Man Of Steel

[CanookieWookie]

Not really.  Its better than the first Dark Knight, just as good, if not better than the 2nd (although Heath Ledgers performance is unbeatable) and just as good as the last one.  However, I am sure I am in the minority here, judging by the posts.

[boltthrow]

I give it a C+.

[strangelight]

lots of people are saying this movie sucked, but i thought it was pretty good. not great, but superman's just not a great character. there's not enough conflict, not enough struggle to make him compelling. there isn't really a clear arc for him. he's good, stays good. oh wow, what a transformation. i think superman might be un-film-able. but this movie gave it a good shot.

the opening 20 minutes on krypton were awesome. i'd watch a whole movie of just that. the the movie grinds to a halt and not much of anything happens for about an hour.

chris nolan wrote this (i think? or at least wrote the story, if not the script). and dude sucks at pacing. memento, inception, the dark knight trilogy, every damn film suffers from terrible pacing. his movies feel every minute of their length. there are things i like about all of them, but they go slow and take forever to hit their beats.

still... this is the first superman movie where superman hasn't seemed totally fucking ridiculous. russell crowe was good. michael shannon is amazing in everything. kevin costner and diane lane were good too. and henry cavill's a good actor (he was great in the tudors), but they just give him nothing to do in this role. that's not his fault. superman's just... he's just a boring guy. when he was getting picked on or had beer poured on his head or whatever, i just wish he would've thrown a fucking punch. he does it in superman 2! just kick some ass for, like, a second.

i guess... i guess i think this film did the best job they could. it's really the material that lets it down. but maybe as part of a team, in justice league, superman will suck less as a character. like, the thor movie was a steaming turd, but thor and loki had their place in avengers. and the 15 hulk stand-alone films were all unwatchable, but hulk was the best part of the avengers.

7/10? 6.5? it was better than star trek no colon into darkness.

[strangelight]

BUT that fight sequence at the almost-not-quite end, where they just throw each other through buildings for 20 minutes, was pretty shitty. desensitizing, really. when you throw someone through a building 20 times it loses its impact.

[strangelight]

ehh... the more i think about this, the less i like it.  

acting was good, but the writing was pretty shit. pretty much everything after zod gets to earth is ridiculous and makes no sense.

[boltthrow]

But didn't you like it when Zod and his cohorts were frozen into penis-shaped pods and launched into the sky?  Or how Zod died from getting his neck broken even though he'd already been hurled through a dozen buildings and survived?  Or Diane Lane's big old lady choppers?  Or Lois Lane climbing along that icy cliff face before going into Clark's eye-zapped cave?  Or the incomprehensible idea that the ship was buried 2000 years ago and but somehow how a Superman outfit on board?  Or that no one in the diner heard Clark stick tree trunks and phone poles through that mean guy's truck at the diner (or that no one left the diner at any point after the confrontation and ran back in and said, "Hey Larry, come look at your truck!")  Or that humanity was reduced down to Larry Fishburne and those two other people who we were supposed to care about, even though Larry said, "Let's get out of here about 20 minutes after every building in the area started blowing up? 

[strangelight]

yes, all those things bugged me. (following post will contain a thousand spoilers.... you have been warned)

i did like the attempted coup on krypton. i did like the way a 6 year old clark kent was discovering and trying to deal with his xray vision and eye lasers. i did like the way they had pseudo-science explanations for his powers (the sun's radiation, different gravity, different atmosphere, etc.) instead of just being like "yo, he's super, he can do anything." i didn't mind that zod and his allies were frozen into giant dildos and launched into space.

i didn't like: pretty much everything lois lane does. including scaling an ice cliff. including the fact that her camera works in -40 temperatures in the arctic. including that she seems to be in all places at all times. including that there was ZERO reason for her to go onto the alien ship, except to figure out how to defeat them. why did zod bring her along? he had no plan for her. she was just there to learn their weaknesses.

i didn't like: all the jesus imagery. it was heavy-handed, and doesn't surprise me to learn that WB has been trying to get pastors to talk about this movie in church and convince church-goers to see it. when he confesses to that stupid priest that he's the alien everyone is looking for, why the fuck didn't that priest turn on him? i was kind of expecting the priest to freak the fuck out. and when the bad alien lady says "we've evolved and you haven't, and evolution always wins" and then EVOLUTION DOESN'T WIN i wanted to vomit. so much creationism bullshit going on here that just didn't need to be there.

speaking of freaking the fuck out, WHY DIDN'T THE WHOLE WORLD FREAK THE FUCK OUT WHEN THEY FOUND OUT THERE WERE ALIENS? why is everyone still just going to work, sitting on a bench eating shawarma, when they know there's a fucking alien space ship in the sky that is going to try to destroy them in 24 hours?? all movie long, kevin costner is like you can't tell anyone you're an alien or the whole world will panic. then they find out there's an alien AND NO ONE PANICS.

and speaking of kevin costner: in the books, joepa dies of a heart attack, and superman learns in that moment, even with all his powers, he still can't save everyone. but in the movie, superman could've totally saved joepa. and joepa dies to save the fucking dog. it was nonsensical.

speaking of superman saving people: superman's whole thing is that he doesn't kill. in addition to kryptonite and magic, his REAL big weakness is that he pulls his punches to avoid hurting civilians. he's gotta find a way to lure the fights away from population centers because he doesn't want to kill anyone. but that 30-minute throw them through buildings sequence probably killed 80,000 people. all those idiot civilians were still going to work, the lights were on in every building, there's no way people didn't die. and then he kills zod.

