<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>'Man of Steel' opened to a huge $44 million yesterday. Including Thursday's shows, it's now earned over $56 million: <a href="http://t.co/bM2ZTxacBW">http://t.co/bM2ZTxacBW</a></p>— Box Office Mojo (@boxofficemojo) <a href="https://twitter.com/boxofficemojo/statuses/345913472187523072">June 15, 2013</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
I think when the suit was revealed, it was too quick of a jump to him in the suit flying around. It would have been done better if Clark asks about the suit and Jor-El tells him to wear it proudly in honor of his people, etc. Test your limits to see how strong you grow etc. So instead of jumping and learning to fly for 10 minutes, he already knows how to fly. But, to test his limits, he sees how high he can go and while flying up and exiting the atmosphere, he realizes how important the sun is to him. And then a quick montage of him saving people all around the world. Gotta have a montage. I hate the end scene with him being American, etc. That was lame. He saves humans, not just Americans so there's no need for him to say hes from Kansas and hes an American. That's why it was important to show him saving people around the world. Show a quick scene of people being saved in obvious foreign locations like Africa or Asia. While watching, it felt like a big **** you to non American viewers. Oh and the scene in the church, what was that? Superman is christian and American! **** yeah! Also, at least Krypton could have used some color if you know what i mean mah brutha. Even earth only has like 2 non white guys in this entire movie. The general and Morpheus. I'm not asking for Superman not to be white, just show some color ffs. We already had white jesus with no equals forced down our throats in real life. The big bad ass dude who never took his mask off could have been a perfect time to show a non white kryptonian.
Guess what superman is the quintessential American superhero. He fights for "truth, justice, and the American way." The fact that he is british is ironic. Look at his suit.
I enjoyed the first hour more, honestly. It was too jarring of a tonal shift from the first hour to the second half. The second half, to me, was like an extended video game cut scene. Too much throwing people into buildings and cheesy, overly dramatic one-liners. I agree with Astrosfan183's suggestion for what an ideal origin story should have been like. Saving Zod's attempt to take over Earth for the second movie would have been a better idea.
But we know that already. Why does it have to be shoved down our throats? Its not necessary. Besides, that truth, justice and the american way crap is probably from the 30's and 40's. Oh the times they are a-changin'
For me, it's like Superman is to Batman as George Washington is to Abe Lincoln. I've tried to read good biographies on George and they're just boring, whereas Abe....maybe it's the context of the Civil War that helped make him interesting, but still. Superman's a little dull but I liked the earlier Reeve movies. Then again, I was a kid when those came out. Guess I'm just disappointed. Wanted this movie to be great and it's not even good. Maybe I'd've liked it better if I were of the generation that can't even go to the urinal without checking my phone/Crackberry in the other hand (like I saw yesterday at the Edwards Greenway; no, I wasn't looking at his junk, save the jokes). Zack Snyder lays an egg.
I agree with you however even my 19 year old son thought it was terrible. You would think with $225 million they could of hired a decent writer and director. It's like the entire budget was on special effects.
I think as word of mouth spreads about this film, the box office take will drop sharply. There are a lot of 40 - 50 year old people who grew up reading Superman comics like myself who will not like this film at all. I went on opening day and will warn all the people I know not to waste their time and money.
I don't see it dipping much...been continually watching twitter, facebook, youtube, ect.. since the first screenings were made public this week. The trend has pretty much been the same this entire time since they started. The critics have been 50/50 and the response from the common movie goer has been has been absolutely glowing and positive in contrast to the professional critical reviewers. It will take a dip no doubt all movies do and there is a little competition ahead but as is currently you have social media pushing the hype in a very positive way which is making the movie "review proof" at this time. As others have mentioned the "Transformers" or "Bay" effect seems to be in full effect with this movie and the total ignoring of the critical crowd.
Most people (82 percent on rotten tomatoes) who saw it, liked it. So that theory goes out the window.
