The World News:- The action...is amazing.
I've never seen a film that had more action AND BETTER action.
95 percent of the film is awesome, awesome action sequences. The Amazing Spider-Man may have pocketed their whole budget and used it on cocaine or something, because Man of Steel cost only a little bit more and looks 200 times more generous.
I barely even like this movie, and I'm gonna see it again. I haven't even seen the Seth Rogen movie yet. I put it off so I could see Man of Steel. And I just might put it off again.
But as you've noticed, it only gets a 58 percent from critics on rottentomatoes, Sure we're talking about people who aren't Roger Ebert...but they still have kind of a point.
The problem with Superman can all be stemmed to one thing...Superman II (1980)
It's one thing to make a kick ass Superman movie, it's another thing to make one of the top 20 movies ever made, and that's what Superman II was.
Superman II has ruined the Superman franchise. Ever since then, no two people on planet Earth can come up with a simple straight answer as to what they expect a Superman film to be.
Superman III is easily better then 95 percent of the superhero films ever made since, and it got a beatdown.
Superman IV was made by Golan and Globus who are notorious cheapskates, men who if they weren't making movies would be talking back to John Taffer on Bar Rescue. They didn't even try with Superman IV, making a thoughtless, cheesy film on a third of the normal budget and somehow kept every one of those 17 million dollars off the screen regardless.
Superman Returns was a big insult to life. It was a bad day for philistines the world over, because this was their Superman -- taking proud bows after landing a confiscated plane all awkwardly like one of the three blind mice, having kids, religious parables, it was funny to watch Warner Brothers hand over the reigns to Brian Singer and watch him immediately get tripped up by the same problems that would plague any of us ordinary people who are fans with no input being heard...it's more then having a good script. You have to get that theme song right. That John Williams theme is Superman every bit as much as Hans Zimmer's score in Nolan's movies were Batman and Danny Elfman's score was Spider-Man. Sure you could have a cold opening...but that's actually a cool way to open a movie and we're talking about Warner Brothers here. So Brian Singer goes and copies the theme, uses Marlon Brando symbolism, that's cowardly stuff. He didn't have the nuts to face the pressure that would normally face anyone in that situation.
Superman II made Superman 1 look seriously seriously boring. And Superman 1 was a historical document. No man in well-fed Hollywood history faced the kind of pressure that Richard Donner did and by extension, Alexander and Ilya Salkind the producers. What they pulled that winter in 1977 set the ground work for every film that features big time special effects SET DURING THE DAY. You didn't just have to have the story in space to avoid seeing wires. And he blended it in with a genuine story and cast and there was subtlely throughout. Gene Hackman didn't have to raise his voice to be a menacing criminal in a superhero movie. And yet...Superman II...containing the bulk of the action that Superman I didn't...still managed to get all those other aspects down as good or better. Superman II was a transcendent superhero movie, and it's kept films like this new one, Man of Steel, from getting the praise it deserves. Man of Steel doesn't have its shit together like Superman II, it does what Amazing Spider-Man does -- insisting that the parents have to be big time roles who get lots of talking time. Having Martin Sheen and Sally Field, Kevin Costner and Diane Lane? Stop laying the cheese on the damn pizza. Two origin stories in the last two years have been altered for the worse. Not that I really care, I'm just illustrating why this Superman series is so screwed...even at Level 1, it's screwed. For how much money did it cost to pay these actors so they could be such a detriment?
Then the writers got the idea that they were going to turn this whole thing into the Dark Knight of Superman tales. If you look at the Nolan Batman movies and listen to Liam Neeson and Heath Ledger and Tom Hardy and Anne Hathaway and Aaron Eckhart talk...what they're saying makes perfect sense to some people. I would never propose to understand or give some kind of a sympathetic ear to that f*cker in Colorado who killed all those people at the Dark Knight screening, but what I'm saying is that these films sort of taunt and bait people. If you're vulnerable, depressed, just broke up with your girl, lost your job, and you have Heath Ledger's words about "they're only as good as the world allows them to be", you might contemplate crapping on the world. Well this is a trend that Nolan and Goyer keep up in Man of Steel by presenting us the most sympathetic General Zod you'll ever see in your life. They took the speed freak from "Chicago Cab" and made him General Zod, it was a hell of an idea, but all Zod does in this one is very passionately and zealously try to protect the people of Krypton. If there is no more Krypton...he's going to murder the Earth so he can turn THAT into Krypton, but he's still doing it to protect the people of Krypton. See? And then he tells off Kryptonian Congress in the beginning..."Our world is falling apart because you all sit there all day and debate nothing!" It's hard to hope Zod fails.
Nolan and Goyer also seemed to have gripes when it came to Lois Lane. They want to make her smarter, they can't bear the idea that she looks at someone with glasses on and can't recognize them without...and they can't bare the idea of Superman having "underwear" over his pants...these are gripes from smart-asses who barely give a damn. It's not part of scripture that these things have to be changed. The people who don't care...won't start caring because you made these changes. The people who do care...will choke yo ass. See the difference?
But the action is UN-BEEE-LIEEE-VABLE. You won't believe it's CGI. It looks amazing. Everything does. There's cool stuff on Krypton...in fact...if all the film was Krypton, it would still be worth seeing. The flying looks real and it's FUN. You're flying with Superman and you feel the weight and you hear the winds, he's fighting Zod on the street and they're just carving up the street by smeering each other into it at full speeds, and they got over this whole hang-up with 9/11 imagery. Buildings come down because stuff flies into them. People run and panic. It looks GREAT.
It is worth all the money. Every penny. But if you feel like taking a long wizz once Kal-El first gets to Earth, take your time. But be back promptly for the second hour!!!!
