Superman v Batman/DC movies

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3 on 3: Does Man Of Steel effectively set up a shared DC Universe on film?

3. What does the film's divided critical reception mean?

Gregory Ellwood: Sadly, it will probably be enough critical ammunition for the filmmakers to hire someone to write "jokes" into the screenplay. Perhaps more witty one-liners for Lois Lane? In all seriousness, the more money it makes the less pressure Snyder and crew will be on to deal with critic complaints. Maybe.

Drew McWeeny: It means Zack Snyder has a problem with critics. Or, more accurately, they have a problem with him. I have read several reviews that have been well-argued and are obviously coming from a place of sincere passion, but I've also read many that seem like Zack Snyder once beat someone up and took their lunch money. I'm amazed by the venom directed at him, and I think the Chris Nolan backlash has also been building for a while. What ultimately matters here is that audiences are responding, and word of mouth seems very strong so far. I look forward to seeing what happens with the sequel, if only to see if people are ready to give this creative team a fair shake at that point.

Kristopher Tapley: This has been highly frustrating to me. I feel like it boils down to a level of fatigue (and frankly, in some cases, a lack of imagination). Critics are rarely willing to embrace the comic book subgenre as it is and something like this, so potent in its embrace of what the fans want, probably never had a chance. I hear cries of "it lacks humanity," and then I think about how its emotional beats affected me. I hear "numbing action," and then I recall complaints over a lack of it in "Superman Returns." This film serves, to me, a single purpose: re-introduce a character, offer a sense of scale for a new universe on film and don't slow down to over-tell a story we've heard over and over again for 75 years. I think it succeeded.


Read more at 3 on 3: Does Man Of Steel effectively set up a shared DC Universe on film?
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So.... that it? We done?

That's how you know you've got a pretty pedestrian movie.
 
Man of Steel

Like I said, this movie will be forgotten in short order.
 
I wanted to hold off on spoiler chat till Saturday...but nobody seems to care. In the interest of sparking this conversation should we open the gates?
 
My biggest bitch at you guys who just seem bound and determined to kick dirt on this movie...you didn't want CHRIST supes. You didn't want BRIGHT BLUE SCHOOLBOY supes. Yet, when you didn't get BOTH of those things...you p*ss on it. Was it bottom heavy action wise? yeah. But they ran out of real estate. They did nice things establishing heart with the 2 dads. IT WAS A SUMMER POPCORN flick. And it succeeded. I think it made Superman relevant, and as 'big ticket item' as BATMAN is...if you do not find a way to make Superman human as well as alien, well there just isn't going to be enough common ground to establish a base measurement for a common world. And DC wants that MARVEL money. It was as good as it could have been. they tried to shoot for the moon. No shame in that. They came up short...but still succeeded. I had a smile on my face the whole time and marveled at just how...I dunno...COOL the movie was. For the first time...I gave a rats ass about Superman. Music was great...really solid acting across the board...and really...go **** in your hat...I have NEVER seen action sequences that had so much serious physics in action. It wasn't careless...it was extremely well thought out.

Whatever. so tear in boys. Me...I was wowed. I actually believed a man could fly...and KICK SEVEN SHADES OF **** out of everything.
 
SPOILERS







Ok, where to begin. I guess I'll just spew out the gripes I can remember at the moment and then keep adding as we go.

The very first thing I noticed while watching the movie was just how fast everything was happening. And I don't mean there was a lot of story to cram in there. I mean, it felt rushed. In the scene where Jor-El is addressing the Jedi council...I mean those weird looking people, Zod comes in, kills a couple peeps, and has his little conversation with Papa Supes. The whole conversation felt forced and I just didn't feel like I was ready for it. It's like they tried to develop character by speaking words rather than showing me. This went on throughout the movie. Like when Superman gets his suit. I was like, "Already?". And was it me of did Mama Supes not seem all that upset when her husband was murdered?

Then you have the constant action. You have the first part on Krypton which is all action. You go straight to another action sequence on the oil rig and then straight into another action sequence in the school bus. Let it breathe for crying out loud. You know what would have helped? Actually showing the pod crash onto Earth and the Kents finding little Kal. Why the hell did they skip that? In the original, there was so much humanity and just a down-to-Earth feeling in that scene after all that stuff on Krypton. This movie didn't even gloss over it. It skipped it completely. Show me why Superman feels so strongly for humans.

Which leads me to the editing. Why have flashbacks? Does Snyder think he's Nolan? He clearly couldn't pull it off. It just simply didn't work. I wanted real scenes and interaction and all we got was little lines here and there and then little Supes saving someone. Yeah, I liked the stuff with Costner but then you could almost qualify his role as a cameo. It was just action scene after action scene with mini breaks of dialogue that we saw in the trailers rather than the other way around. The best part of those trailers were the moments from Supes' childhood and yet it was as if they didn't have anymore scenes to show us and just wanted to rush through them to get to more action scenes. Even the "You Are Not Alone" stuff was cool but again, nothing more than what was in the trailer. And for such an action packed movie, it felt small and claustrophobic. The original Superman felt grander. More locations and more people. There were about 8 people in this movie. I would have loved more scenes like the one in the bar where that dude threw beer in Supes' face.

