Perhaps, but that is good. We can't keep seeing the same or similar story in all movies that were made years ago. I hate it when people complain (not saying you are), "That's not how it happened in <insert old movie, book, comic>." Well, that's OK. It doesn't need to be exact and frankly should not be.
The Michael Bay strategy: throw enough explosions and tits on screen and people won't notice you make generally shitty movies.
Hollywood movies are generally butterfaces with 750cc implants. You get so stuck watching the fun stuff you forget it's missing all of the important stuff.
I thought the Batman films did a decent job of combining both drama, story, and action. Granted, there were flaws.
A suave billionaire falling in love with Maggie Gyllenhaal? Yeah I'll believe that after my girlfriends Kate Upton and Eva Longoria serve me grapes by hand.
But I didn't really notice much cleavage or overly sexualized women in M.o.S.
Well, that works for Ohio State fans.
my 6 year old loved it and I enjoyed it. But the ending pissed me off not because of Superman killing Zod but because of those f-ing people still waiting for their train. Two aliens with superpowers just destroyed the city and you still think the L-train is coming?
I've been into Superman longer than I've been into Michigan. I read the comics for far longer than a regular maturity grade should have made me stop. And I think either a lot of you guys are being too sarcastic, or we have very different ideas about movies, because I thought Man of Steel was one of the worst pieces of shit I've ever seen.
Yes, as a matter of fact, after Lord of the Rings and The Dark Knight I DO expect Shakespeare, or at least at attempt at having the plot and characters not be recycled canned spam from every goddamn Transformers crap blockbuster ever. This movie is no more deep than a successories poster: vivid imagery overlaid with inanity that people who've never had a thought provoked are meant to think is thought-provoking.
I submit for example: Ursa (or whatever, if she had a name other than the one from the comics and II, I missed it) is going on a punching-everybody-to-death-except-the-one-military-guy-we-are-supposed-to-empathise-with and delivers this little bit of expose' to explain the bad guys' moral position:
"Evolution will always win!"
Other grave sins:
- Jor-El suddenly has a flying insect riding beast, and can jump into the air Jedi-style and be caught by this thing. Who the fuck let George Lucas in here?
- The mythology of Superman is one of balance between his two worlds: Kyrpton and Kansas, and Metropolis is the combination of those two worlds. This balance is at the core of Superman mythology. Yet in this film, Metropolis is nothing but a playground to wreck, then wreck again, then wreck a third time after it's already wrecked (and then go to work in right afterwards as if the city getting leveled was just another day. Too much importance is placed on Kansas (even tagging him with their sports teams). This is bad characterization. This isn't a down-home boy who learned everything from his country father who sacrificed himself to keep the secret that everybody is now finding out--oh well. The character needs to have a greater world view. He needs to think he's too big for his hometown, and his home state, etc. because he is too big for all those things. The Metropolis part of his personality is a huge part of what makes the Superman character more than a strong guy in a leotard.
- The screenwriter ought to know something about that. David Goyer is an Ann Arbor (Huron) kid who went to USC. I am hereby writing off anything Goyer writes in the future. Chris Nolan kicked Goyer to the curb when he went to write The Dark Knight, which was better than the first movie, which was Nolan's vision mostly. I bet I can go back and point directly to the parts of Batman Begins that were Goyer's. Like Katie Holmes
- They can't decide if he's a Kansas or KState fan. ANY college sports fan will tell you that is impossible. Even if he was the kind of person to care about sports (he isn't because he could whup all of them if he wanted to and he isn't vain enough to want to), he'd have a side, and certainly his dad would have a side.
- Everyone keeps going back to the Kent house. If the whole world doesn't know Clark Kent=Superman the whole world is dumber than the writers thought their audience would be.
- Lois acts like anything BUT a journalist, and the military guys are happy to drive her wherever she wants to go. Including the Kents' house.
- So so so much more. Argh.
The Batman Trilogy, especially The Dark Knight, made me believe again that our civilization's greatest myths could be treated in our civilization's greatest art form with more than slam-bang-smooch-cheap laugh half-assed crap like Man of Steel that care more about reaching key demographics than how to tell a story.
Well that's disheartening. My twelve year old nephew can write a story entirely made up of throwing people and things into other things. In fact, I'm pretty sure that's exactly the story he WOULD write. Miss Congeniality was deeper than this film.
Well, it looks like your nephew and David Goyer have a talent that you, I and a majority of the people in this world surprisingly lack. I wish him luck in his budding screenwriting career and hope he doesn't forget his ol' Uncle Herm on his path to stardom.
But seriously, not everything in the cinematic world must have a deep meaning, most especially when the movie in question is based off of a comic book. Believe it or not, sometimes a well done "shoot 'em up" flick (short of a Michael Bay clusterfuck) that doesn't pretend to be a source of mental stimulation can be enjoyed just as is. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie because I came into it just wanting to be visually and aurally entertained, while also not expecting Shawshank Redemption.
By the way, I would suggest never admiting (or at least implying) that you've seen Miss Congeniality, as it immediately takes away every ounce of your credibility on the topic of film.
I don't think I'd try 3D on this. The action is so fast in this that I have to imagine it would play havoc with your eyes and it basically wouldn't add much.
Dude it's got like a 56% on Rotten Tomatoes and you're calling it the best combat action movie of all time?
Down fucking vote. Nothing you say about movies will ever be valid.
Because it is much more scientific to measure the relative quality of a movie based on the opening day gross than it is to use the aggregate value of reviews of the film. Since I'm sure everyone who went to see the movie on day 1 ONLY went specifically because they knew the film was awesome in advance, not because they loved Superman or happened to like the trailers for the film.
Not saying Man of Steel was a great movie (it sure as hell was entertaining to me atleast), but popular opinion doesn't make it fact, because at the end of the day, it's still just opinion. To use your avatar and username as an example, most people on this blog would probably say that Kid Cudi's music is terrible rubbish. I, and apparently you disagree with that majority opinion, and being in that minority doesn't make our own opinions on music in general irrelevant.
Superman is one of the hardest comic book characters to portray. You have to make a man who in invulnerable vulnerable. He is not relatable in the way someone like Batman is. They chose to focus on his worry in how the world would react to him. It was a different take, and I admire them doing it.
That being said, Zach Snyder knows nothing of subtlety. It is a profoundly humourless movie that takes itself incredibly serious. Also, I think it's amusing that people always complain about believability in a Superman movie. Suspension of disbelief is kind of par for the course when you are talking about an immortal alien who thinks glasses are a disguise.
I can't give this movie any higher than an 8.
Likes: The action sequences were good. I liked the narrative structure of mixing in the flashbacks as the film goes on, rather than telling the story in a linear fashion. The acting was serviceable, but I especially liked Michael Shannon as Zod. I am thankful that Snyder stayed away from his traditional super-slo-mo sequences that he couldn't stop doing in 300 at least.
Dislikes: The shaky-cam throughout the film gave me a massive headache. I was just glad I didn't see it in 3D. Too much CGI, but I'm not sure how else they were supposed to do the fights between characters that powerful. There were a handful of plot holes that annoyed the heck out of me.
Overall I enjoyed the film, but not as much as TDK or the Avengers. It was vastly superior to Superman Returns though.
As a plot twist, I wanted Russell Crowe to turn into Batman in the end.
ok...