Movie Review: Man Of Steel

Though it wasn’t a bad movie by normal standards, Man Of Steel was not what I wanted for one of my favorite superheroes. What Snyder and Nolan did was take Superman, and make him average.

Man Of Steel
Directed By: Zack Synder
Starring: Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Laurence Fishburne, Chris Meloni, Michael Kelly, Russell Crowe, Diane Lane, Kevin Costner, Ayelet ZurerPremise: When John and Martha Kent find a baby in a pod, they know he is not of this world. As Clark grows older he realizes he has great powers he doesn’t know how to control. After hiding his powers for so long, Clark, a loner finds himself helping others. He’s become a myth, an idea of a savior, until Lois Lane discovers his secret and alerts the world, and other worlds to Clark’s existence. As his otherworldly enemies threaten to destroy Earth in order to hunt him down, Clark must decide if he’s done hiding his alien half and ready to start trusting his human half.

My Review: Superman is probably the mostwell-known and well-liked superhero in the world. Everyone knows Superman, everyone loves Superman. He is the kind of person you hope your kid grows up to be like, cape or not. He is a good guy who just happens to be an alien from another planet…with superpowers. He truly does good, not evil. Unfortunately, Zack Snyder and Christopher Nolan took away everything that was “good” about Superman and turned him into your typical dark and brooding hero.

It’s a hard thing to do. To make Superman seem average. But mixed with grandiose and distracting camerawork, plot holes with obvious chunks of movie missing, and a gray/blue scale color pallete, Superman felt like kind of a downer.

 

Things I Liked:
1) Clark’s backstory. I’m a sucker for flashbacks. I blame JJ Abrams for that one. I liked that he was seen as a freak or an outcast as a child. It makes us understand him, and also makes the decision to help even his enemies all the greater. Unfortunately this theme doesn’t continue within the movie.

2) Amy Adams. She’s always this bright light in any movie, even when she’s in a serious role. She just carries this light throughout her. Unfortunately they didn’t have time to build up the chemistry between Lois and Clark so things were just lukewarm between them.

3) Henry Cavill is a handsome handsome man. Those piercing blue eyes. Those form fitting shirts…I could go on and on. And when they showed the teenage version of him, I swear he looked exactly like Tom Welling.

 

 

***SPOILER ALERT!!*** SKIP if you don’t want to be spoiled!!

 

4) The revelation of Clark Kent. *spoiler!!* I love how Synder teased Kent’s revelation. A flash of the Daily Planet. A flash of his suit. A flash of his black glasses. Everything was just an anticipatory teaser until Clark Kent, reporter at the Daily Planet was born. Genius.

 

 

What I Didn’t Like

1) The documentary style camera work. The whole shaky cam, “can’t find” the subject, quick zoom camerawork did not work for this kind of movie. Ok, so maybe it worked for the final battle but by then you were so sick of the movement you just didn’t care. A friend pointed out that JJ Abrams does this too, but I’ve never really noticed…and that’s how it’s supposed to be.

2) Michael Shannon. Michael Shannon is a good actor but I find with him that he’s either subtle or over the top. There’s no middle. Premium Rush he was SO over the top that he was cartoonish. For this movie he straddled the line so much it became almost comical instead of threatening.

3) Chunks of movie were missing. I felt like parts of the movie had been cut out so significantly. For example, Laurence Fishburne, who played Perry White, and Michael Kelly had small parts in the beginning of the movie, then suddenly they were all over the climatic ending. Like we were supposed to care about these characters fate even though we had NO IDEA who they were. But that was only one of the many, man holes in the movie.

