Hi, I'm Erik Voss, and we here at new rockstars talk a lot about what we love
about superhero movies, but some of the most memorable superhero movie moments
were the ones that made us totally cringe. So, we asked all of you guys what
your top cringe superhero movie moments were, and the results are in! Starting
with number 15 - Bane's awkward conversation with the CIA agent in the
Dark Knight Rises. And even though I mostly like Tom Hardy's Bane as a
villain, I will admit his voice is a little goofy.
"Speak of the devil, and he shall appear." And it definitely took some getting used to
during that opening airplane sequence with the CIA agent, played by
Littlefinger. "If I pull that off, will you die? It would be extremely painful. You're
a big guy. For you." So this exchange has become kind of an obscure meme in some
niche corners of the internet. Basically, when you take their lines out of context,
there's kind of a subtle sexual connotation. "you're a big guy. For you." Now I'm going to
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get on it. Back to the video. Okay, moving on to number 14 -
another debatable mention that might make you mad at me. Also, it's another
kind of sexy moment involving a big guy... Black Widow's weird palm stroke... handjob?
Palm Stroke to Hulk in Avengers: Age of Ultron.
Now I also really enjoyed Age of Ultron, but like The Dark Knight Rises, it's a
sequel that struggled to live up to its nearly perfect predecessor, and one thing
I kind of struggled with in the movie was the random romantic subplot between
Black Widow and Hulk. Like, it just kind of comes out of nowhere? And it all
starts in this opening battle with Black Widow somehow knowing how to tame Hulk by
running her hand across his palm. I have no idea how they ever could have practiced
this without Black Widow just getting like, Loki'd around. I guess at the
time I just figured this meant Black Widow is somehow a Hulk whisperer. Next
up on our countdown, number 13 -Superman Returns and proves that he feels nothing.
So Bryan Singer's version of Superman in 2006 elevated the character into a god
figure, also kind of an action figure. Brandon Ralph looked like a young
Christopher Reeve, but he lacked some of that relatable Clark Kent charm. And to
me the cringiest example of this is the rooftop fight when a criminal fires a
gun at Superman's face, creating this epic slow-motion bullet collision with
his eyeball, which looks very cool, except... come on, Superman, you don't even blink?
Like, even if someone puts their finger near your eye as a joke you'd still flinch
a little bit. This makes Superman look like a statue or a frozen corpse. Like,
you could imagine him thinking, okay, here comes the bullet, don't move. This will
look so awesome. Now I should say that a moment that
makes us cringe doesn't necessarily mean that all these movies are bad. I actually
really like a lot of the movies on this list, including another Superman movie,
which has our number 12 cringe moment from Richard Donner's Superman 2 -
Superman throws the S. Now just to be clear, this is never one of Superman's powers. And
no one has any idea where this came from. It's actually rumored that it wasn't
Richard Donner who even put this in the movie, but that this was a campy, Batman
TV show-style slapstick gag, added by Donner's
replacement director, Richard Lester. Okay, moving on to number 11, and sorry, Hulk
fans, but there's another whole cringe moment that I just have to include. But don't
worry, it's from the pre-MCU Eric Bana version of Hulk. Now I really wanted to
talk about Nick Nolte's weird overacting, but it's this moment that freaks me out.
Like, why do we have to see the balls, Ang Lee? And it's not like this was meant
to be a Hell yeah moment, it just kind of happens and then gets brushed off. It's
just very uncomfortable. Okay, next up, number 10 - Electro using Spider-man to
play the itsy-bitsy spider. Now there were a few moments that took
me out of Andrew Garfield's second Spider-man movie, like Dane DeHaan's gross,
insane Green Goblin, but the dumbest moment was when Electro smacked Spider-man
against the electric grid columns, and somehow the tones produce the melody of
the itsy-bitsy spider.
"I hate this song!" Yeah, I hate this, too. So, did Electro set this all up hours in advance,
tuning each of these columns so that they'd play the right notes? Moving on to
number nine - the Fantastic Four. Now a lot of you guys voted Reed Richards' stupid
dancing in the 2005 Fantastic Four as an honorable mention, but to make this list
you got to do a lot worse than that. Like the recent version of the Fantastic
Four. It is in many ways the worst superhero movie to come out in recent
years. New rockstars actually did a full breakdown of it and all the problems
with the movie and how to fix them. Hey, look, it's Gabe! Remember, Gabe? No, I
didn't have him kidnapped so I could start posting videos for this channel.
