man of steel.
in the grand tradition of the single entry i made ten years ago ranting about the reasons why "bad boys 2" enraged me, here are twenty reasons/questions/complaints i have about "man of steel" which may have just displaced the aforementioned smith/lawrence vehicle as my least favorite film of all time:
1) Loud and abrasive. Action movies are fine - it's really, really annoying when every single thing that happens is accompanied by a huge CRASSSSSSH and ZOOOM and oh my god can a camera shot please last for longer than second and a half without shaking uncontrollably?
2) No sense of humor, no happiness. Does Superman even smile once in the whole movie?
3) Why are Superman and Lois in love? Neither one really has a whole lot of personality traits. It's fine if it's just because they're both hot. Sometimes hot people make out. We'll just say it's because they're hot.
4) Why didn't Superman's parents just go with him to the next planet? There wasn't a really good explanation for this.
5) Why did the elder dudes send all the bad guys off the planet like literally five seconds before the planet exploded and they all died? That seems like something you would do for somebody you were trying to save, not somebody you were trying to punish.
6) How did Zod and his homies get unfrozen when everybody on their planet was dead? It looked like they were being frozen.
7) Why does Russell Crowe keep showing up everywhere when he's dead? Whatever, he somehow imbued his ships with his entire memory, apparently, but how does that enable him to perceive things that are happening in real time? Why should I even be sad that Superman's father is dead when his entire memory, which is also capable of learning new things, can be summoned at will (i.e., he's not really even dead, also, why not just do that with the mom too while we're at it)?
8) Is it the earth's atmosphere or the sun's rays that give Superman super powers? They said it was the sun, but then Zod started to get x-ray vision and laser eyes only after he took off his mask and breathed in the atmosphere. Also Superman lost his powers because of the atmosphere on the ship. Also, why were the other Krypton people able to jump through buildings and shit if they didn't have Superman's powers?
9) What was Kevin Costner's deal, anyway? Why did he kill himself to go after the dog? Why not send your superson? What exactly would rescuing the dog prove about Superman that wasn't already proven by pulling an entire school bus out of a river? Also, why were dozens of cars on this highway driving toward a tornado? Or did it just form into a superpowerful tornado over the course of like three seconds?
10) That insulting anti-evolution shit, what the fuck.
11) That scene at the end with the random Daily Planet reporter trapped and the movie keeps cutting to her as if we're supposed to give a crap about her relative to the thousands of people who have already died during this fight scene, including those that have been blindly slaughtered by Superman himself? While we're at it, why doesn't anyone ever say anything about the fact that Superman has engaged in some blindly dangerous behavior, including just cruising himself straight through various skyscrapers and a gas station and all sorts of other shit. Is there a reason why we're just kind of trying to ignore that?
12) Oh man, screw everything about the "I don't recognize you with glasses on" nonsense. I don't care if it's some kind of lame Superman tradition, Superman tradition is stupid as hell.
13) Why did Zod want Lois Lane to come onto the ship with Superman the first time? There wasn't really an explanation given for why and he didn't really do anything to justify it at any point.
14) What exactly was the deal with Toby Ziegler's character? Why is a mild-mannered doctor just randomly hanging out with a bunch of army dudes no matter what the army dudes are doing?
15) I don't think there were enough moments where Superman is staring at someone all hard and then jumps really high up.
16) Why did Superman seem to be experiencing his first problems with his x-ray vision and super-hearing and whatever in a classroom at age eight, when Zod started experiencing it more or less immediately upon removing his helmet?
17) How exactly does aging work for Superman anyway? In sixty years is he just going to be a super-strong invincible 90-year-old dude?
18) How is nobody else insulted by the degree to which we are asked to ignore everything that is wrong with this movie in the name of watching stuff get blown up?
19) I'm pretty sure the IHOP and Samsung product placements were the best-developed characters in the entire movie.
20) What the hell was going on in that first scene? It was just random chaos. Russell Crowe is running and now he's jumping onto a dinosaur and flying and now he's shooting some dudes and it's not totally clear why these dudes want to shoot these elder-dudes anyway and I guess I'm just supposed to shut up and watch Russell Crowe running and flying around even though I don’t know why's he running or where he's going or what's even happening in my life right now.
