10 Overused Movie Plot Devices We Never Want To See Again

8. A Hero Rises

This is a classic trope and one that's likely never going to go away, but it's been used so aggressively in so many Hollywood movies recently that I'm sort of sick of it. Films such as The Dark Knight Rises, Skyfall and Iron Man 3 have committed to a similar narrative trajectory, where the protagonist is stripped of all their toys and skills, thrown into a pit of despair (often a literal one), and then has to rise up once again to tear down evil. While it's not an especially original plot device in of itself, the manner in which each of these three films has gone about it is particularly similar, such that I doubt I could tolerate another movie property doing the same thing any time soon. Can we just put a moratorium on this for, like, forever? It's one of the few bad things following the Christopher Nolan-inspired turn towards a dark, gritty tone.