***SPOILER ALERT!!!** SKIP if you don’t want to be spoiled!!!

4) SUPERMAN DOESN’T KILL. I agree with this article whole heartedly. In this movie Superman caused more destruction than he did saved lives. Sure the falling buildings looked cool, but how man lives were in those buildings. The Superman I know would have risked his life to hold up that building. He also, and this is my biggest problem with the movie, he also doesn’t kill. And when he does it should have a been a MUCH bigger deal than it was in the movie. I understand that when he killed Zod he was not only killing someone for te first time, he was killing his last lifeline to his home planet he only recently learned about. Its big, I get it. But Superman killing someone is BIGGER. This plot point wasn’t worthy of the first Superman movie. We have to get to know our first Superman. If you are going to make him a killer it should have been in movie 2 or 3. If you are going to make him a killer,  time should have been spent with him coming to terms with what he has done and what it means for who he is. If you are going to make him a killer, it needs to be handled with care. But it wasn’t. I don’t like my Superman like this. Superman is good. Let Batman be conflicted. Let Tony Stark be selfish and dramatic. Let the Hulk be an outcast loner. Superman puts others before himself. Like Captain America, Superman always had good values, he just needed the means and opportunity to show it. Keep Superman good! Let him be the beacon of light in a dark world.

If Man Of Steel were about any other superhero BUT Superman, I could easily say it was a good film. But because I have such high standards for my Superman, this film was a great letdown. I understand the temptation to let our Superheroes go dark, it’s interesting and gives them places to go. But the movie felt heavy. Whereas Marvel injects the comedy part of the “comic” book aspect to its stories. DC seems to be taking its characters in a more serious route and I’m not sure I like it. Make it fun. Make it brilliant. Make it thrilling. But most of all, don’t take the best part about a character’s character, and make him like every other superhero out there.

Rating: 2 1/2 stars

 

Movie Review: The Dark Knight

Close, but no cigar. TDKR was a lot of bang for the buck, but it didn’t have enough surprises.

The Dark Knight Rises

Starring: The entire cast of Inception (minus Leonardo Dicaprio), plus Christian Bale and Anne Hathaway. To be more specific, the above people plus, Joseph Gordon Levitt, Marion Cotillard, Tom Hardy, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman, plus a bunch of surprises!

 

Premise: When we last left Batman eight years ago, he was on the run, accused of killing Harvey Dent so that Dent’s death could promote change in Gotham. Since then, Bruce Wayne has made himself a shut-in in his own home, hiding from the world and any human contact. Though there are still petty criminals – such as “robin-hood” jewel thief – out there, organize crime has been crushed under the Dent Law. That is until a new evil arrives at Gotham named, Bane, a masked (for lack of a better word) terrorist that threatens to bring down the Batman, Bruce Wayne, and destroy Gotham once and for all.

My Review: I’ll just say it. Let’s just cut the cord and say it. The Dark Knight was the better of this trilogy. And since everyone is comparing it to The Avengers…I feel like The Avengers was the better movie. There. I said it. It’s done. It’s out there.

The Dark Knight Rises wasn’t bad. It was really, really good, in fact. The movie looked fantastic. Seeing it in IMAX, I could definitely tell that it was shot on an IMAX camera. The action sequences looked incredible. But when it was all said and done, I didn’t walk out of the theater feeling jazzed, feeling excited, feeling like I wanted to talk and talk and talk about it. The movie was definitely set up as the last movie of a trilogy. With each face that popped up, you were reminded of an old friend, an old, comfortable feeling. However, the problem with that is with each passing beat, you felt exactly what the movie was building towards, and you knew exactly how it was going to end. And then, it ended exactly like that…with maybe one twist I didn’t see coming.

Though it was the perfect ending to the trilogy, it all felt too neat and tidy. I just wanted something more. To read what I liked and disliked about the movie check out my list below…

Rating: Almost 4 Stars…almost.

 

 

 

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SPOILER ALERT!!

SPOILER ALERT!! DO NOT CROSS THIS LINE IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE MOVIE! SPOILER ALERT!! SPOILER ALERT!!

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

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5 Things I Liked About This Movie

1)      Michael Caine – He was fabulous in this movie and had much more to do than he did in TDK. Even in his small role he added so much depth and heartbreak to his character. He was magical on screen.

2)      Anne Hathaway – Okay, so I just like the girl. I’ve seen most, if not all of the movies she’s in. I think she’s a fine actress. I was a bit worried he role as Catwoman would be all one liners and sexiness, but I was pleasantly surprised. Though she had a lot of one-liners and was in a costume so tight you could hear the sound of the skin hugging leather as she walked, Anne brought out the more human side of Catwoman as Selina Kyle. Plus, she also provided a lot of comic relief, and we all love a kick-ass girl that can make us laugh.