1) Loud and abrasive. Action movies are fine - it's really, really annoying when every single thing that happens is accompanied by a huge CRASSSSSSH and ZOOOM and oh my god can a camera shot please last for longer than second and a half without shaking uncontrollably?
2) No sense of humor, no happiness. Does Superman even smile once in the whole movie?
3) Why are Superman and Lois in love? Neither one really has a whole lot of personality traits. It's fine if it's just because they're both hot. Sometimes hot people make out. We'll just say it's because they're hot.
4) Why didn't Superman's parents just go with him to the next planet? There wasn't a really good explanation for this.
5) Why did the elder dudes send all the bad guys off the planet like literally five seconds before the planet exploded and they all died? That seems like something you would do for somebody you were trying to save, not somebody you were trying to punish.
6) How did Zod and his homies get unfrozen when everybody on their planet was dead? It looked like they were being frozen.
7) Why does Russell Crowe keep showing up everywhere when he's dead? Whatever, he somehow imbued his ships with his entire memory, apparently, but how does that enable him to perceive things that are happening in real time? Why should I even be sad that Superman's father is dead when his entire memory, which is also capable of learning new things, can be summoned at will (i.e., he's not really even dead, also, why not just do that with the mom too while we're at it)?
8) Is it the earth's atmosphere or the sun's rays that give Superman super powers? They said it was the sun, but then Zod started to get x-ray vision and laser eyes only after he took off his mask and breathed in the atmosphere. Also Superman lost his powers because of the atmosphere on the ship. Also, why were the other Krypton people able to jump through buildings and shit if they didn't have Superman's powers?
9) What was Kevin Costner's deal, anyway? Why did he kill himself to go after the dog? Why not send your superson? What exactly would rescuing the dog prove about Superman that wasn't already proven by pulling an entire school bus out of a river? Also, why were dozens of cars on this highway driving toward a tornado? Or did it just form into a superpowerful tornado over the course of like three seconds?
10) That insulting anti-evolution shit, what the fuck.
11) That scene at the end with the random Daily Planet reporter trapped and the movie keeps cutting to her as if we're supposed to give a crap about her relative to the thousands of people who have already died during this fight scene, including those that have been blindly slaughtered by Superman himself? While we're at it, why doesn't anyone ever say anything about the fact that Superman has engaged in some blindly dangerous behavior, including just cruising himself straight through various skyscrapers and a gas station and all sorts of other shit. Is there a reason why we're just kind of trying to ignore that?
12) Oh man, screw everything about the "I don't recognize you with glasses on" nonsense. I don't care if it's some kind of lame Superman tradition, Superman tradition is stupid as hell.
13) Why did Zod want Lois Lane to come onto the ship with Superman the first time? There wasn't really an explanation given for why and he didn't really do anything to justify it at any point.
14) What exactly was the deal with Toby Ziegler's character? Why is a mild-mannered doctor just randomly hanging out with a bunch of army dudes no matter what the army dudes are doing?
15) I don't think there were enough moments where Superman is staring at someone all hard and then jumps really high up.
16) Why did Superman seem to be experiencing his first problems with his x-ray vision and super-hearing and whatever in a classroom at age eight, when Zod started experiencing it more or less immediately upon removing his helmet?
17) How exactly does aging work for Superman anyway? In sixty years is he just going to be a super-strong invincible 90-year-old dude?
18) How is nobody else insulted by the degree to which we are asked to ignore everything that is wrong with this movie in the name of watching stuff get blown up?
19) I'm pretty sure the IHOP and Samsung product placements were the best-developed characters in the entire movie.
20) What the hell was going on in that first scene? It was just random chaos. Russell Crowe is running and now he's jumping onto a dinosaur and flying and now he's shooting some dudes and it's not totally clear why these dudes want to shoot these elder-dudes anyway and I guess I'm just supposed to shut up and watch Russell Crowe running and flying around even though I don’t know why's he running or where he's going or what's even happening in my life right now.