Defiant1

I'm still concerned about the casting. Ben Affleck has never interested me as an actor. Henry Cavill looks perfect but is so wooden in the role (and in real life too). Jesse Eisenberg is not impressing me at all based on that trailer. Amy Adams has that "I've got 5 effin' Oscar nominations! What am I doing in this movie?" look. I'm actually neutral on Gal Gadot as I've only seen her in the Furious movies and thought she did fine there for what she had to do.

Paul_SD

Eh. Not really.
A good steward of the property (a Kevin Feige equivalent at Warner or Legendary) would have made sure to balance to the pretty and voluminous destruction porn with a stronger display of Superman trying to avert destruction, trying to save innocent lives, and just generally being closer to the caring boy scout he should be. And yes, the world engine stuff was "saving the planet" but it is an existential threat. It doesn't carry the same immediacy or resonance that saving actual people does.

The point is, you could easily set up the situation so that the world (and Bruce) see the events in a general way which make it appear that Superman is a threat to the human race. While we, in a more omniscient position, see him as brutally misjudged...not merely misjudged because of the fact that we know, from 80 yrs of corporate branding, that he's actually this superior hero. All we should know is from what we saw in the film.
And what I saw was a reckless, destructive 'savior' who is likely to do as much damage as he is good.



Bruce is shown almost immediately performing a heroic, selfless act. We also see the MoS devastation from a powerless, 'man on the street' perspective. They further load it up with sympathy bait by showing his parents killed, funerals, Robins memorial display. Contrast that with most significant insight into his opponents character being in the form of his mother's counsel to essentially "fuck 'em. They don't deserve you. Do whatever you want."

Take away the superman suit. Make this a generic God-like super powered character whom no one in the audience has any prior appreciation or knowledge for before the first film and you just don't have a whole lot there to muster enthusiasm or sympathy for him. He's a walking disaster attractor whether he means to be or not. The whole point of MOS seemed to be- for the good of the planet, someone take this guy away.

Brack

For someone who hates MoS, you just can't stop talking about it.

Paul_SD

I believe it's a failure as a good Superman movie. But it does have interesting aspects worthy of discussion- though I doubt it was intentional by Synder or Goyer.

Solid Snake

MoS has great ideas w/ some mediocre to poor execution. It lows are so goddamn low that the highs can't help it. It just is.

Saying that... I'd rather see MoS than SR cuz it's doing something different at least.

Brack

Still the best Superman movie since Superman II. Sure it wasn't character-driven like those were, but it was entertaining enough, and the fact that MoS's destruction is being addressed in BvS makes a lot of your complaints moot.

TheMovieman

And to think, we still have another 8 months of this and with each new trailer or clip, 5-6 pages of over-analyzing each frame (though its got to be far worse on a site like SHH).

Paul_SD

My main complaints are that this version of Superman's character is guided by more by self interest than self sacrifice. His father counsels that. His mother counsels that...
No doubt they'll try to balance that out in this film with scene of him actually rescuing people. But then we still have Synder doubling down on the cynical "look out for yourself first" wisdom we got from his father the first time around.

Brack

Did we see the same movie? Dude saved the world, and killed Zod, from a world that HATES and FEARS him, evidently. It's more like an X-Men storyline. Apparently that aspect works for those movies, but not for Superman. Good to know.

HN

(Size)

Brack

lol @ HN. Bruce needs some Miralax.

Solid Snake

MoS's destruction isn't a complaint for me. So my complaints are still strong where that BvS can't fix cuz MoS is its own film w/ its own purpose. Which failed in a lot things just based on the script level alone.

Brack

I was mostly addressing Paul, unless that's your other account . The flashback narrative I thought was the weakest part of the movie. Plus Pa Kent's death was stupid. I can't remember your complaints off hand. Not saying it's perfect by any means, but Paul seems intent to relegate the film as destruction porn, which isn't fair based on what happened in the movie. Nothing worse than any Avengers movie.

Solid Snake

my complaints are very basic and simple. Though wildly varied cuz its got a fuck ton of issues.

