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

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

spoiler.

Tornado scene was v funny

the imdb plot summary is funny:

A young itinerant worker is forced to confront his secret extraterrestrial heritage when Earth is invaded by members of his race.

there was also some honest to god laugh out loud exposition in the last bit of the film. SCIENCE iirc.

for a terrible film this wasn't terrible

How does this compare to Fast & Furious 6?

I'm going to guess Superman registers lower on 'tank chases'

it's a lot whiter, less good-natured, less tyrese, more christopher meloni. furious 6 wants to be a freewheelin' good time, man of steel wants to make u depressed and nauseated by the horrifying spectacle of a meticulously recreated 9/11

When I referred to coolness I just meant what resonates about the character, not that it makes them hip. I.e. cap'n America.

grey toned genocide and terrorism reboots are just the thing now I guess. And they don't feel really passionately arrived at, it's more like ppl remembered from film school that yr movies have to mean something and hey idk 9/11 is something. I guess it's better than TDKR's Goldman Sachs thing.

So, what CGI technology was involved in turning Diane Lane into Grace Zabriskie?

lol

By Eric Marrapodi, Co-Editor CNN Belief Blog
Baltimore, Maryland (CNN) — As the new Superman movie takes flight this weekend, filmmakers are hoping the Man of Steel lands not only in theaters, but also in pulpits.

Warner Bros. Studios is aggressively marketing “Man of Steel” to Christian pastors, inviting them to early screenings, creating Father’s Day discussion guides and producing special film trailers that focus on the faith-friendly angles of the movie.

The movie studio even asked a theologian to provide sermon notes for pastors who want to preach about Superman on Sunday. Titled “Jesus: The Original Superhero,” the notes run nine pages.

“How might the story of Superman awaken our passion for the greatest hero who ever lived and died and rose again?” the sermon notes ask.

(Disclaimer: CNN, like Warner Bros., is owned by Time Warner.)

Similar campaigns to corral the country’s large number of Christians into the movie theater have been used for “Les Miserables,” “Soul Surfer” and “The Blind Side,” all of which had at least some faith angle.

Baltimore pastor Quentin Scott is among dozens of ministers who received an e-mail invitation from Grace Hill Media, a Hollywood-based Christian marketing firm, to an early screening of “Man of Steel.”

“There was an actual push to say `We’re putting out something that speaks to your group,’ ” said Scott, one of the pastors of Shiloh Christian Community Church in Baltimore.

At first, Scott said, he didn’t buy the religious pitch. Then he decided to attend a free midweek screening in Baltimore.

“When I sat and listened to the movie I actually saw it was the story of Christ, and the love of God was weaved into the story,” said the pastor.

“It was something I was very excited about that with the consultation of our senior pastor, we could use in our congregation.”

Grace Hill’s sermon notes are specially designed for churches like Shiloh that integrate multimedia into their services.

“Let’s take a look at the trailer for `Man of Steel,’” the notes suggest after briefly introducing the movie’s history and themes.

The man behind the notes, Pepperdine University professor Craig Detweiler, has prepared similar material for films like 2009’s “The Blind Side” and “The Book of Eli” from 2010.

The spiritual themes in “Man of Steel” are abundant, Detweiler said, and his notes enable Christians to thoughtfully engage with pop culture instead of shunning it.

“All too often, religious communities have been defined by what they’re against. With a movie like `Man of Steel,’ this is a chance to celebrate a movie that affirms faith, sacrifice and service,” Detweiler said.

It will be hard for even casual Christians to miss the messianic metaphors in “Man of Steel.”

The movie focuses on the origins of Superman, who was sent from the planet Krypton as an infant to save his species.

He is raised by surrogate parents who help him grapple with his special powers, even though they don’t fully understand the source of his extraordinary abilities.

When he turns 33, Superman must willingly sacrifice himself to save the human race.

Sound familiar?

If that’s not enough, as a boy Clark Kent is shown wrestling with his superpowers, and asks his earthly dad, Jonathan Kent, “Did God do this to me?”