3)      Batman had a worthy adversary. Don’t get me wrong Joker had the smarts and he was a great, arguably the greatest villain of Christopher Nolan’s Trilogy. But there was something about watching Bane kick the ass out of Batman that made the costs feel that much higher. Okay so it wasn’t quite the same feeling as watching Thor and Iron Man battle it out, but it did feel quite epic. And it was hard to watch.

4)      **SPOILER ALERT!!!**SPOILER ALERT!!!** I love that the movie had a happy ending. I felt satisfied with Bruce Wayne’s journey and I’m glad he got the girl. Selina Kyle was the right girl all along – it just didn’t feel right with Miranda Tate (Marion Cotillard). I also they didn’t embellish anything. All Selina did was slightly turn her head in the blurry foreground, and that was enough for us to know that Bruce got his happy ending. Good, subtle work there Christopher Nolan.

5)      **SPOILER ALERT!!!**SPOILER ALERT!!!** Joseph Gordon Levitt as Robin. That was a wonderful idea. I was convinced the last 30 minutes of the movie that they were setting JGL up to be the next Batman. However, with this revelation there’s no where you can go with it. You can’t make a Robin movie. I think JGL’s overall contribution to the movie was very successful. He actually had more screen time than most of the other players.

 

5 Things I Didn’t Like About This Movie

1)      The predictability. I go back and forth debating about whether it would have been better had Bruce Wayne/Batman died this tragic hero. But the minute Alfred talked about all these things he imagined for Bruce’s life, I knew that was exactly what would happen. Especially since he went into such specific detail about it. Don’t get me wrong, it was a nice, sweet, touch, but the set up for it, took away from the impact.

2)      Repeating plot points. Bane taking the football field, then the city of Gotham hostage for some weird social experiment. Um, didn’t The Joker do this in TDK? Can’t someone just be evil because they’re evil? Just for the fun of it? The whole thing just felt recycled. Now granted the football collapsing into itself with one of the players not even noticing until he made his touchdown was a pretty fantastic piece of action. But then having Bane take the entire stadium hostage, say some words we can’t understand with the exception of “nuclear bomb”, “trigger man”, “if you escape you die”, it all just felt….contrived.

3)      Where are our heroes? Bruce Wayne/Batman and Commissioner Gordon were out of commission for most of the movie. What’s up with that? I understand Bruce Wayne had to go through this whole “life changing,” “who am I” sort of journey, but it just took him so long to get there.

4)      It was dark. Like really, really dark. There was this heavy feeling all throughout the film. I understand it’s not that type of movie. But it is a comic book movie at the same time. Even though there were a few light hearted, chuckle-worthy moments, for the most part I felt like the weight of the world was on its shoulders – or Batman’s shoulders.

5)      **MAJOR PLOT POINT SPOILERS**DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE MOVIE** The actions of some of the characters/authority figures were not believable, leaving us with unanswered questions that BUG ME. Would the world really just abandon a city refusing to let anyone escape? If people can sneak in, no one could get communication to the outside world that the bomb was going to explode anyway so that they could let as many people escape in the final moments as possible? How did Bruce Wayne get from the prison back to Gotham City so fast? How does everyone, even a little boy know Bruce Wayne is Batman except for Gordon, who’s supposed to be a detective? Why does Selina Kyle dress up like a cat? So. Many. Questions.

6)      (Yeah, sorry, this needed to be done.) The Batman? What’s up with calling Batman, “The Batman”? Is it a comic book thing? It just bugs me and sounds pretentious. The Batman. Did they do that in TDK?

 

 

 

Movie Review: The Avengers

I don’t think I’ve ever had so much fun at a movie. The Avengers is one of the best summer movies I’ve ever seen. I dare you not to geek out. Hulk Smash!

