5. A Compelling, Mature Love Story
There are many people who would argue that not all films need a love story in order to be great... and I agree with you. However, a compelling love story certainly helps, and you'd have a difficult task trying to find a film that doesn't to some degree have a love element in it somewhere. Spider-Man 2 had a very believable and touching love story between Mary Jane and Peter Parker... two characters whom the audience wanted to see get together, and who both wanted to be together also, but major obstacles stood in their way. These obstacles weren't silly reasons either. Mary Jane was obviously confused and upset to why Peter Parker almost seemed to be avoiding her and didn't want to be with her although he had loved her all his life, and Peter very maturely chose (for most of the film at least), that allowing himself to be with Mary Jane would only end in her getting hurt if he were to remain being Spider-Man. He even gives up his superhero status in order to be with the women he loved. Whatever you think of Tobey Maguire or Kirsten Dunst as actors, it's difficult to deny how successful this love story element of the film was in the screenplay. Both The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises epically failed with a love story. The Avengers didn't even really bother. In fact, all of the interesting female characters who were love interests to the individual superheros were absent from most, if not all of the movie. Natalie Portman's absence was the most unrealistic, especially considering the way Thor ended. The reason they gave for this was obviously just a convenient excuse due to the fact that either Natalie wasn't available, or Whedon had too many characters to deal with as it was. I wholeheartedly think that the story was desperately lacking an emotional, romantic connection. They could have easily included a romantic relationship between Black Widow and Hawkeye, and even including a rumored scene in the script where Captain America met up with an old Peggy Carter would have been a nice, touching element. The whole film had zero passion, and was completely lacking in any sex appeal. The Dark Knight Rises is the worst culprit however. This film would have worked so much better than it did if it had just decided to have zero romantic element. However, Nolan tagged on two love interests for Bruce Wayne that were highly undeveloped, highly unrealistic, and so uninteresting that the audience had zero connection to the romance plot. Bruce's relationship with Talia happens so quickly with no development, though we are supposed to believe that Bruce really cared about her, and don't get me started on Bruce Wayne and Catwoman. Nolan should have watched Batman Returns beforehand to see how this relationship was supposed to be done. There was zero chemistry between the two actors and absolutely no realistic romantic development, that when Bruce Wayne and Catwoman ended up together in the end, I for one was almost sick. That scene was so unnecessarily cheesy that it made Batman Forever look like The Godfather. Also, was it just me (I'm sure it wasn't) but wasn't the film highly suggesting that Catwoman was in a lesbian relationship at the beginning. Or did I just completely misread what was actually going on?