“Somewhere out there you have another father and he sent you here for a reason,” says Jonathan Kent.

Even the visuals hammer home the messianic motifs.

During a fight with his archenemy, General Zod, Superman plunges down to Earth, his arms outstretched as if he were being crucified. Of course, he rises again.

Detweiler writes in the sermon notes, “What Jesus and Superman both give us, through their `hero’ actions but also their `human’ actions – is hope.”

“I think it’s a very good thing that Hollywood is paying attention to the Christian marketplace,” said Ted Baehr, who runs Movieguide, a website that reviews family friendly films from a Christian perspective.

“Where it gets sticky is when they try to manipulate the market and when Christians try to manipulate Hollywood. But here I think we have the right balance.”

But other Christians are heaving a supersized sigh at the movie marketing.

“Any pastor who thinks using `Man of Steel Ministry Resources’ is a good Sunday morning strategy must have no concept of how high the stakes are, or very little confidence in the power of God’s word and God’s spirit,” writes P.J. Wenzel, a deacon and Sunday School teacher at Dublin Baptist Church in Ohio.

“As they entertain their congregants with material pumped out from Hollywood’s sewers, lives are kept in bondage, and people’s souls are neglected,” according to Wenzel, who said he was e-mailed information about the movie.

Scott, the Baltimore pastor, said he knows that Warner Bros. Studios has a financial incentive in pushing the film to pastors.

But he said that’s fine with him. “They’re using us but in fact we’re using them,” he said.

His church won’t show clips from the movie this weekend because it had already planned out its service. But he plans to use them later, during meetings with the church’s men’s group.

“If you give me another opportunity to talk to someone about Jesus Christ, and I can do that because of your movie, that’s a win for me, because it is about spreading the Gospel.”

CNN’s Erin McPike contributed to this report.

Suitably lower expectations helped going in but you know, I enjoyed this. It's kinda weird to call something with this much in the way of shouting and explosions Zack Snyder's subtlest film ever but there we go. And in terms of inevitable references to previous films I thought this did the job better than the latest Star Trek, while the whole Krypton sequence was a hell of a way to start.

We were letting the end credits roll buy and suddenly I blinked saw this 'drum orchestra' listed -- get a load of the personnel!

John JR Robinson, Jason Bonham, Josh Freese, Pharrell Williams, Danny Carey, Satnam Ramgotra, Toss Panos, Jim Keltner, Curt Bisquera, Trevor Lawrence Jr., Matt Chamberlain, Ryeland Allison, Bernie Dresel, Vinnie Colaiuta and Sheila E

it was refreshing not to be bombarded by references and injokes every minute but something about the way the movie was put together reminded me too much of the first Star Trek reboot.

i missed thor and this summer's iron man sequel but IMO the captain america movie was the least objectionable of the recent spate of superhero/comic movies. it stayed reasonably true to the character (or at least the aw-shucks aspect at the heart of the character) and was (self-consciously, but still) old fashioned in an engaging way. there was still too much step-printing and bone-crushing violence for me. i guess ultimately it just wasn't half as self-serious as a lot of the post-nolan movies. i guess whedon's the avengers wasn't enormously self-serious but staging the apocalypse as a conclusion just kind of gets me down. also it was kind of a mess?

not step-printing, i mean ramping

woah @ drums credits

The action in this film - which is basically massive, grey CG superstructures being smashed into over and over and over again - is just so hatefully loud and monotonous as to be mind-numbing. The rest is simply incompetent, unwatchable shit.
One of the very worst films of the past decade.

Outside of some Batman antics Iron Man 3 is the only superhero movie I've genuinely liked since the Donner Supermans. Managed to break with that dreary TONE all of them have. Hate The Avengers with a vengeance, Watchmen was a hot mess but not nearly as annoying. Thought the trailers to this looked terrible, heavy-handed seriousness, everything Superman shouldn't be. Not surprised it's bad but was expecting critics to lap it up as 'decent enough' anyway.

Batman Returns is still the best superhero movie.