Movie Review: Man of Steel (2013)

Wow! So I realised I'm generally getting more pageviews and THAT MAKES ME INCREDIBLY HAPPY YOU KNOW. Also one of my friends Joan started a blog. She hasn't posted ANYTHING yet. But *ahem* she added me as admin at some point and I can see that she's working on a review for this movie too. So I'll keep you guys posted.

Edit: I'm procrastinating on this big time.

Title: Man of Steel (2013)
Starring: Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon
Directed By: Zack Snyder
Genre: Superhero movies, Action (I guess), somewhat science fantasy
Release Date: 14 June 2013 (USA)
Warnings: Meh. If you're scared of too much CGI and weirdness yes. Also if you're scared of high heels. And someone died but meh.

Synopsis:

A young boy learns that he has extraordinary powers and is not of this Earth. As a young man, he journeys to discover where he came from and what he was sent here to do. But the hero in him must emerge if he is to save the world from annihilation and become the symbol of hope for all mankind.

Review:

Seriously, what's with movies and shitty synopsis'? Wait did I get that right? Synopsises? Synopsii? Gah. English. 

Anyway, I watched this movie with my chums from Film Club, so I have a lot of input. 

Basically I went into this movie without having watched the previous movies, so I reserved judgement. However I think I might watch them now that I've watched this, just to compare. But according to some of the people I watched it with, it apparently strayed really far from the original storyline?

Also, guys, bear with me I might have a crush on Henry Cavill now. Pfffft. That guy is hottt. 

So I'm a big fan of action movies, mostly because action CGI get's better every year. And no surprise, this movie delivered in the action. Maybe, overdelivered even. The action was amazing, wonderful fight sequences, but more than half of it was ridiculously unnecessary. I understand that in order to be politically sensitive, you have to give the female villain as badass a fight as the male villain, but it was really completely unnecessary and a waste of time. And I say this as a girl. And the fight was incredibly long as it was. 

And can we talk about the ridiculous amount of property damage they caused? Like I know it's cool to CGI up smashing buildings, but did you really have the smash through 3 buildings in a single slide-tackle? I mean, how is there going to be anything left to smash in the next movie? 

Superman: Stay in here. You'll be safe.

Superman: *smashes all the buildings in a 100km radius*

Yeah, apparently there were some hints about characters that will be in the next movie but I don't know about that. And the shading of the cities was really bland. In order for it to look cool and high-tech, you have to put in a lot of metal-looking colors and stuff, but after a while your eyes just get bored. 

The romance between Superman and Lois Lane was bland and stereotypical, very usual superhero-movie romance without any quirks added to it, like most of the newer superhero movies are aiming to. Also Amy Adams is actually really short and she was wearing these incredibly high, impractical wedges for most of the movie. When she was freefalling, you could see her heels just disappear into her pants. Not for the fainthearted. 

Talking about freefalling, I don't understand how Lois could have fallen through hundreds of metres of debris-filled sky without having a few limbs swept away by broken building/spaceship parts. 

About the acting, I guess it was passable. Russel Crowe seems to have been made to play these stoic hero-types, since his face sort of lacks any sort of facial expression whatsoever. But there were so many familiar faces in this movie it sort of passed me by. I mean, Death from Supernatural was there. Death!

I did love the costumes and sets from Krypton, though I'm iffy about the suit. Where's the underwear? 

And I have an important question: Does wearing the suit make Superman's facial hair disappear?

Because that is literally what happened. He was on the spaceship, and he found the suit, *CUT TO OUTSIDE* he's flying around in the suit and all his facial hair just poofed. 

Enough with the crack. But seriously, I absolutely loved the scenes with the young Clarke Kent. They were really sweet and explained to us a lot of Clarke's upbringing and what shaped his character and such. His conversations with his human parents were touching and pretty well acted. 

Speaking of that, I noticed that after Clarke officially became "Superman", his speech patterns completely changed. I mean, for a guy who's lived 33 years in Kansas, he suddenly sounded really...alien. Saying stuff like, "Are you alright? Stay here. It is too dangerous. I must protect this city" and super-alien-formal-language stuff. *headwhap*

...Alright it's too late for me to be writing reviews isn't it?

Grade: B. Pretty decent movie, way overdone CGI and way too long action scenes though.