HE KILLS ZOD. zod says there's only one way this will end: either zod dies or superman dies (uhhh... that's TWO ways, guys). and superman is basically "yeah, you're right, so i'll kill you." superman would've found a different way and then said to zod, see, you were wrong, i stopped you without resorting to your level. but nnnnnope. basically all the earth-people know about superman is that he can destroy an entire city in about 30 minutes and that he kills his enemies. i'm sure they feel really safe now.

i could've forgiven a lot of dumb shit (all the lois lane stuff, half the jesus stuff, etc.) if the rest of this movie was really good. i must confess: i wrote my initial reactions to the movie about 80 minutes in (i tend to watch movies in chunks if i'm watching them online). and at that point, i was thinking "good, not great." and then with every passing minute, they did their fucking best to make it awful. i will stick up for the first 30-35 minutes. it wasn't perfect but if the whole film had kept up that kind of quality/sense-making, i think this would've been like a 75% good film. but joepa dying needlessly in a twister, people being totes cool with aliens, leveling a whole city, and killing zod... jesus fucking christ.

[boltthrow]

What was with when Zod shows up in the council and kills a bunch of elders... and then gets caught by some of the other elders within about ten minutes.  Some coup. 

[strangelight]

have you ever seen the doc "the revolution will be televised"? these irish doc makers were following around hugo chavez, making a really simplistic "he's the best" doc, and in the course of filming there was a coup attempt against him (2002? 2004?). so the film took a turn and started to be about that and got a million times more interesting...

anyway, i bring that up, because... that is kinda how failed coup attempts go down. they're super stupid.

[CanookieWookie]

You people do realize its a Superman movie, correct? 

Way to much analyzation going on.

[The Shocker]

You people do realize its a Superman movie, correct? 

Way to much analyzation going on.

Slippery slope there Will.  You can basically say that about any genre movie.

[boltthrow]

It's not analysis.  It's pointing out obvious and unnecessary flaws that keep it from being a very good film.

[mortlock]

how does this shit make it past the test. I mean, isn't there some sort of screening process that would filter this crap out before the movie is completed. I shudder to think what the cutting room floor looked like if this was the best they had..

[boltthrow]

Snyder, Nolan and Goyer pull a lot of weight.  They made the movie they wanted to make and it'll be considered a hit, if not a gargantuan one.

[strangelight]

nolan didn't want superman to kill zod. goyer "won him over" by convincing him it would make superman "dark" and "hip."

if the last 30 minutes of this movie hadn't happened, i think this movie would be getting like 70% good ratings. people would be way more forgiving of the dumb shit that happens throughout. i mean, plenty of dumb shit happened in iron man 3 and people still liked it. same with star trek no colon into darkness.

[CanookieWookie]

Right, cause people don't like the movie    While its breaking records and doing good business, it must be the same 4 people going to see it.

As we all know, movie critics are the absolute authority when judging how good a movie(s) is (are).  Somehow this does not surprise me.

[strangelight]

lots of people went in the first week to see it because that zod trailer was fucking amazing. and it's doing well in overseas box offices, but lots of crap does well overseas. not many films actually make it to foreign theaters, so when they do, people go see it, whatever it is. also, not that many movies get dubbed, and who wants to read subtitles every damn time they go to a movie?

and while you're right, critics don't necessarily speak for the masses, the rotten tomatoes critic thing is full of a lot of amateur blogger type critics who aren't look for deep meaning or art in a film, and they didn't like this either.

and the same critics who don't like man of steel DO like star trek and iron man 3. which aren't high concept art films.

[Lumpy]

Somebody has a lot of emotional investment in a Superman movie.

[boltthrow]

So I like wearing a cape, so what?!

[strangelight]

and your underwear over your pants.

[CanookieWookie]

lots of people went in the first week to see it because that zod trailer was fucking amazing. and it's doing well in overseas box offices, but lots of crap does well overseas. not many films actually make it to foreign theaters, so when they do, people go see it, whatever it is. also, not that many movies get dubbed, and who wants to read subtitles every damn time they go to a movie?

and while you're right, critics don't necessarily speak for the masses, the rotten tomatoes critic thing is full of a lot of amateur blogger type critics who aren't look for deep meaning or art in a film, and they didn't like this either.

and the same critics who don't like man of steel DO like star trek and iron man 3. which aren't high concept art films.

I'm glad you interviewed every single movie goer, otherwise who would have known all the people went to it because of the zod trailer.

Of course.    This obviously means they speak for the rest of the "amateur type critics" in the world.

I suppose the 8.0 it got on IMDB doesn't count, because it doesn't fit with your argument.

[CanookieWookie]

Somebody has a lot of emotional investment in a Superman movie.

Awesome!

Another educational tidbit from the "look at me, I need attention" senior citizen.

[Marcos Reino]

strangelight speaks for me

[CanookieWookie]

.

[strangelight]

strangelight speaks for me