Anyway, there are a lot of cringe moments in this movie, but to me the standout
example is the way the movie retconned The Thing's catchphrase, it's clobbering
time. A scene shows Ben Grimm as a kid, getting abused by his older brother. "Hey,
it's clobbering time." No. It's clobbering time is not a phrase you can say with a straight face when
you're about to angrily take a swing at your little brother. And it's just really
weird for Grimm to later embrace this painful memory and turn it into a silly
catchphrase. Okay moving on to number eight - Ryan Reynolds' Green Lantern movie
as a whole is just a cringy mess that we'd all like to forget. Even if Ryan
Reynolds will never forget. "Please don't make the supersuit green. Or animated!" But
if you're somehow willing to look back at this movie, it's kind of fun to see
Ryan Reynolds phoning it in in this role, considering what he ended up doing
with Deadpool later on. What's harder to watch is a talented dramatic actor like
Peter Sarsgaard giving it his all as the villain, Hector Hammond. Unfortunately,
Hammond just comes off as over-the-top, screaming himself hoarse in pretty much
every scene. "Aghhhhhhh!"
That'll do, Pete. No one is going to remember this. Okay, moving on to number
seven - Halle Berry as Storm in X-men. "You know what happens to a toad when it's
struck by lightning? The same thing that happens to everything else."
Now, when I saw this in the movie, it kind of bummed me out. Because in the script,
this line is a funny misdirect. What happens when a toad gets struck by
lightning? Eh, same thing that happens to anything else. But Halle Berry has to read it as
edgy and cool. Same thing that happens to anything else. It just kind of sucks the
humor out of it. Now, we shouldn't blame Halle Berry too much. This was in the
early days of superhero movies, and all the actors in this movie are really
playing things too seriously. At least Barry wasn't nearly as overdramatic as
Storm was in the animated series. "Storm, mistress of the elements commands you to
release that child!" Okay next up, number six, a movie that produces no debate at all, Suicide
Squad. Now I know opinions are still pretty mixed on this movie, somehow. I had
a lot of issues with it, but even as early as the first teaser, this moment
really bothered me.
"We're some kind of Suicide Squad." Come on, Will Smith, do you have to say the title of
the movie in the movie? Or is there something in every contract that you
sign that says you have to have a line that proves you're cooler than the rest
of the movie? "That's what I call a close encounter. I make this look good. Tell the truth. You know,
I don't have that last one applies. Okay, here we are: top five. We're getting to some
really cringey ones here, so, I don't know, find something to bite down on. Number
five - the Daredevil scene we'll never forget. No, no, no, we like that Daredevil.
Yeah, there we go. And yeah, like many others I've mentioned, this movie as a
whole wasn't that great, of course, to be fair, it was pre-MCU Marvel and superhero
movies just didn't really know better in general back then. But still, that is no
excuse for this weird, flirty fight scene with Matt Murdock aggressively pushing
for a date with Elektra on a children's playground. "Why don't you tell me what you
do like, and we'll start there." So, are we supposed to find Jennifer Garner beating
the crap out of a blind guy on a seesaw while a bunch of kids cheer her on sexy?
I really don't know what's going on here. Affleck Daredevil, you got cringed. I
should have been saying that all along. Next up, number four is pretty much the
same scene, but somehow, way worse. The basketball scene in Catwoman. Now, yes,
the whole movie of Catwoman is just god-awful. It's literally hard to look at.
The camera cuts from shot to shot so fast, making everything super disorienting, but
the worst example of this is the basketball scene. And, warning: you might
get sick watching.
