You Want Superman Revamp? [Also the Man of Steel (2013) thread]

Yeah, absolutely no problem with Spacey being cast as Lex Luthor. He didn't ruin the character. imo He did the best he could with it. SR was just a shitpile in every regard (except the opening title sequence, which was a nice throwback to the original films).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oYH8OVseQE

p sure it was a throwback to the 70s ones

those "everything wrong" videos are so stupid

xp i hate those vids and the guy who does them

lol

*highfives H4A*

I don't like 'em either! So smug. But I still posted it, because pinatas are fun.

p sure it was a throwback to the 70s ones

Were there any theatrical Superman films prior to those?

is that by the same guy who did those videos about the star wars prequels? was more put off by the creepy guy-in-a-basement vibe of those than the smugness.

also the guy talked...so...fucking...slowly.

no that's another (kinda genius) guy

Were there any theatrical Superman films prior to those?

there were 31

15 parts of Superman in 1948, 15 parts of Atom Man Vs Superman in 1950, Superman And The Mole People in 1951

sad to hear this is no good because i think my gf is going to make me to go see it

xp never knew.

Here's the og on-camera Superman:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1c/Kirk_alyn_sup.jpg

superchunk

how in the world was kevin spacey miscast, its like, almost the perfect role for his face & voice & personality. house of cards dude is basically lex luthor

Yeah I mean I basically could not disagree more, but I don't have any arguments other than a visceral reaction against his performance. I like him in Cards.

xp i hate those vids and the guy who does them

But THIS we agree on!

Just back from this. I'd say it fits right in alongside Battle: Los Angeles, Transformers 3, and Wrath of the Titans in modern mindless blockbusters that are relentlessly ugly, humourless, long and deafeningly loud. It's just no good at all.

xpost Red Letter Media guy is really perceptive, and has found a clever way to tone down the serial killer stuff of yore. Can't wait to hear what he says about this.

guess who

As Dad walked up to my car after the movie tonight, wiping tears away from his eyes he looked at me and said, “Ya know, I’m pretty sure that’s the best superhero movie ever made.” And I looked at him, same smile and the same tears – and I said, “I absolutely agree, Dad!”

The RLM guys are good but I'm really done with watching the "half in the bag" vids, I think - they have lots of intelligent things to say but it could all be boiled down to a text review that takes seven minutes to read versus a video review that takes twenty-five to watch. The Plinkett ones had the edge of his awesome voice, and just intercutting clips of the movie to make the point rather than the guys in a room. Hate to say it really cause I like the way they look at a lot of things.

half in the bag is moronic garbage most of the time. the plinkett reviews are good

This was okay for an hour or so then turns into a nearly unwatchable shitshow.

Like it just totally gives up on being a real movie about halfway through.

15 parts of Superman in 1948, 15 parts of Atom Man Vs Superman in 1950, Superman And The Mole People in 1951

those were serials, not features--and many people know them through their rebroadcast on 1950s TV. so i think you can characterize the 1978 film as the first superman feature.

for some reason i actually had (admittedly unfounded) hopes for this reboot. sounds like another shitshow.

still think the original (richard lester) version of superman II is the best superhero movie, though IMO that's not saying very much.

feel like audiences would feel ripped off if a big blockbuster movie didn't have an hour of bone-crushing violence, which is a shame

If flying, punching and CGI particle effects are your bag then brother have I got the film for you.

since when did every movie that costs > $250 have to restage the apocalypse at its climax?

Wow this sucked, so devoid of personality that it felt weird whenever it made even a vague attempt at character/wit/humor. I'm willing to bet Snyder would have made a way more interesting movie without Nolan/Goyer's involvement. (And I'm not really much of a Snyder apologist.)

$250 million, I should say

How much does your movie suck when the most charismatic presence is Russell fuckin' Crowe

Mostly it's the script that's dogshit, I mean...Lois saying I AM A PULITZER PRIZE WINNING JOURNALIST to her boss?

Also, the only time I heard anyone in the audience pipe up, it was to mention the insanely obtrusive product placement.

i used to think 'batman returns' was the best superhero movie but the last time i watched it it really hadn't aged as well as i'd hoped. still think it's kind of impressively fucked-up and un-audience-friendly for an early '90s summer blockbuster.

Krypton looked like it was interestingly designed, but it was so badly filmed. As well as the shaky-cam and light constantly being shone into the camera, the colour palette was a uniformly smudgy teal & grey.
Henry Cavil didn't have a great deal to chew on, but I did think he made a better Clark/Super than Brandon Routh, but possibly only by dint of the fact that he wasn't asked to do a weak impersonation of Christopher Reeve. Cavil has something of a Michael Fassbender quality to him, unfortunately the script he's given here is of rancid quality.

those were serials, not features--and many people know them through their rebroadcast on 1950s TV. so i think you can characterize the 1978 film as the first superman feature.

Mole Men was a feature, also megalol at "these were shown on television later so they're not theatrical films," because

that wasn't my implication. that was just an aside. just noting that both in film and TV they were very much "serial" dramas.

did not realize mole men was a feature. thanks for correction.

