Movie Critics Thread

[Gutsman Heavy]

Man of Steel was what it needed to be. The Shadow of Reeves crushed Returns, and they couldn't do that again. And for people complaining that it's not consistent with the portrayal in the older films and that this or that was "wrong" do you even read the books? Superman has had heaps of variation, but suddenly this one is wrong? Really comes across as "not muh supamayne!"

75 years people, should have already got used to various interpretations.

3 Stars, did what it needed to do, and had fun along the way.

[GoktimusPrime]

This is how Superman grooms himself:

Come on Gok, you are a geek. You should know all these things would be covered

Must be tough if he ever wanted to mansca--, uh, I mean, but the film itself never explains this. He walks in with a beard, comes out without one. One of my friends described it as a "magic beard."

My 9-year-old gave what I thought was an accurate description of the evil Kryptonians - the Flash mixed with the Hulk

That's the way Kryptonians SHOULD be portrayed in battle though. One thing that's bugged me with previous screen portrayals is how they can run faster than the speed of sound and lift trains, but they don't combine these abilities all that often in a fight. If anything, I thought they should've been faster... more like how Saiyajin fight each other in Dragonball (only without the long drawn out grandstanding - I mean the actual action). This felt more Dragonball like, which I think is good. But I also think it needs to be _more_ Dragonballish. Flurry of punches with each final hit ending with the opponent soaring through the air and creating massive craters every time they land. Land in a mountain - that mountain crumbles.

But yeah, Man of Steel has given us the best Kryptonian fight scenes I've ever seen on screen, be it movie or cartoon. This is more like how Kryptonians should look when they bring the hurt. It's like this discussion I sometimes have; who would win in a fight, Harry Potter or Superman? Superman is vulnerable to magic, but he should be able to defeat Harry Potter if he runs super fast and grabs his wand before he can even open his mouth to utter a spell. Although if Harry were prepared, he could embed a chunk of Kryptonite into his wand, but if Superman could detect that with his see-through things vision (it's actually better than X-Ray because he can somehow see colours and texture etc.!), then he could just burn that wand with his heat vision. Of course... not sure why Harry Potter would even want to hurt Superman. Maybe Draco Malfoy.

Didnt care all that much about man of steel. It was okay but nothing brilliant. Maye it's because I find ol' Supes boring and hard to invest in as a character.

Because there was a lack of character development? I still find it hilarious that the antagonist had better characterisation than the protagonist.

Man of Steel was what it needed to be. The Shadow of Reeves crushed Returns, and they couldn't do that again. And for people complaining that it's not consistent with the portrayal in the older films and that this or that was "wrong" do you even read the books? Superman has had heaps of variation, but suddenly this one is wrong? Really comes across as "not muh supamayne!"

75 years people, should have already got used to various interpretations.

3 Stars, did what it needed to do, and had fun along the way.

I don't think it's "wrong" to do an interpretation. As I said, there are a lot of things I like about the new interpretation of Superman. I really like the new interpretation of Krypton and Kryptonian society. Gone is the pearly white near Utopian society of previous incarnations, replaced with this harsh, decadent and corrupt civilisation that was in desperate need of purging. Previously it was like the destruction of Krypton caught them by surprise, and Jor-El was only able to save his son (and sometimes dog) just in time. In the Donner film the council forbade Jor-El from leaving Krypton, so he was only able to launch his son. The Kryptonians were arrogant, but they didn't cause Krypton's destruction. I like how in this version the Kryptonians themselves were directly responsible for their own destruction due to their own avarice and sloth; having chosen to abandon the ways of their ancestors to search the stars. I found it interesting that Krypton had embraced eugenics and had become this completely genetically bio-engineered society; which ultimately caused their downfall. It also gave Zod greater credence as to why he had to do what he did -- he wasn't just some shallow one dimensional villain as we saw in Terence Stamp's version (although Superman II suffered from the conflicting visions of Richard Donner and the Salkinds - Donner wanting to make it a serious film with the Salkinds wanting to make it more campy; but all things considered Stamp played the role brilliantly; I find he has a far more menacing screen presence than Shannon). So there are a lot of things about MoS that I do like - and I don't object to reboots, but I just prefer continuous continuity.

And yeah, Superman was due for a reboot. It's been 33 years since Superman II (or 26 years since Superman IV); and while I quite liked Superman Returns, I know that commercially it failed to revive that continuity, so I do understand the reason why they decided to move on from it. It's not like say certain Transformers series where they get axed just as things are getting good; e.g. Beast Wars, Animated, TF Prime... I wouldn't include the G2 comics because toy sales were poor which prompted Hasbro to stop investing in continuing the comic series (even though it had really improved a lot at the time of its cancellation).

But my beef with Man of Steel isn't so much the fact that it's a reboot, but because I found there was a lack of characterisation in Clark. As i_amtrunks said, it's just hard to emotionally invest in the character, and that's what the protagonist needs to do.