Man of Steel (2013)

[daveblackeye15]

It was alright but it has its flaws. I really thought they were trying to hard to be Dark Knight. No, Superman can be dark and it can have its spots of cerebral but it can't be Batman. It was a little hard to tell what was going on in some fight and I wish Clark had a little more 'the everyman' to him.

I don't regret seeing it but I think the movie should have been funner, I wish I left this movie like I did for Pacific Rim: ready to watch it again.

[Paquita]

My opinion doesn't really count because I don't know all about the factual lore of superman, and I don't really like a lot of newer movies, but I thought Man of Steel was awful.  I thought a huge part of Superman was his secret identity.. was that not totally blown in this movie?  I also think it lacked a display of "cool" super powers, and showing them in flashbacks (which there were wayyy too many of) while making them seem like horrible painful memories doesn't count. Pitting him up against equals right away was kind of boring for me.  I would rather have seen him punch an a-hole to the moon at least once.  The part where he effortlessly breaks his handcuffs was the coolest part, and that's pretty sad.
 

[ralfy]

Too many actions scenes and not enough character development.

[akiratubo]

Saw it again yesterday and it was still just as good as the first time.  I did notice something I hadn't before, though.

The armor Zod's troops wear?  It looks an awful lot like the power armor Lex Luthor uses from time to time.  If they absolutely must use Lex Luthor, I'd love to see Lex put on that armor and actually trade punches with Superman.

[HappyGilmore]

I'm not a fan of Superman at all. Sadly, the news of Batman appearing in the next installment means I'll have to suffer through a Superman film. 

[Neville]

Too solemn and unfunny for my taste, but an overall improvement over the Bryan Singer film. I'm with daveblackeye15 in this one, the dark tone doesn't fit Superman: Superman has to be all about the sense of wonder and the action, and at least one of those was missing here.

In other words, I need "to believe a man can fly", not to have that explained.

[DrSpunkwater]

Meh, the movie wasn't terrible. But I think I'll stick with Superman 1 & 2.

[messedup]

As someone who grew up with Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z i really enjoyed the battle scenes. The rest was kinda stupid.
At least it was better than Returns and the last two Reeve-Sequels.

[zelmo73]

Not as good as Superman 1 & 2. Better than 3 & 4. About even with Returns, but not as boring.

This movie was obviously trying to be two movies in one. It would have made a great sequel, but with Nolan's involvement in the film, it should have gone for a Batman Begins (2005) type of origin, because the Superman that I grew up with was all about "truth, justice, and the American way" and fighting crime, not fighting space aliens coming right out of the gates. Battling General Zod and the Kryptonians in order to save Earth was a plot better-suited for a Man Of Steel 2, not an origin story.

Plus, Lois Lane was wasted as a character, though cast well with the right actress, Amy Adams. The sub-plot with Perry White and the female version of Jimmy Olsen was unnecessary and went absolutely nowhere. The Faora character was actually more interesting than General Zod, which is a shame because she didn't get enough screen time; think Darth Maul, the most interesting part of all of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999), all five minutes of him.

Russell Crowe as Jor-El: good. Kevin Costner as Pa Kent: bad.


Pairing Zack Snyder and Christopher Nolan together in a movie is like pairing apples and oranges together and expecting peaches & cream. Not gonna happen!

[alandhopewell]

     What did Superman do to these filmmakers to make them hate him so badly?

[Ted C]

     What did Superman do to these filmmakers to make them hate him so badly?

Pffft... I've seen far worse. So they wanted to make Superman a little angsty... so what?

At least we got to seem him throw down with someone who could really fight back.

[tracy]

I was thoroughly unhappy with it. Plus the woman picked to portray Lois Lane was,in my opinion,no good. Also,Paquita was so right about his lack of a secret identity....WTF was that all about?

[Olivia Bauer]

It kinda seems like they took a really good Nolan style movie, cut it up, rearranged the pieces, and crammed in plugs like trying to shove stuffing into a turkey.

The narrative felt disjointed and out of order, Jonathon Kent failed his role as a father figure by making him an evil jackass with morals you'd have to be deranged to agree with, and the fight scenes drag their feet until somehow watching them felt like a chore.

Overall it felt like someone dropped the ball in production. I'm not going to say it's Zack Snyder's fault, although I'd like to see the behind the scenes just to find out why a film with such amazing potential ended up being such a disappointment. I'd probably hate this movie more if Iron Man 3 never came out. I saw Iron Man 3 before Man of Steel and I hated Iron Man 3 with a burning contempt that the wrath of Sauron couldn't match. Man of Steel wasn't good, but at least I was already p**sed off from the last movie.

[FatFreddysCat]

I finally saw this last night and didn't really dig it much. It never really felt like a "Superman" movie to me, if that makes any sense. The second half felt like I was watching someone play an alien-invader video game, with occasional cameos by Superman.

I said this about "Superman Returns" and it applies here as well: Superman doesn't work very well with the current mania to make every superhero "dark and gritty." He's SUPPOSED to be a slightly dorky, All-American red and blue Boy Scout. Here, he's just a guy in a suit who gets the CGI crap kicked out of him a lot.

[ulthar]

Behind the times, I know, but I finally saw this last night.

Urgh.

It did not work for me.  I actually enjoyed the movie MORE before the so-called "action" kicked in.  The fight scenes were boring and predictable.  Didn't like the visuals and the overuse of certain FX engineered to try to indicate "how strong they are."

I read the thread before posting, and a number of folks commented on things that bothered me as well.  But here's the thing...I don't like it when movies ANNOY me, and the most common cause of annoyance is "taking me out of the movie.

On the whole, I don't like angsty superheros.  It's one of those things that can be very effective, but needs to be done in small doses.

I don't like superheros that are evenly matched with their opponents and SORELY outnumbered very early in the film...I just know some baloney, hokey solution is coming.

I did NOT like that everyone knows who Superman is in this reboot.  I thought a lot of the character driven charm of the classic stories was the tension between Lois and Clark and Lois and Superman.  Geez.  How to take the ONE KEY CHARACTER ARC from a storyline.

Someone somewhere, perhaps here, once made a truly profound statement in a review.  My apologies to whoever it was, here or elsewhere, for not remembering specifically who or where.  The statement was (paraphrased)...

To movie makers: It's one thing to borrow or pay homage to past movies, but don't take me out of you movie to remind me of better movies.  Especially CONSTANTLY.

All through this mess I saw reminders of better projects.  Not just with story, but with visuals and character design and...well, everything.  It was VERY annoying.