Speaking of his childhood, what the hell was up with the classroom scene? The blocking specifically. Supes freaks out and locks himself in a closet and the next shot you see the teacher and all the other classmates standing outside the door. What teacher would allow that to happen and what group of kids would just follow the teacher outside? Poor direction.

How many of you complained about how everyone seemed to know who Batman was by the third film? Now, how many of you thought to yourselves, "Wow, Supes is doing a horrible job of keeping his identity secret." Who DIDN'T know who Superman was in this movie? The part of the movie where I was really starting to lose it was when Lois followed Clark into the ship. Right in the beginning she knows who he is. The whole fun of their relationship is the not knowing. Would Friends be as fun if Ross and Rachel were together from the beginning? I didn't even watch much of that show but I know what the answer is. Lois even called him Clark throughout and visited him at the Kents'. WTF? Where the hell was nerdy Clark in the first 2 hours and 20 minutes? So much of what makes Superman Superman was missing in this movie. You can't just gut the story that makes it what it is. No, that isn't me being nostalgic for the old films. That IS Superman. And Lois meeting Jor-El? WHAT?

Who the hell was the girl Perry White was trying to save from the rubble and why should I care about her? They kept showing them as if there's any emotional attachment at all. Again, poor character development. That girl meant nothing to me.

Does Superman actually care about the survival of others? He does? You sure as hell couldn't tell by watching this movie. Let's drive Zod through a freakin' gas station and blow it up. I sure hope no one is actually pumping gas there. Oh, I have another great idea. Let's just destroy all the buildings in the city. I'm sure everyone in Metropolis had enough time to evacuate. Just lazy. In Superman II, they make it a point to show Supes fly away from the fight while Zod and his goons call him a coward. Little did they know that he was luring them away from harming others in the middle of the city. Yet this Superman couldn't care less about that. He just wants to blow **** up.

This is a starting point for me. There were other complaints that will come to me as this conversation goes along. There were some redeeming qualities, like Henry Cavill and the music. But overall, Snyder proved that he's incapable of directing story to the abilities of a director that should direct a Superman movie.
 
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jerseydevil said:
My biggest bitch at you guys who just seem bound and determined to kick dirt on this movie...you didn't want CHRIST supes. You didn't want BRIGHT BLUE SCHOOLBOY supes. Yet, when you didn't get BOTH of those things...you p*ss on it. Was it bottom heavy action wise? yeah. But they ran out of real estate. They did nice things establishing heart with the 2 dads. IT WAS A SUMMER POPCORN flick. And it succeeded. I think it made Superman relevant, and as 'big ticket item' as BATMAN is...if you do not find a way to make Superman human as well as alien, well there just isn't going to be enough common ground to establish a base measurement for a common world. And DC wants that MARVEL money. It was as good as it could have been. they tried to shoot for the moon. No shame in that. They came up short...but still succeeded. I had a smile on my face the whole time and marveled at just how...I dunno...COOL the movie was. For the first time...I gave a rats ass about Superman. Music was great...really solid acting across the board...and really...go **** in your hat...I have NEVER seen action sequences that had so much serious physics in action. It wasn't careless...it was extremely well thought out.

Whatever. so tear in boys. Me...I was wowed. I actually believed a man could fly...and KICK SEVEN SHADES OF **** out of everything.
Click to expand...

Actually, we got several moments of Christ Supes. But I didn't include that in part 1 of my review because I can deal with that if the other things work.
 
See...I need to digest what you wrote. I see some valid gripes. But Snyder was working from Goyer's script. And Nolan/Goyer's outline. You want to lay all the blame at his feet. That is what I take umbrage with. You assess all this blame and fail to mention the positives(the action...the action). Would Aronofsky been a better choice? Yeah...if you think Black Swan was a good movie you can eat my kishkas. I dunno...said it before and will say it again, was it perfect? NO. Was it solid? Fun? a relevent take? YESYESYES.
 
Man of Steel

I already mentioned that I put some blame on those two as well but I also don't think it was Nolan's choice to have so little character development and story. That's just not his style. His big idea was to treat Supes as an alien which had never really been done before. Other than that I don't know how much input he had. Hey, I'd rather rewatch this over SR so there's that. I just thought this could have been so much better.
 
Naysay's posts are getting tired like his podcast. Used to be fresh, fun to listen to. Now it just lame and puts me to sleep. Then again, I post the same Schtick that I have for 12 years now. Want to be bored, read what I type.
 
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