the sky with a handgun) that doubles as an enormous phallic symbol. A lot of stair climbing ensues, followed by audiences turning the DVD off feeling ashamed for having liked the movie.

Batman and Robin


Someone convinced Arnold Schwarzenegger to abandon his unintelligible "real" accent in favor of an unintelligible "fake" accent. Or maybe, since this was his first bad guy role where he didn't play himself, he wasn't even attempting an accent and was just trying to sound evil. We can't see how it matters either way, as this is quite possibly the worst movie that has ever been made. (On a side note, isn't it part of an actor' job to at least try to affect the same accent that their character might have? Is there any other actor who has gotten away with not even trying to hide his accent in roles in which the accent doesn't make any sense? For instance, why does the American spy have an Austrian accent in True Lies? Why does a robot from the future that is made by a company in California have an Austrian accent in Terminator? Is there any possible reason other than that Arnold Schwarzenegger is a terrible actor? Sure Jude Law' Southern accent is pretty painful, but at least he' trying.)

Hulk


Every time Bruce Banner gets angry he turns into a giant, dumb, stomping CGI cartoon version of Shrek that can jump for miles and toss around tanks, which also happen to be cartoons. Everyone in the audience knows the big green guy isn't really there, but they pretend to believe because they know how many thousands of man-hours it took for the CGI nerds to make all of this fake-looking crap.

Spider-Man 2


A spark (or maybe it's a bug) touches Spider-Man's mask, so like a complete idiot, he takes it off in front of a subway car full of extras. This is implausible enough, but soon after, all these people are promising to keep Spiderman's identity a secret instead of blackmailing him for all he's worth, which in New York City, is about as likely as a bus full of eyewitnesses agreeing not to tell Page Six that they just saw George Clooney fellate a homeless man, just out of sheer good will.

Also, we don't buy that a scientist named Dr. Otto Octavius just happens to grow eight mechanical arms so he can become known as "Dr. Octopus," thus retaining his pre-freakish-villain nickname: Doc Oc. A bit too convenient if you ask us. If Dr. Munroe Feldspar had turned into an evil octopus, we might have bought it.