I raise a logical counter-argument:

I completely agree with Mr. "Regarding Clark" above--or, I would, if we were dealing with an older Superman. But we're dealing with a brand-spanking-new Superman. In MoS, we've seen Superman being Superman for a grand total of 2 hours. In movie time, maybe a week.

Every argument against the movie I hear is based out of what Superman "is" or what Superman "should be." First off all, stop that. If you're upset about what Superman "should" be, then you should have walked out of the theater the moment Jor-El was in the movie for more than 3 minutes at the beginning.

The point of this movie was to bring humanity and grounding back to the character whilst exploring what a character with his powers can really do, and I feel that (disregarding some bad lines here and there, and some overly-rushed dramatic points) the filmmakers did a pretty good job at that.

Consider this whole "death and destruction, buildings falling everywhere" thing. All Clark knows is that he's suddenly finding himself with a very odd identity crises and that he must choose between his native species and his adopted one. Meanwhile, his native species is trying to kill said adopted species.

As the video above so clearly states, Superman tries to save everyone. That's a character trait that's there from the beginning, and the movie illustrates that through some of his flashbacks (the oil rig, the school bus). He doesn't want to kill--and he certainly doesn't want to kill members of his own race. What we're seeing during the body of the movie's action is a man who is way in over his head and is experiencing a situation of such extreme magnitude and gravity that he literally has no idea what to do beyond trying to stop the Kryptonians from directly killing humans. Any that die in secondary ways (i.e. buildings falling) are simply unreachable for him.

Also remember that this is his first time really fighting anyone. Ever. And they're as powerful as him.

Like I said: if we were dealing with an older, veteran Superman, then this would all be inexcusable (except maybe if the villain were Doomsday). But this is his first time, and I'm sure we'll be seeing a lot of character growth in the sequel due to his grief. He let thousands die--and he will never let that happen again.

The ignored collateral damage isn't the main thing wrong with the movie, certainly.  Although... using the destruction of a city as the backdrop for a romantic moment was a particularly odd choice.   At least when Snyder did the exact same scene in Watchmen, the characters were appropriately horrified.

Anyway, I did finally see this movie the other day and although I didn't love it, I had a better time watching it than I did the galactic stupidity of Trek 2 or the lackluster paycheck-collecting of Iron Man 3.   

Spoilers to follow, if anyone's still concerned about that.

It surely helped that I don't have any great fondness for Superman - so I wasn't bothered by anything they did "wrong".  And I know the "right" story well enough to recognize what they changed, and I thought a lot of choices were interesting.  Krypton was bizarrely fascinating, young Clark being unable to deal with his powers and seeming like a kid with mental illness was cool, and Pa Kent trying to help Clark and basically screwing him up even worse was certainly an interesting way to go.

And there was dumb science, but it was kept to a minumum - and really, a Superman movie kinda gets a pass on dumb science since there's no real-world explanation that justifies Superman's existence anyway.  At least they didn't go into it much more than the classic "he gets his power from the Sun... hey look over there - ponies!"

But - once he put on the suit, the movie lost its way, spent too much time on side issues, and then concluded with a lot of expensive visual effects that didn't quite add up to a satisfying story.   

Certainly the lowest point was "if we put his baby rocket near the big machine and something something, then the warp cores will oh look over there - ponies!" but at least the explanation scene was literally no longer than that sentence, and everyone in it looked appropriately embarrassed to be involved.  You could especially see Richard Schiff thinking "I used to have my dialog written by Aaron Sorkin, now look at my life".

On the plus side - as near as I could tell - whatever they were trying to do with the baby rocket didn't actually succeed.  Instead, the supporting characters heroically crashed their plane into the enemy's big tower in the middle of Metropolis - a daring real-world parallel that I'd like to think the filmmakers did absolutely on purpose as an ironic commentary but probably wasn't.   But if it was, well wow - talk about taking 9/11 porn to its logical extreme.  Balls of Steel, movie.

The thing about this reboot that I disagreed with most was the denouement -  they held onto two things that have long outlived their usefulness in the Superman mythos, when they could have jettisoned them.  One is the entire Clark Kent thing, which is just silly and really always has been.   What does it bring to the story other than a lot of contrived situations?    But okay, fine, it's such an ingrained part of the story that they held onto it.  Fair enough.

But that brings us to the second anachronistic thing that they absolutely should have - and easily could have - modernized.  Superman had a human alias so he could work at newspaper, and thus stay on top of events that need fixin'.  Which made sense in the 1930's when television wasn't even a thing yet... but now?  It's the 21st century - how much longer is "The Daily Planet" even going to stay in business?