Brack

I agree, it's flawed, but hardly the offensive film a lot of people seem to paint it as. You own it, so it obviously didn't bother you too much.

Paul_SD

I would say the third act is pretty much destruction porn. Also the fight in Smallville is pretty much a small scale shorthand version. It's initiated because Clark's mother is being threatened, which is fine.
But it quickly progresses into becoming Clark fighting with an eye to inflict damage upon his adversaries first, and any regard to the civilians safety around them coming up a very distant second. Goodbye Sears. Goodbye IHoP.
Sure he makes it a point to tell them to get inside their businesses. But it's a feckless point if he's going to stay and do battle in the middle of the street.
And that is basically a mini version of the problem with the end Metropolis battle.

The film had many problems, large and small, if you treat it as a serious and sincere effort and actually examine it. Probably the biggest one for me is that it sets the character up more in an anti-hero mold to be different and modern. The fight scenes are all to that end- to make Superman not look like a wussy and transform him into a brutal bad ass. That to me was cynical.

Whether you like the Donner movies or not, he at least accounted for modern cynicism in a way that didn't pollute the character. People around Superman were shown to be cynical as hell. But Superman himself had a purity and sincerity to his core that demolished that cynicism. Rather than being a cynic, the character is shown to inspire idealism.
That sense of hopeful idealism is what is sorely lacking in Synders film, and it creates a problem when he is put into conflict with another character who is, by his nature, another cynic.

Mondo Kane

Can you handle 42???

JTH182

Now that was a great fucking trailer! Please don't fuck this up!

It's really the first time I've been actually excited about this movie.

Brack

Clark is far from cynical in MoS. He's not an antihero, but a reluctant hero. He was in the Donner movies before Pa Kent died in the first movie, and he gives up being a hero for a woman in II, but no one complains about that. How convenient.

I don't see what is insincere about Superman in MoS. He wants to be a hero so badly, but everyone tells him to look the other way. He doesn't come off as a badass at all. He only shows up because Zod forces his hand. So shit goes bad in Metropolis. This was a worse situation than Superman II; way worse. The argument that he could take the fight out of the city isn't supported by how the fight actually played out. No one was chasing Superman. Zod was intent on destroying the world regardless.

Super X

Most of the trailer looked promising, but so did the MoS trailer and the film underwhelmed.

Every time Eisenberg was onscreen, I half expected to see Otis appear.

Jason

I, for one, am disappointed. Not a single mention of Lex Luthor's needlessly complicated real estate schemes. Hell, I bet he won't even have a miniature model railroad town this time either!

james2025a

I like the trailer overall, but it does not have the power the trailers for MoS had. They really made me crazy to see that movie....shame it ended up just been ok instead of great. There are aspects of this which really still worry me, too of which is Eisenberg as Luthor. I thought he was totally miscast when I first heard it and after seeing this it seems to solidly it. The Red Capes are coming? Which red capes? Only Supes has s red cape. Luthor needs to be imposing both mentally and to done extent physically (his self confidence and bravado rather than actual muscle). Gadot still appears weak. I think she is a terrible actress. Alexandra Daddario was the perfect choice, and she basically played Wonder Woman already in those Percy Jackson movies.

I actually really like Cavil as Superman and Affleck looks good as Batman. I don't know why we need to see another reenactment of the death of Beuces parents. They keep needing to show his motivations....we know them thanks.

I think the movie will end up being entertaining, but I think DC could be making something really special instead. Lighten the movies up both figuratively and literally.

Michael Corvin

Watched it again. Man there is so much going on in that 3 minutes. Just awesome.

Exactly. He's not THE Superman he's destined to be yet, i.e. the boy scout intent on saving everyone. Zod was intent on destroying Earth so he prevented that, no matter the collateral damage. I think the fallout from that and his interaction with Bruce/Bats in the new movie will push him toward the Boy Scout path we all know and love, towards a Supes that would have went about that battle differently.

Draven

I did like the "dozens dead" headline in the newspaper when it should have been "thousands dead" after MoS

redrum

That was refering to just the Wayne building deaths