Man Of Steel

[Y&RWorldTurner]

That's a common thing I see though. A lot of critics/fans thought Superman was way too serious in this movie (as Batman often is) and not as fun as he's supposed to be.

[YRBB]

I have to agree. While Lois not realizing Clark and Superman are the same holds a certain... charm, and works great in comic book world, it severely damages Lois as a character. She's supposed to be this brilliant reporter but (ignoring the fact that glasses cannot alter your appearance so significantly) it never occurs to her that, whenever Clark disappears, Superman appears, and as soon as he's gone, Clark returns? Even as a kid, watching Lois & Clark, it kind of grated. It is one aspect they just had to get rid of, especially in order to involve Lois in the story more, considering Clark didn't arrive at the Daily Planet until the very end.

Honestly, I don't get the comments about the movie being heartless, considering its fatherhood aspects and the journey that Clark takes. Stuff like Jonathan's sacrifice and Clark's scream after he killed Zod were deeply heartfelt moments that could only work if the groundwork was laid. Besides, the flashbacks were often described, even by the harshest of critics, as the most emotional, touching aspects.

A guy at the showing today walked out of the movies, telling everyone how great it was and that they will enjoy it. Audience again had a very, very positive reaction in the end (lots of clapping, etc).

It is just great popcorn entertainment.

[YRBB]

I think the Donner version (and Clark's bubbliness) are so prevalent in people's minds that it must have seemed like such a stark contrast.

As someone who has loved Superman in its various incarnations, it didn't annoy me because it seemed to me that you can't do the upbeat version that people want in combination with the character stuff, the dynamics they wanted to do, giving him an inner life. Here we saw ONLY up until the part were he first arrives at the Daily Planet.

It's possible the less serious side will show up now that he's dealt with a lot of the heavy issues and put them behind him. You just can't take his... uuuum suffering, loneliness, quest seriously if he's running around pretending he's a clutz. The whole movie is an origin story and we needed to see him get to the part where he has this alternate personality. I'm sure the same issues will rear their heads every now and then.

Would I have loved more fun, every now and then? Sure. There was a couple moments in the movie that indicate we might get there next.

[YRBB]

I wonder if audiences today would really appreciate a bubblier version of Clark...

SUPERMAN RETURNS showed six years ago that they would not, and considering that things have gotten darker since then, I really doubt it. Everyone wants dark dark dark.

[ThePrinceOfSunspear]

I'm also glad that Lois knew about Superman/Clark from the get go. She's supposed to be this intelligent well researched reporter. With all the facts and the trail that he had left behind, it was just logical that she would investigate and find out who he truly was....

I think there's a world of difference between Christian Bale's super depressed, barely contained rage Bruce Wayne and the emotionally conflicted, socially isolated Clark Kent.

I do think they rushed the romance aspect though. With so much going on, there was hardly time for them to reach the level of first kiss. That was cutting very close in terms of believability.

[quartermainefan]

Cinema certainly hasn't gotten darker. Today every movie is some PG 13 explosion filled action epic, but in the 70s the movies would sometimes be adult and dark dramas. They didn't make GI JOE and Transformers movies back then, or Battleship or whatever. I don't think there is this generational yearning for darkness because if there were there would be more movies like The Deer Hunter or Cukoo's Nest today and less movies like Riddick Fast and Furious. Superman Returns was just not a very good movie.

[DRW50]

If the public just wanted dour, self-important superhero films, the Hulk movies and Green Lantern would have been runaway hits.

If Lois immediately figures out who Clark is, that takes away a major part of her role in his life. Why not just bring in Lana Lang instead? (I always kind of preferred Lana anyway, at least in the comics, the Silver Age comics, not the depressing crap after the Crisis)

[YRBB]

I'm not talking about how a movie is rated, but rather how superheroes are expected to be tortured and their movies to have a more serious tone than they used to. The Batman trilogy is much, much darker than the first Batman movies, and movie-going audiences really responded to that. I am not talking about movies in general. And, yes, SR sucked... badly.

I'm sorry DRW50, but those movies did not fail because they were dour and self-important. They failed because they were really bad. If you're somehow implying MOS was dour and self-important, that's interesting. I would love to hear your thoughts on the movie.

So you would have preferred she goes around for 2-3 movies not knowing who he is? And, instead of being actively involved in plot (because she knows his true identity) just be a damsel in self-imposed distress because she's a Pulitzer prize winning journalist who can't put two and two together?

[DRW50]

The last Batman movie got very mixed reviews so I think that this type of misery always has its limits, even in that franchise.

I wasn't talking about whether MOS was too dark, I was just disagreeing with the idea that the public will only support wrist-slashing superhero films. The Iron Man/Thor/Avengers films don't suggest that. And I think one of the reasons stuff like Green Lantern failed was in part due to the attempts at dourness, which clashed badly with the miscast Ryan Reynolds.

Lois doesn't have to be a damsel-in-distress just because she doesn't know Superman is Clark. Not knowing his true identity never kept Lois out of the plot. It just meant we got to see more of Clark's double life, the toll his double life takes, and see Lois reacting to both men. This was sometimes done in very sexist terms, but not always, nor does it have to be that way. The idea of who Lois fell in love with first, which she prefers, was always an interesting question to me.

Without that, Lois just becomes more of a generic love interest.

I don't think she should have been kept in the dark for two or three movies, but at least one would have made sense to me.

[quartermainefan]

There is a benefit to Lois not knowing who Superman is in that now Superman cannot have that which he wants most. He can't even acknowledge it. Take that away and you get these casual kissing scenes where suddenly the most handsome, best built guy in the room not only is stronger than everyone else but he gets the girl too. It's a little too easy for Superman this way and now you get things like "Lois and Clark" where instead of noble self sacrifice you get sitcommy banter. I am a traditionalist with Superman and think Jerry Seigel got it right 75 years ago.

There have been essays done examining Superman and seeing him as an allegory for the jewish experience in America (trying to blend in and assimilate, getting rid of his hebrew sounding name for a more gentile sounding name, making sure all the ethnic curl is out of his hair when Clark, falling for a prototypically sounding gentile named "Lois", the whole Moses element of his origin) and this movie also seemed to discard Moses for Jesus. Again, this wasn't a bad movie, it just wasn't very Supermanish.

Or as Jimmy might say "Jeepers! What happened to me, Miss Lane?"

[DRW50]

Terence Stamp talks about a bathroom encounter.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/original-superman-star-interrupts-man-573843

[Aback]

I'm surprised no one really brought up the worst part of the movie: Superman's atrocious dye job.

[Toups]

Just saw the movie this weekend and I really liked it. I thought HC did a fine job as both Superman and Clark, but I also liked every other interpretation (Reeves, Cain, Welling, Routh). I guess I'm not picky when it comes to who plays him. LOL The story was easy to follow, the action sequences were great. I'm a huge Hans Zimmer fan and I was kind of disappointed with was the score...I thought it was just okay. I wanted it to be better. I loved John Ottman's score of Superman Returns.

I agree with those who liked Lois knowing who Clark is. And I too thought that the kiss shouldn't have happened at the end. I wanted that to happen in the 2nd movie when Clark/Lois are more established.

I also liked the costume without the red tights.

Superman breaking Zod's neck like that at the end. I'm assuming Zod killed that family and that's why Superman did it.

[Mr. Vixen]

Saw at the drive in on a whim like 2 weeks ago, I was really drunk so I only remember like half of it but from what I remember I liked it a lot. I'm going to see it again this week, so I'll give an official opinion.

The one thing I didn't like was Amy Adam's hair...I needed it to be brown. Other than that, she was perfection in the role.