The film delivers what it sets out to be: retelling the origin story of the alien baby that comes to earth and has to deal with its power, people's prejudices and ultimately his rise as earth's protector.
It starts with an impressive and breath-taking Science-Fiction beginning at Krypton before the film slows down a bit to tell the story of the lonely wanderer with the unbelievable background. The film pleasantly succeeds in the latter as well, thanks to a really good supporting cast and Cavill's convincing portrayal of Clark Kent.
While the movie could have used a few more hints of humor here or there it still flows really well and culminates in a huge 45 minute showdown that is both the film's blessing and curse. It's big, it's noisy and spectacular.
But for a film that tries to be realistic for quite a while (and manages quite well, given the circumstances and comic book background), some of the action special effects take you out of the experience, because they are very clearly just that: effects. It also feels off how repetitive some of the moves are. At some point you stop counting how often someone has been thrown through a building or dragged across the asphalt.
But that's lamenting in luxury, because the rest of the movie is really entertaining and well done, Hans Zimmer's soundtrack feels like an instant classic, the production design is breath taking and beautifully filmed. Of course, the smart and moving ending opens all doors for more adventures and I, for one, wouldn't mind at all to revisit the Man of Steel.
Even though it feels and looks different than all other attempts before: a very brave attempt at the well known story. Spectacular entertainment.
8 out of 10 mercury tapestries
View original postChristopher Nolan & Zac Snyder have figured out the secret to making a comic book superhero movie:
Don't. Make another movie instead. Watchman was true to the comic book, as I recall (I read the comic once or twice before they made the film) but fairly inaccessible to normal people, and fell short of satisfying the source material's fans. 300 was a stylized war movie. Nolan was more successful with the Dark Knight trilogy, which was devoid of super powers and instead was an allegory about freedom, power and society. And "Man of Steel" succeeds in similar fashion as a straight-up science fiction movie with some familiar names. Change the Superman-specific names in this film, and switch around his famous powers, and it would still work, I think.
Agreed.
View original postThe childhood material is also presented in a way that makes it more relevant to the character of who he is and why he does what he does. The bullying theme is harped on to establish a seminal distaste for the abuse of power and to emphasize that Clark learned restraint and adaptation the hard way, rather than to give the audience cheap vicarious thrills of the nerd secretly having powers.
Exactly.
View original postThe second and third acts are bridged with a Christ allegory that makes "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" seem subtle. When Clark contemplates sacrificing himself to save humanity, he does so aloud with a stained glass window behind his head depicting Christ's Agony in the Garden. He states his age as 33, and responds to an urging to save the human race by falling back into a cruciform pose before turning around and flying.
Didn't mind or didn't notice the first few points, but the JC pose was a bit much maybe. Then again, it was always present in Supie's history.
View original postAs far as the action and the visuals go, Richard Donners' films, by comparison, look like a puppet show put on by hippie peacenicks. The climatic battle is very reminiscent of "The Avengers" only with fewer silly characters or ridiculously bright colors. Henry Cavill might very well be the best Superman I have personally witnessed. Christopher Reeve was a little too smirky and off-putting. The handful of moments of Dean Cain were too regular-guy for such an iconic role, and Tom Welling had the charisma of a wet turkey. Brandon Routh was utterly forgettable, but Cavill manages to make the character believable as an admirable & inspiring hero and a respect-worthy man. His relationship with his mother seems more genuine and natural than any of the prior movies, and Kevin Costner's Jonathan Kent is rebooted as more than just the nay-saying lecturer of Clark's adolescence, briefly sketching in a man who is believable as both Superman's moral touchstone and mentor and as a loving father who believes in his son. For his other father, Russell Crowe's Kryptonian scientist is a lot more badass than Marlon Brando, and his expository role to Clark is handled in such a way as to give his Kryptonian heritage comparable significance to his humanity, without being an unnecessary source of conflict, as I vaguely remembered from "Smallville" (I gave up on that show after the witchcraft episode).
Like I said, some of the action felt a but off and the humans were too clearly CGI, something I never noticed or thought about for a second during the Avengers showdown for example. It's hard to deliver "realistic" ass-kicking considering the amount of all his powers and the one he's facing but they still could have tuned it down a notch on the CGI humans super speeding or getting thrown through a building.
Entirely agree about Crowe and Costner, though. Liked them both very much.
View original postAnother aspect that I felt improved the movie immensely was leaving the oft-derided secret identity issue almost completely out of the film.
Oh God, yes. It was so refreshing that the glasses came very late and very clearly didn't fool anyone who met him before.
View original postWith a scope that combines both the Richard Donner films, with none of the tediousness or cartoonish aspects of all subsequent films, I really think "Man of Steel" is my personal favorite Superman movie, and the best treatment of the franchise I have yet to see, including a couple of episodes each of the really old show and WW2-era cartoon. It might also be the best movie I have seen about anyone with super powers, and a worthy addition to Nolan's resume within the genre.
I am not sure I'd put it in my top ten super hero films, but close enough.
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I strongly recommend DC take a hint and leave "Arrow" out of any Justice League movie. Superman from this film just does NOT belong in the same organization as any mortal human being with a bow and arrows, no matter how much karate or supercomputers he has backing him up. I don't even see Bale's Batman being a worthy teammate, though I would imagine that if you could make a credible Avengers movie featuring Hawkeye & Thor at the same time, you could find a plausible way to team up Superman with some version of Batman. Aquaman seems equally futile, but "The Big Bang Theory" which I have recently been marathoning, suggests even source-material aficionados share my skepticism.
It's time you get over your anti-Hawkeye fixation
*NM*