So if they wanted to keep the Clark thing going, then what they could have done - and were all set up to do, but didn't -  is have the Daily Planet leveled in the chaos, and at the end Clark and Lois go work for that other guy's internet news business.   If you're going to reboot anything in the standard Superman story, reboot that.

EDIT:  Unless they've got a plan for the sequel where The Daily Planet gets bought by the Metropolis equivalent of the Koch brothers and becomes a rightwing rag that spreads bullshit propaganda, so one of the villains in the movie is sorta the Daily Planet itself.  That movie I might want to see. 

Bryan Cranston's Lex Luthor.

Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit.

Thanks, Teague.

Plus, people are already going to ballgames and stuff... I guess they just reroute the traffic around that smoking crater in the center of town.   Game on!

My take on Man of Steel – silly. boring. Over-blown. I’m with Teague on the lack of character development. Way too many buildings are destroyed. WAY too many people die. The music and explosions hurt my ears. Also, there's a thing called a steady-cam. Look it up.

On the upside, Henry Cavill could not be more beautiful to look at. Damn. He’s pretty much the only reason I went to see it on opening night anyway, and for him alone, I say WORTH IT.  (Call me shallow, I don't care. I'm human.)

But as far as the movie itself went – meh. I probably got most excited when I recognised two actors from Battlestar Galactica in quick succession and was then totally distracted for the next ten minutes thinking about how much more interesting this movie would be if it had Starbuck in it.

And the only part I don’t like about Jake Lloyd’s reboot idea is keeping the first 20 minutes. I was bored out of my mind watching that crap (I hated Avatar anyway) and if I hadn’t paid my money mostly to see Henry Cavill in tights, I honestly might have walked out at that point. I did genuinely consider it, and I rarely walk out of movies. But if it was on TV, I'd have changed channels.

Overall, I’m not going to be recommending this to people, unless they would think Henry Cavill in tights is worth paying $17 to go and see on a huge screen. Which it is, actually...but only once. Make a better sequel, and I’ll be back. I might even go twice.

Really?

Well, ok then......

whatever that actor's name is, He'd have been a good Perry White.  Just play the character as a Ironic newsman who's seen it all and nothing impresses him.

He is Dirk Benedict

And the Internet promptly explodes

Just saw MoS today. My opinion of pretty much everyone involved in the creative process has been lowered substantionally.

In almost every scene there were things I objected to. Either how certain things were handled, how the scene lacks any emotional context to engage me in the moment we are watching, or how obvious things that could have been done weren't done.

This film is a particle effects demo. This is derivative almost to Oblivion levels. I had lowered my expectations going in to it, and yet I could not help from zoning out so many times. This is literally the plot of Transformers 3 (bring the alien world to earth through magic bean/alien device) with the fights from Iron Man 2 and The Matrix rehashed at the end.

The destruction of Metropolis was operating at parody levels. I've seen a few mentions of the movie being bold or noteworthy for actually going to new levels of 9/11 references. In fact this is the most mindless, anonymous, unengaging, video-game destruction I've yet seen, and I fail to see how anyone could relate in any way to it. Cloverfield tearing down buildings was shocking and realistic (monster aside). This movie is the equivalent of playing with a Ragdoll simulation game and trying to relate emotionally with the faceless, grey plastic doll you are continously throwing down stairs in various inventive ways. I don't see how it's even possible.

Hans Zimmer is remixing himself as intensly as ever. I heard a complete re-orchestration of an Angels & Demons theme in here, note for note with the same violin playing. I don't care if they temp-scored it and wanted the same thing, have SOME intellectual integrity.

MoS- Krypton's Last: http://youtu.be/vQh085jWYpQ?t=40s
A&D - God Save Us: http://youtu.be/edH8bFmIgvI?t=3m33s

I NEED someone to Plinkett or FIYH this movie once it hits retail. How did everyone , sans CGI artists and actors doing their best, botch this so badly?

One scene had me emotionally engaged to the point of slight shivers (cold theater though...) and that was the flying scene right after he dons the cape and suit. And anyone could make a CGI scene of a guy shooting through the air with jet sounds and sonic booms, aided by Hans Zimmer having an entire orchestra plus a godless amount of synthesizers playing powerchords, be powerful.

Not only would I not recommend MoS, I would rather watch Transformers 3 over this. This movie actually made me feel this way, and I kind of hate it for it.

Last edited by TechNoir (2013-06-30 18:45:41)

Saw it just now. Not sure yet apart from that I loved it. It's the best Superman film to date. IMHO, anyway.