Now, in case you are curious, someone counted 137 cuts in one minute and 43
seconds. It's less than one shot per second. But yeah, even looking past that,
the stunts, and the acting, and all the weird sexuality. Look at my butt! Yeah, look at
my abs! And instead of playing real basketball, I'm just gonna hump you from
behind in front of a bunch of little kids. Why are kids always cheering in the
background? Sorry, it's not worth getting angry. Okay, moving on to number three -
Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice was one of the most top voted entries, and for
good reason. The movie makes a lot of weird decisions. There was Superman
surrounded by dead people in a fiery capitol building, looking merely mildly
annoyed, Jesse Eisenberg in general, specifically the goofy Jolly Ranchers
scene, and who can forget Bruce Wayne and Wonder Woman revealing the Justice
League, one of the biggest superhero teams in all of comic-book history, via
email attachments. But of course the big cringe came when Batman decided to not
kill Superman because their moms had the same first name. "Save Martha! Why did you say that name?" Okay, now this
scene just didn't work the way Zack Snyder probably expected it to. I suppose
if you read into it, there is some interesting logic in Batman finally seeing
Superman's humanity by realizing that he has a mother that he's afraid to lose,
just like Bruce lost his mother. That idea could work, but making just the name
Martha carry all that weight is just a shortcut
that doesn't make sense. So let's move on to number two, one of the biggest
superhero movie cringes ever, in fact, it is two hours and five minutes long, because
it's the entire movie of Batman and Robin. Batman and Robin was so bad that
the director, Joel Schumacher, recently apologized for making it. Every element
in this movie has become a subject of scorn and ridicule, and an example of
what not to do for every superhero movie that came after it. There are the cringy
puns from Arnold Schwarzenegger's Mr. Freeze, the
uncomfortable suit up sequences that zoom in on butts and junk and nipples, and
when you think about it, the very creepy implication that Alfred designed a super
sexy form-fitting suit for his niece. But my personal favorite is Poison Ivy doing
a sexy dance inside a gorilla costume. Um, what the hell is going on? So when all of
these guys are staring up at her, transfixed by Poison Ivy's pheromones, are
they just thinking, damn, I guess I have a thing for monkeys? But yes, the biggest
Batman and Robin cringe moment that you guys voted comes later in this awful
scene, when Batman Robin get in a bidding war for Poison Ivy, ending with this
ridiculous gag. "% million. That's a utility belt, not a money belt. 6 million. 7 million. Never leave
the cave without it. Now before I get to our number one, quick honorable mention that
a lot of you guys cringed at - X-men Origins. Specifically, moments like
Wolverine getting shot in head with an adamantium bullets to wipe his memory,
which is not at all how that works. And of course, the X-men Origins version of
Deadpool, the Merc with the Mouth, getting his mouth sealed shut for some reason.
Now really I didn't include these on the list because they were less cringe
moments than I think they were just purely bad, confusing storytelling. So,
here we go, let's get to it. Number 1, how could it be anything else guys, Emo Peter
Parker in Spider-man 3. Oh boy. Now for some reason, in Sam Raimi's Spider-man 3,
when a Venom symbiote attaches itself to Spider-man, it doesn't just give him
an awesome black suit that we saw on the posters, it also makes him a pervy
douchebag. Finger guns... air humping... an all-black suit and emo haircut...TWO dance
sequences, and random amazing piano skills. What? Now, I would understand if
this behavior was presented as Peter Parker's sad, warped idea of cool, and
yeah, some women do roll their eyes at Peter, and he pisses off Mary Jane and
Gwen Stacy, and the jazz club owner tries to throw him out, but that only comes
after his antics kind of win over everyone for a second. How did any of
these people at any point thinks this guy was cool? And what
kind of New York jazz band would let this little My Chemical Romance
anywhere near the stage? Ugh. Thank God Sony plans to redo Venom with a new,
darker R-rated movie. I feel like that's the only way they can right this wrong
and get this awful taste out of our mouths.
I actually made another video that explains why Sony's Venom and Carnage
movie might be the perfect version of the characters that we need. So
definitely go check out that video. What are your biggest cringe moments from
superhero movies? How would you rank these? And did I miss any? Also, do you
think I was too hard on any of these movies? I really want to hear from you, so
let's do a giveaway. A digital gift card with a free month subscription to Vrv,
which is like Netflix for nerds. It's awesome. All you have to do is follow new
rockstars on Twitter, and then post a tweet sharing this video with the
hashtag supercringe, and we will pick five winners so get on this. Share this
video, like it, subscribe to new rockstars for all kinds of in-depth videos
about these superhero movies, and if you really like our videos and want to be a
bigger part of what we do here, you can contribute to us on patreon at a monthly
rate that you decide. Big thanks to all of our current donors, especially Matthew
Salvas. Hit me up on Twitter (@eavoss) or new rockstars on Twitter
(@newrockstars) to get info on that giveaway. Alright, thanks for watching. Dude, what
are you doing back here? Want to hang out and play robot wars?
No, no, they are cringing at this bit right now.
It's so stupid. They don't even like one of me that much.