Evan was in town this past weekend, and due to extenuating
circumstances (like, our city got nice and flooded), we were able to take in a
movie after church. We decided on Man of Steel (over This is the End and World War Z) and dragged Amy along with us, because of course we did.
Honestly, I can’t remember what most of the trailers were. Pacific Rim, maybe? White House Down was the first, and Evan called that as we entered
the theatre, so bonus points for him. I think I got the others, though, so I’m
not entirely sure who wins that round.
Anyway, the movie opens with a mother giving birth, while
Russell Crowe helps. I’m not entirely sure he should be around any births,
since he might snap and start hurling phones at various medical personnel, but
maybe that’s why he’s assisted entirely by robots here. After that, the movie
shifts into a fairly long action scene. General Zod (Michael Shannon) leads an
insurrection right before Krypton blows up while Jor-El (Crowe) sends his son
to Earth. This is totally how every movie should start. Way over the top action scenes with a ton of explosions to get us
invested in it.
Then the movie slows down a lot, but by that time we’re
already hooked. It spends about an hour letting us get to know Clark
Kent (Henry Cavill, whom we recognize from Immortals, but that’s about it. He’s
my kind of guy, though – he almost missed the call from Zack Snyder because he
was busy playing World of Warcraft) while he gets to know himself.
Eventually the action starts back up, again in tremendous
manner. Say what you want about Snyder, but he can sure do special effects.
They’re almost Bay-ish in their size, intensity, and frequency. I didn’t really
have any quibbles about the action, just a question. If two invincible beings
face off, can one defeat the other by punching? Has punching ever been the
answer to invincibility? Has punching ever been the solution outside of movies,
TV, and boxing? Not that that’s a small sample, mind you. Right now I’m going
through Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and there’s an awful lot of punching of
immortal beings. Some kicking too, just to mix things up.
Well, tangent over. One thing I really liked about this
movie is the number of people I recognized. You’ll probably know Amy Adams as Lois
Lane , and Kevin Costner as Pa Kent, and possibly Diane
Lane as Ma Kent .
And Morpheus – sorry, Laurence Fishbourne (but really, will he be known as
anyone else?) – as Perry White. There’s also Richard Schiff (Toby from The West Wing) as a military scientist, and Michael Kelly (Mark Snow from Person of Interest) as a reporter from the Daily Planet. I mean, his character in the
credits is Steve Lombard, but he’s pretty much the guy at the Daily Planet
who’s not Morpheus. Oh yeah, Christopher Meloni’s in it too (from one of the Law
& Order spin-offs. Also, the really ugly guy from Harold and Kumar go to White Castle).
There are some jokes in here, but not a lot. The music is
suitably heroic, but not quite to my tastes. I would have put slightly
different chord progression in there, but Hans Zimmer is beyond reproach at
this point, so you may as well pick up the soundtrack if you like his other
stuff. I’ll stick with Audiomachine.
That’s pretty much my only quibble. The movie is fantastic
from beginning to end. Not even the douchebag who answered his phone (twice!)
could spoil it. Definitely a theatre movie for me.
"Man of Steel" looks like 21st Century "Transformers"/"The Avengers"-level special effects grafted on to the same script as the 1978 "Superman" movie starring Christopher Reeve. Nothing wrong with that but I'm in no hurry to see it either.
ReplyDeleteLess like the 1978 movie (that was redone for Superman Returns), and more like 1980's Superman II. Invincible Kryptonian criminals really are the only threat to Supe's god-like powers.
ReplyDeleteThe intro was one of the better ones I've seen. I mean, everyone already knows Superman's origin story, but Snyder (and Nolan, I'm guessing) managed to cover the same ground in a way that didn't seem repetitious. I also really liked that Lois Lane isn't treated like a ditz. I mean, she's a world-class reporter, but in most iterations of the story, she can't figure out that the guy right in front of her is Superman? Come on! Much better that she be the one to piece together his story while trying to track him down.
The biggest problem I had with it was the ending. Supes broke his only inviolable rule. Not without reason, mind you, but that was part of what makes him (and Batman) the good guy.