MAN OF STEEL
We went to see Man of Steel on opening night. I went with major reservations and did not expect much. I had been singularly unimpressed by the trailers and previews I had seen. I am a Smallville fan (mostly of the first 2 and last 3 seasons, it got a bit rocky there in the middle), and was fairly certain that anything they had to offer would not be as good as Tom Welling.
Also, I had yet to see Superman done in a movie without being either ridiculous, overly corny, or just flat-out bad. You see, Superman has recently suffered much the same fate as Batman did in both Batman Forever and Batman and Robin (I am, of course, talking about Superman Returns). Add to all of this that I am NOT a Christopher Nolan fan-boy (I love many of his movies, but I'm not convinced that everything he touches is gold... as I have unresolved issues with Dark Knight Rises... I still need to write a review of that).
All that to say, I went to Man of Steel with fairly moderate expectations. They weren't low, but they weren't super-high, either.
A short tangential rant before we get into the actual review - please excuse the strong sentiment I am going to convey here - but the man or woman who invented the "shaky cam" technique and then convinced a number of directors and movie-producers that said technique is "awesome" seriously needs to be smacked upside the head with a frying pan (repeatedly), and then asked how they are enjoying the ensuing headache.
"Frying pans, who knew, right?"
Sorry, just had to get that off my chest. I HATE shaky cam. It gives me a migraine, and I feel like I can't see what is going on in the movie, and it annoys the snot out of me.
(If anyone wants to debate me on this using the: "But, Jenelle, you just don't understand what they're trying to do - shaky cam makes it more 'real' and 'gritty' and like you're there in the room with the characters," argument, my answer is this: "I DO understand what they're trying to do. I just. don't. LIKE. it." WHOLE 'nother post on that may be coming in the nearish future)
That being said. There was a LOT of shaky cam in Man of Steel. And... get this I still thought the movie was awesome. Which is about the highest compliment I can pay a movie.
The casting for this movie was fantastic. Henry Cavill does a phenomenal job portraying both Clark Kent and Superman.
This is not a kid's movie. Which I figured it wouldn't be, after seeing Nolan's take on Batman. This is a much darker Superman than you've ever seen. There is nothing "silly" or "ridiculous" about this movie. And yet, the movie still managed to have its moments of laugh out loud funny and even threw in a cheesy line or two.
I've read a lot of negative reviews on this movie, and I can appreciate that Superman is such a huge iconic character that most people, if the movie doesn't line up with their interpretation of him won't walk away going, "it was good, but not the way I pictured it..." they're going to walk away going, "they got it WRONG." Well, I thought it was pretty awesome. And I even liked the detours the story took from "the way it's always been." Nolan did the same thing for Superman with Man of Steel that he did for Batman with Batman Begins. If he can refrain from making the same mistakes he made with Dark Knight Rises, I think this franchise could easily grow to rival what Marvel's got going on...
EDIT: I forgot to put this in my original post, and only a few people are going to find this interesting... but I just really enjoyed the fact that much of the film was shot in Plano, Illinois - which is an area that holds many fond memories for me as my grandparents lived there and I spent a lot of time there when I was quite young.
And, I'm sorry, but that's as far as I can go without spoilers. The rest of my review, as it were, is chock-full of spoilers. Read on at your own peril and don't say I didn't warn you!
I loved the amount of screen-time that was given to the fall of Krypton. I'm not a comic-book reader, so that is a story I haven't ever gotten to see much of. I loved that the movie began with a good 20 minutes of time spent with Jor-El and Lara and all that was going on surrounding the birth of their son and the decision they had made to send him away. I loved getting to actually "see" Krypton and what it was like. The depth of story given there was truly enjoyable.
I really liked Jor-El and how much character development he got, considering how early in the story he dies. When I heard Russell Crowe was playing him, I was kind of bummed because I figured he wouldn't be in the movie for very long. I was pleased to discover how wrong I was about that.
I enjoyed that we only got to see Clark Kent's growing up years in flashbacks. Smallville really explored that particular backstory in about as much depth as you can... a movie (even a two and a half hour movie) is not going to hold a candle to ten seasons' worth of story-telling.
One thing I didn't appreciate related to the flashbacks: the crude language used by the kids. Yes, kids can be cruel and unkind to each other, and I understand the purposes behind those scenes. But I really dislike watching kids use that kind of language on screen, it pulls me "out" of the movie.
I thought it was clever that "kryptonite" wasn't used in the movie at all. Nolan left room for it, in that Krypton's atmosphere is toxic to Clark because of his growing up on Earth, but I have a feeling that "kryptonite" if it shows up in this particular variation at all (like how I'm assuming future movies in this franchise?) is not going to look the way we've always seen it. And I love that.
The character development of Jonathan and Martha Kent was one of the few things in the movie that was truly lacking. The way that Jonathan died was well-done, but I wish he had died in a somewhat "nobler" endeavor (dog-lovers everywhere are going to be bothered by me saying that, I'm sure).
(I wonder how Will Smith's dog is doing?)
Amy Adams as Lois Lane. The take on Lois' character being far more sweet than she has typically been portrayed (at least in the Superman-related movies/tv I've seen) was quite refreshing. Yes, she was a tenacious reporter. But she was far less abrasive than the Lois I've come to expect.
On that note, I thought it was excellent that Lois met "Superman" (in the suit) only AFTER she had backtracked the stories to find out who he was as Clark Kent, and then that she kept that secret to the best of her ability. I loved that Christopher Nolan just threw that entire plot device out the window from moment one. There will be no, "Lois Lane is a crack reporter who, for reasons unknown, can't figure out that her teammate is also Superman... which leads us to question the rest of her supposed investigative skills." Which is awesome, because that plot device has been done to death.
Speaking of death. I personally was a fan of the ending. I know a lot of people didn't like it, or didn't feel that it rang "true" to Superman's character, but I thought it was perfect. I thought it did the same thing to Superman that Nolan did with the Batman character. He grew him up. Made him deal with a bad situation he couldn't sugar-coat. Could he have flown Zod up through the roof and continued the fight? Sure. But what was the end going to be. Zod has already made it quite clear that as long as he draws breath, he will not yield. Sometimes, the bad guy just really needs to die.