Marvel’s: The Avengers

Starring: Robert Downey Jr, Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Samuel L. Jackson, Stellan Skarsgard, Mark Ruffalo, Tom Hiddelston, Clark Gregg, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Cobie Smulders

Premise: It’s a story we’ve all heard and seen before. The world is being threatened by a big baddie that unleashes unruly aliens on an unsuspecting metropolis. A group of unlikely misfits must band together to save humanity…blah blah. Yes, this is what The Avengers is about, only Joss Whedon manages to pull it off in a way that is fresh, clever, bright, witty, and completely geek-tastic.  Plus, Whedon has one thing none of the other movies have. And that’s a Hulk.

I’m gonna say it now The Avengers will be the most fun you had at an action superhero movie…ever. Sure, The Dark Knight Rises will be epic, but it’ll be moody and dark. The Avengers is pure, delightful fun. You will laugh, you will cheer, you will clap your hands like the proud nerd you know you are at heart.

This movie works because it was developed by a nerd fan-boy who appreciates the ridiculous cool factor this movie has. (I mean there are men in bright colors and tights and armor walking around NY city. How is that not ridiculous?) But it’s the fact that Whedon is the King of Nerd, that makes this movie as great as it is. Whedon has had a knack great dialogue, and contrary to popular belief, you can’t just put eight mega-heroes together in a room, blend, and expect a smooth delicious treat to come out. Sure the geek in us want to see the Hulk and Thor punch each other out, or Captain America and Iron Man battle like teenage boys fighting over who’s prettier, but the film critic/movie lover in us wants plot, and emotion, turmoil and triumph. Joss Whedon manages to fulfill both these wants. It’s a superhero movie with a plot that makes us CARE, that is a feat in itself

The Avengers is one of the funniest movies I’ve seen and a lot of that has to do with Marvel developing each character (with the exception of Black Widow and Hawkeye) in previous movies so we felt like we already know them. This allowed Whedon to skip over the messy “getting to know you” plots and have fun with the “getting to know you” parts instead.

Nick Fury (a bad-ass Samuel L. Jackson) decides to assemble the Avengers when Loki (Tom Hiddelston), brother of Thor, steals the tesseract (the glowing box of unlimited power) that Stark found while searching from Captain America. Now Loki is threatening to unleash a great evil in order to gain ultimate power and essentially rule the world. He knew assembling the Avengers would be hard, but what he didn’t expect was that it would be nearly impossible to get them to get along. Iron Man/Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) is an obsessive compulsive, genius, narcissist, Thor (Chris Hemsworth) is still a hot head, “Shakespearean” speaking god, Bruce Banner (a still loveable Mark Ruffalo no matter how “dark”) is a moody, scientist with a “big” problem, Black Widow is an ass-kicking former Russian spy, Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) is an observant, sharp shooter, and Captain America/Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) probably the biggest outcast of them all is the only man that’s not bitter or jaded enough to do anything but follow orders and save the world. Each Avenger is already a superhero, and that’s the problem. They are loners, outcasts, misfits, and like Tony Stark says, “[they] don’t play well with others.”

Once they start working together what we get is clever, nerdy, action-packed battle scenes and bright moments that get your blood pumping. The movie is bright and colorful and hopeful, instead of brooding and sinister (I’m looking at you Batman). It’s a movie that makes you root for the good guys and cheer when then bad guys get the shit kicked out of them by The Hulk. Even Agent Coulson can appreciate the epic-ness of this movie, so why can’t we?

I’ll say it again: The Avengers is the most fun you’ll ever have in a superhero movie and that alone is a fresh feat. Check it out, sit back, relax and enjoy the ride. And dare I say it…3D actually worked for this movie. Man Joss Whedon is on a roll!

 

Rating: 4 1/2 stars (out of 5).

Random Thoughts  **minor spoilers**:

• Loved the one liners!
• What was that old school video game that SHIELD agent was playing?
• I am fascinated by Chris Evan’s butt in the boxing scene.
• Loved the Loki/Hulk show down.
• I’m not a fan of Scarlett Jo, but I am a fan of her portrayal of Black Widow.
• End tag: HILARIOUS. Freakin’ hilarious.
• I wish Joss had included this scene in the movie, as well as had a REAL cameo from Natalie Portman.
• There was one moment in the movie where the entire theater gasped in horror. That’s how you know we really care about a character.