Exactly. The majority of people would have complained that they just copied X-men movies or prequelled Superman Returns. Plus that's kind of what Smallville already does. I also don't agree that they shouldn't have picked Zod for the origin film enemy because they had to introduce Krypton and Jor El for the back story, and most other enemies would've created a big disconnect between the first and second half of the movie plot. To keep the origin story theme intact for the movie, they needed Zod. I would say that it's even a little unfair to compare this movie to Batman Begins. Batman's origin story requires a ton of character development and that's what we got in Batman Begins (my favorite of the 3 movies) and yet it's not generally recognized as the best of the trilogy. Analogously, Superman's story requires a lot of action. I honestly feel that in the time they had, with the kind of origin story Superman has, the ratio of story:action they are obligated to show, and the pace at which audiences require them to show it, it was a good job. The action is necessary as part of his character development: slowly figuring out that he has seemingly unlimited strength but still doing right is a big part of Superman's story. How else does he figure out his unlimited strength except to fight stronger and stronger baddies? If none of what I said sits with anyone, I think I can offer a reason why: the majority of my generation (especially foreigners, and don't count them out because very many love Superman) know Superman through TV (the animated series, Dean Cain, Christopher Reeves to an extent, Smallville and Justice League series). This movie targets the TV Superman fans and these shows/movies always dealt with his origin story To an extent, I do acknowledge the criticisms of a forced love story, the jarring shift from in tempo from the first hour to the second half, too much shaky camera action in the second half, some plot holes and a few others. I too enjoyed the first hour immensely (felt the Christopher Nolan influence around that part of the film but it dies later). But these and the second half weren't bad enough to make this an overall bad movie. This is definitely still a good movie that doesn't need to be trashed as badly as some people are doing.
I was happy to finally see a good sex scene with Superman -- he pounds the hell out of Lois -- I wasn't sure she was going to live.
9.5/10 Ok, first things first. There is a significant portion of the population whose ONLY exposure to the Superman mythos is the absolutely abysmal Donner/Reeve movies of teh late 70's and early 80's. Getting this out of the way right now: Man of Steel bears ZERO resemblance to those un-watchable movies. I know there is a lot of nostalgia for them, and in their day, they were ok, and by they, I really mean the first two, and by ok, I mean they were as good as anyone was going to be able to do at that time. However, the tone was barely above the old 60's Batman TV show, and it cast such a pall over the whole idea of 'Super Hero Movies' that no real serious efforts were made until Raimi took on Spider Man, and the world suddenly realized that comic book movies did not have to be childish and stupid. Now, that said, I don't HATE those movies, but I can't watch them any more, because they are just BAD by today's standards. The problem is, if those movies are a person's only point of reference to the Superman hero, or worse, the Singer 'It's so angsty being gay' version with Routh, well, this one will be jarring for those people. But for the people who actually have paid attention to the mythos, to characterizations of heroes in movies over the last decade or so, the conundrum has always been 'Well, yeah Superman could be a great movie, but the character is kind of lame, because he is essentially over-powered, invulnerable, and a complete boy scout. He wins all the time and he is kind of boring.' And that's true. Superman has been written and re-written so many times over the years, and in so many variations of ability and power, it becomes very challenging first to pin him down, and second, to make it believable that he is ever really challenged. They met that challenge with Man of Steel, and succeeded in creating a character who faces real challenges and real peril. But in order to do that, a lot of the previous slates, ESPECIALLY the Donner slates, had to be wiped clean. And that is a GOOD thing, folks. It always amazes me when people judge a movie based upon whether or not it meshes with their pre-conceived expectations, rather than judging the movie on its own merits, and the merits of what the filmmakers were trying to do. But instead they simply throw out words like 'it's dumb', or worse, let other peoples' criticisms speak for them, so they don't even have to think at all, such as saying things like 'typical Snyder movie', when, even if you had seen every Snyder movie, and had no idea who directed Man of Steel, and were asked to guess who directed it, there is NOTHING about this movie which would lead you to immediately guess 'Snyder did this one'. (although, I did notice some similar color palette choices, which reminded me of Watchmen, but other than that, there were tiny tiny details [the close focus on the bent fence post after Clark was being bullied] but nothing which stood out) Anyway. I for one loved it. It gave me what I have ALWAYS wanted in a 'Super' hero movie - and that is a truly super-powered hero duking it out with equally powerful bad guys. Good vs Evil. Loved it. Cavill was a perfect choice. Adams was adorable as always. Costner was excellent. Crowe seemed to be enjoying himself for a change. Special nod to Michael Shannon as Zod. To me, a good-vs-evil movie is always defined best by its villain. The really great movies in this genre are the ones which have a compelling villain. In Man of Steel, Shannon follows Cumberbatch in creating a villain who is *almost* sympathetic, but only enough to lend the piece an air of tragedy, but not outright sympathy. So, there you go. I strongly suggest seeing it for yourself, and thinking for yourself when you see it, and do NOT let comparisons to past movies cloud your expectations when doing so.
I think it would be interesting to have a Superman movie told through the eyes of another character (e.g. Lois Lane). He is more of a phenomenon than a character that can be related to on a human level. The movie could have focused more on her investigation of this other-worldly, mystery being. That part of the movie worked for me, but it was too short. Another thought would be to have Kal wear facial prosthetics when he's playing the "Clark Kent" role. It would be more believable that he could hide amongst humans that way.
I'm surprised you liked it this much, especially after you wrote that essay obliterating The Dark Knight Rises. But It's nice to read positive takes on a good movie.