Haha JD you do realize the irony in praising a movie for being fucked up and unaudience friendly in a thread where everyone's ripping on man of steel for being just that

No, Batman Returns was those things but INTERESTING. Sounds like everyone is ripping on MOS for being boring.

one can point out an irony without missing the distinction, you know

batman begins was pretty far from humorless also and an approach that works w/ batman is almost definitely an approach that won't work w/ superman

like, no shit, i get man of steel is worse than batman returns. I'm just noting that if man of steel managed one thing it was being fucked-up and audience-bumming.

marvel folks must be amazed at dc's inability to just tap into what makes a character cool, find a sympathetic director and work up some bad-ass action scenes centric to that coolness. they make it look so easy.

this is so wooden! i didnt dislike it exactly, it had a few stellar moments even, but it didnt really 'work' either. and holy god the dialogue... i'm usually really forgiving of bad dialogue but the clunkers kept coming. i actually rolled my eyes at a few. i'll just say that it couldnt have been more apparent that this was written by the guy who made Blade: Trinity. someone could make a The Happening-style supercut of the most inexplicable moments, like when zod and his crew are frozen in giant ice dildos that fly away into the sky, or lois asking "what if i need to tinkle"

henry cavill's a huge problem. he looks great but he comes off as a himbo... he has the personality of a piece of vinyl siding. to be fair to him the role is underwritten, as is every other character in the movie. but he doesnt bring much to the party besides pecs and a pretty face.

snyder actually acquits himself really well, especially when it comes to the action/spectacle stuff which is leagues better than anything in a superhero movie to date. and he brought some ridiculous snydery touches to it that i appreciated, like the days since accident gag and the opening krypton sequence which reminded me of a pg-13 version of jodorowsky's Metabarons. when zod and superman have finished with metropolis (the world engine stuff goes on a little too long, but the ground-level scenes of destruction are pretty terrifying), it looks like the apocalyptic landscape of Fist Of The North Star.

kevin costner is the movie's secret weapon, he's great and steals all his scenes; the woman who plays faora is pretty awesome too. shannon shows up with his lunchpail but there's not a lot he can do with zod besides turn the intensity up to 11. even by blockbuster movie standards the characterization in this is incredibly thin all around, fatally so imo

marvel folks must be amazed at dc's inability to just tap into what makes a character cool, find a sympathetic director and work up some bad-ass action scenes centric to that coolness. they make it look so easy.

― da croupier, Saturday, June 15, 2013 12:13 PM (59 minutes ago) Bookmark

uh thats exactly what they pulled off here dude. i cant imagine any reason WB wouldnt be happy with this movie. audiences are loving it and visually and action-wise it's 100x more polished than anything marvel has put out yet.

another touch i liked: diane lane as ma kent lives on this improbably iconic-looking midwestern farm, but she works at Sears. there's way too much war on terror/9-11 stuff in this but i did love that christopher meloni turned into a 9/11 hijacker at the end, piloting a plane into the bad guys in the name of anti-kryptonian jihad

H4a everything I'm reading is "superman wouldn't do that"

I mean people are furious that Snyder doesn't get supes and its all soulless chaos and posing

But yeah if the cinemascore is high then this is just nerd qualms.

well its not my preferred take on superman (i think the advantage of supes as a character is that he's a romantic hero - he should radiate warmth and sincerity and the gentle confidence of a guy who has nothing to prove to anyone. the movie doesn't really nail this but it's also so light on character that it's almost like it doesnt give itself a chance to 'get it wrong'), but at the same time it just cannot be said that snyder doesnt get what makes superman cool and doesnt construct action scenes that take advantage of said coolness. so, i mean, emphasizing the coolness of a character as square as superman might strike me as a little wrongheaded or dull, but audiences are definitely responding to it. and to be fair, the movie didnt turn him into batman like some people were afraid of. it's recognizably superman. i'd personally take it over another overly-reverent donner homage, as great as superman: the movie is

batman begins is probably the superhero reboot ideal to live up to imo. the batman/bruce wayne character himself, the villains, the almost constant gloomy nighttime setting, etc. The sequels erred too much on the side to "real world relevance" and increasingly worldwide scopes for them to be true batman flicks. I say this as a big fan of TDK. TDKR I kind of hated, like many folks. Having batman films set mostly in daylight is a weird idea too. didn't notice this in TDK but it weirdly was a big minus against TDKR. anyway not relevant to MoS really but I think Nolan's got a post 9/11 hang up that doesn't necessarily suit the films he uses to work through that partic obsession.

*the batman stuff isn't relevant that is, I've yet to see MoS. probably will at some pt

anyway not relevant to MoS really but I think Nolan's got a post 9/11 hang up that doesn't necessarily suit the films he uses to work through that partic obsession.

― christmas candy bar (al leong), Saturday, June 15, 2013 5:04 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark

i rolled my eyes so many times during this movie (nooo zach, not a chris cornell song), one of them was when zod and his crew were referred to as insurgents before being frozen in their dildo prisons and banished to the phantom zone