widescreen thursday - man of steel
i took the precaution of not reading any reviews beforehand and even to some extent going "lalala" when those who had seen earlier screenings started talking about it.
so i had few expectations and a lot of nice surprises during the movie. overall i liked the reboot though there seemed to be one action (and destructive) sequence too many. well i guess they need to sell tickets to foreign language markets.
don't read on if you don't want to spoil the movie though i'm just giving away plot points rather than surprise spoilers.
what i did enjoy more than most was the extended planet krypton sequence and the meatier screen presence given to Russell Crowe's Jor-El. I liked the organic almost elvish look of the advanced civilisation on Krypton.
and rather than follow the baby alien's growing up story in a chronological way, we are instead shown examples of his struggle with his powers and his secret in thematic flashbacks.
all of which build up to his coming of age as um, then man with what looks like an S on his chest. they try very hard never to say the S word.
and then the movie, for me, goes slightly downhill with too much transformers/avengers hardware bashing with too many buildings being smashed into with scant regard to their occupants.
Superman first appeared in comics in 1938. It took 40 years for him to leap into his first movie in 1978. It is now another 35 years on. I still remember the magic of Christopher Reeve in that first movie. It was a more innocent time, when good and evil were more easily distinguished. And while i appreciated that 2013's general Zod is a more nuanced, almost sympathetic character than 1978's campy Terence Stamp, the knowledge of what happened to Christopher Reeve stopped me from having that same super feeling when looking at Henry Cavill.
(Dean Cain, however, is another story!)
so i had few expectations and a lot of nice surprises during the movie. overall i liked the reboot though there seemed to be one action (and destructive) sequence too many. well i guess they need to sell tickets to foreign language markets.
don't read on if you don't want to spoil the movie though i'm just giving away plot points rather than surprise spoilers.
what i did enjoy more than most was the extended planet krypton sequence and the meatier screen presence given to Russell Crowe's Jor-El. I liked the organic almost elvish look of the advanced civilisation on Krypton.
and rather than follow the baby alien's growing up story in a chronological way, we are instead shown examples of his struggle with his powers and his secret in thematic flashbacks.
all of which build up to his coming of age as um, then man with what looks like an S on his chest. they try very hard never to say the S word.
and then the movie, for me, goes slightly downhill with too much transformers/avengers hardware bashing with too many buildings being smashed into with scant regard to their occupants.
Superman first appeared in comics in 1938. It took 40 years for him to leap into his first movie in 1978. It is now another 35 years on. I still remember the magic of Christopher Reeve in that first movie. It was a more innocent time, when good and evil were more easily distinguished. And while i appreciated that 2013's general Zod is a more nuanced, almost sympathetic character than 1978's campy Terence Stamp, the knowledge of what happened to Christopher Reeve stopped me from having that same super feeling when looking at Henry Cavill.
(Dean Cain, however, is another story!)