10 Movie Rules That Make No Sense

Given that most superhero movies are designed with younger audiences in mind, it's little surprise that a few frontline movie heroes like Batman, Superman, and Spider-Man tend to be profoundly moral people with a major aversion to killing.

This is especially true in the case of Batman, who in Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight Saga in particular has held a steadfast promise not to take the lives of his foes, for fear of crossing the line from heroism to criminality.

Except, of course, the Caped Crusader is shown killing several people throughout the trilogy, whether blowing up the League of Shadows' HQ, leaving Ra's al Ghul (Liam Neeson) to twist in the wind, tackling Two-Face (Aaron Eckhart) to his death, or blowing Talia al Ghul (Marion Cotillard) to holy hell.

The point isn't that these actions were wrong in any sense, but simply that rigid no-kill policies make no sense whatsoever, especially in a movie series desperately trying to seem as grounded and "real" as possible.

Though it proved divisive with fans, this is exactly why Man of Steel's decision to have Superman (Henry Cavill) kill Zod (Michael Shannon) was so effective, because it trampled over unrealistic binary morality and asked a bulletproof man to make an impossible decision.

The fact that most superheroes these days don't make a big song and dance about the lack of bad guy death on their conscience really underlines how unrealistic and unfair it is to hold anyone in their position to that sort of pristine standard.