(no subject)
Saw Man of Steel. I haven't read any reviews, but I hear after some initial positive buzz the reviews haven't been great? For my money, I thought it was pretty solid. I'm fairly certain I liked it better than Iron Man 3, at any rate.
Things I liked:
Things I liked:
- Cavill is a good Superman. I don't really have a sense of how his Clark is -- i feel like when we saw Clark, it was almost always as portrayed by a child actor. But I really liked his Superman. He gives off that perfect mix of accessibility and distance, vulnerability and great power, intelligence and compassion.
- Also, after some meditation on the matter, I think I like that you can see little chest hairs escaping the scoop neck of his uniform. I've noticed that they removed the chest hairs in all the promo images, but it adds a little realistic detail I think, makes him more human.
- Russell Crowe's Jor El, although i often found the fact that he seemed about a foot shorter than everyone else in this movie rather distracting.
- Lara, who I thought was a pretty good mix of strength and vulnerability
- Kal in a Royals shirt! (probably my single favorite moment)
- The kid Clarks: so good!
- I liked that Kal didn't want to kill the last of his kind. (At least that was the vibe I was getting - though it also could have just been that he was upset about being driven to kill, period). Snapping of the neck seemed like an oddly intimate way to end a bombastic fight between two super powered creatures that had practically destroyed two midwestern towns (although you can hardly call that big ass version of Metropolis a town - goodness), but I liked that touch and Kal's reaction.
- I think I like that Amy Adams' Lois isn't as acerbic as Loises usually are. She's still bad ass, still gets things done, but she's not all insecure and obnoxious about it.
- The flight sequences
- The score. Hans Zimmer, you know just what I like, and you deliver every time. The music that plays over the end credits is particularly awesome.
- "You're talking genocide." "Yes, and I'm debating its merits with a ghost."
- Michael Shannon is such an...interesting actor. Like his face. And his line deliveries. I liked his Zod.
- I didn't realize it while watching the movie, but it struck me during the drive home, that the film has to be considered a bit notable if only for the fact that we never see Lois (or any other female character) in a state of undress.
- Helo! Toby Zeigler! Gaeta! Elliot Stabler! Always happy to see tv actors getting big screen work.
- I'm super glad they won't bother with the secret identity thing (at least as to Lois, and arguably, as to Smallville at large -- did anyone in that town NOT have reason to know about Clark?)
- Diane Lane's Martha Kent never felt like a real person to me. Cavill, bless his heart, was bringing it, but I felt like Diane was mailing it in big time. In her defense, she was given almost nothing to work with, but still. And Costner's Jonathan Kent...I don't know. I wanted to like him. I know he was trying to protect Clark. But I felt like he gave young Clark like the worst advice. I mean, "maybe" Clark should have let a schoolbus full of his classmates die to protect his secret? Pa Kent never would have suggested such a thing. Almost every time they were on screen, I found myself wishing for Smallville's John Schneider and Annette O'Toole. They have completely spoiled me for any other Kents.
- Oh Kal...you have a knock down fight with two aliens in the middle of Kansas, and you keep the fight to Smallville's MAIN STREET where there are people sheltered only by glass store fronts? how about you at least try to take the fight away from Smallville's civilian population? Particularly once the Air Force felt like they were just gonna shoot and bomb their way into the conversation? I've driven through the midwest, I know populated areas are few and far between and it would have been nice to see more of an effort from Clark to draw the fight away from people. Same with the fight in Metropolis. How does no portion of that fight take place over that conveniently located giant body of water that is right next to the city? Or, I dunno, THE NORTH POLE. I have never read Superman comics, so my sense of him is gleaned entirely from the DCAU tv shows and movies, but one of the overriding characteristics of animated Supes is his concern for innocent bystanders. It's something I associate with him and Bats over any other superheroes. But the most this film gave us on that front was his quiet "get off the streets, it's not safe" to that guy in Smallville. That's it!
- On a related note, I have a lot of trouble with the widespread devastation of Metropolis. Particularly in a situation that is introducing Superman to the world at large. I don't know about you guys, but my reaction to seeing Kal in the immediate aftermath of the destruction of Metropolis would not be "He saved us..." It would be holy shit, thousands of people must be dead or wounded, this city cannot possibly recover from the billions in damage that has been done, and i'm having trouble seeing how it's not almost entirely your fault. I feel like modern day superhero films have forgotten that superheros matter to us not just because they use their powers to fight the bad guys, but because they also use their powers and risk their lives to keep individuals safe, not just "populations". Every time I watch superhero movies now, I just keep thinking about the hundreds upon hundreds of people we don't even see on screen who must be denying during these ridiculous set pieces. And it kinda makes it hard to cheer for our "heroes".
- I'm not so sure we really needed all that background on Krypton at the start of the film, to make the movie work. That whole opening sequence was way over the top and way too busy for me. And really, how necessary were the giant dragonflies? I kept having John Carter flashback. Instead of the time on Krypton, I would have dedicated that time to seeing more of how Lois put the pieces together to find out her super powered mystery man was Clark Kent. It would have been a good opportunity for us to see Lois in her element, using her skills to get at the truth. Alas.
- So why did Zod want Lois brought to their ship with Kal again? Because it seemed to be JUST so she could upload Jor El into the ship's systems and escape with the knowledge of how to stop the world engine.
- The empty stasis chamber in the scout ship that crash landed a bazillion years ago. *grabby hands* WHAT/WHO WAS IN IT? I wanna know. Gimme the sequel already.
- On that note, who is going to be the Lex Luthor to Cavill's Superman? I really hope they don't blow the casting there, and I hope they go more for a Smallville-esque Luthor rather than the over-the-top Luthors of the previous film franchises.
- Um, is Doctor Hamilton dead? Because it's hard to see how he could not be, AND YET.