1. Pa Kent Says No - Man Of Steel
And here we have it. After all of the script errors, narrative quirks and diabolically bad characters, the time to unveil the most cringeworthy moment in the history of Superman movies is upon us. Not only is this one stupid, because of its contradictions of already established narrative events, it is also overblown and one of the most emotionally manipulative sequences in any comic book movie. Kevin Costner was probably the best part of Man Of Steel: his performance as Pa Kent was measured and subtle, and he was easily the biggest influence on the first half of the narrative as Henry Cavill was noticably absent from his own film. It was probably a career changing performance from Costner, who has spent way too long on the almost scrapheap after some well-publicised mistakes back in the late '90s, but that doesn't hide from the fact that Pa Kent's pay-off was awful. As a tornado rips apart a road, and Clark Kent and the rest of the community hide under shelter, Jonathan heroically rushes to save the family dog, and breaks his ankle in the process. He could easily have been saved of course, but he stops Clark from making a rescue attempt in order to preserve his secret identity, and is calmly smushed into a million pieces by the rogue weather system.
Heroic, yes, and loaded with an important message. But that message was diluted by the fact that Clark had already been seen saving a bus load of school kids with his powers, many of whom remembered the feat enough to incriminate him to Lois Lane when she comes knocking. So Pa Kent basically dies for no reason at all, other than to tell Clark a lesson about when he should intervene and when he shouldn't, which is an almighty over-dramatisation to make a point. Did we miss any stupid moments that made you cringe in the Superman movie universe? Share your moments in the comments thread below.