Monday, March 5, 2018

The Modern Day Superman In Film Review Series - The Inevitable Comparison

Written In April 2014

Now let’s get into the basic criteria, I’ll be grading these movies by:
  1. General Plot Development And Overall Simplicity In Story Telling
  2. Quality Of The Action
  3. Best Superman
  4. Best Lois Lane
  5. Best Villain
  6. Best Supporting Cast
  7. Who Told The Story Best
So, Khan, my dear friend, if you would please.
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Plot Development And Story Telling Simplicity
This part’s easy. I can pretty much tell you what Man of Steel is about in one sentence without actually mentioning anything about Superman; “Two members of a dying alien race are forced into conflict over the future of Earth with one ultimately being forced to kill the other to protect this planet." Can I do the same with Superman Returns? Not really. "An alien traveler returns to earth after having left five years earlier in order to see if his home planet was truly gone. Meanwhile, his human partner has moved on from him and his old enemy has come out of hiding in order to seek a new way to cause chaos. The traveler hopes to rekindle his old love affair but finds that he can’t do to her being committed to another man. However, when the traveler’s former lover and her new family are placed in jeopardy, the traveler must sacrifice himself to save them. But the traveler is inexplicably saved by his old flame and finds that his former partner’s child is his own, and so then promises to never abandon his new home.” It may seem like I’m making Returns more complicated than it is, but that’s really the best I could actually some it up. That’s not to say that complicated stories are a bad thing, but a simple story to tell usually works best in Superhero, Scifi, Action, and Fantasy based movies. Now this again doesn’t apply to all movies of that genre, The Lord of the Rings films have multiple subplots and side storylines going at the same time as the main plot which is to get this one object back to the place it was created at so it can be destroyed. But the thing there is, those films, while they work fine on their own, they work best as three parts of one whole movie. There’s a film like Star Trek II: The Wrath of KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!
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I’m sorry. Let me rephrase that. There’s a film like Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, that is a fairly complicated film. It’s a movie about hate, revenge, life and death, youth, age, hope, gay aliens, etc. All of these themes are present in one movie alone, but the movie primarily focuses on two characters only. William Shatner’s Admiral James T. Kirk and Ricardo Montabalhan’s Khan Noonien Singh. This movie tries to focus on four characters. Lex Luthor, Superman-The Superhero, Superman-The Creepy Ex-Boyfriend, and Clark Kent. And then it tries to give a smaller amount of attention to Lois’s current beau and their kid. Singer, there are two things people hate when it comes to fiction. Kids and Love Triangles. You’ve unknowingly given everyone who was interested in seeing this movie the bird by giving us this.
Man of Steel however, while an origin story, only ever shows things that are integral to the plot or the development of the characters. We see Clark before he becomes Superman working at a Canadian bar. Why? Because it’s here we see A. This Clark Kent cares a great deal about people. When a female coworker is being harassed by some douche, he tells him to knock it off or he’s going to have him leave. And B. It sets up the next scene where we meet Lois and Clark finds out who he really is. Everything is shown with deliberate intentions.
While with Superman Returns, you can tell that Bryan Singer and the writers thought that certain ideas could be really cool, but had no idea how to correctly execute them. “Let’s give Superman an illegitimate son! A lot more people these days are having children out of wedlock than they were in the late 70s and early 80s, maybe this will make Superman more relatable to modern audiences!” Except you’re forgetting that Lois has no idea she ever slept with Superman, you idiots! You’ve basically made Superman not only a stalker ex-boyfriend AND a deadbeat dad, you’ve made it so that he’s an implied rapist!
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So yeah, like I said. Easy answer, MOS told it’s story much better.
Quality Of The Action
Well again, that’s an easy question. Man of Steel was done by an action director! I mean Singer’s done great action before, like I said in my Superman Returns review, X2: X-Men United has some of the best action I’ve ever seen in a superhero movie. It’s intense, it’s kinetic, it’s well choreographed, it’s well acted, the stakes are high
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And this is 2006, we are not before the time when CG can create intense and exciting action sequences. We are three years after the Return of the King, two years after Spider-Man 2, one year after Peter Jackson’s King Kong, and a year after this we’ll be given Transformers, Zack Snyder’s 300, Spider-Man 3, and Die Hard 4! You can make great action sequences with CGI!
And yet, pretty much all this Superman was relegated to was stopping bullets and catching or lifting heavy things. And in one scene, he outright takes a beating from Lex when exposed to massive amounts of Kryptonite. Singer, I understand that you wanted to make Lex the villain and so you don’t have a lot of opportunities for big set pieces, but give me something here man! I know you can do action, show me something cool!
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Besides the eyeshot thing, oh my God!
Meanwhile, Zack Snyder not only did 300 (and produced it’s recent sequel) he also directed 2009’s Watchmen! Which was not short on action! Take a look at this sequence with Rorschach. Screw cops, right? So you know what I’m saying when I say that in Man of Steel, Snyder stepped up his game big time! Take a look at this thing of beauty. C'mon Singer, give me something here! What about that scene where Lex’s thugs beat Superman up, what do you got there?
Okay, something I find noteworthy in both scenes is Superman is seen trying to get away from his foes. You know what the difference is? In the former scene, Clark is trying to get away quick enough to get back on his feat so he can keep fighting, while at the same time trying to get the bad guys just a little bit further away from the civilians. While in the latter scene, it comes off like Clark is trying to run away. He doesn’t try to fight back, except for when he grabs Lex’s foot, It comes off like he’s given up and he just wants to the pain to stop. This is something I take genuine issue with. Superman is the kind of guy who would fight back even if he were powerless. If he came to stop Lex Luthor and found out that he was weak here, he’d still give it his everything.
So yeah, once again, I’m giving this to Man of Steel.
And now for the big question, Best Superman
This one, is not as a question to answer because these two actors were going for different things.
Brandon Routh was basically directed to give his best Christopher Reeve impersonation, which I think he pulls of nicely. While Henry Cavill, the first and only British actor to play Superman, is the first big screen actor to go for a separate take from Christopher Reeve. His Superman has to convey authority to the point that you feel the need to listen to him, but not to the point that you’re genuinely intimidated by him. And also, his Superman is the first one to be a badass! This guy gets into some serious fights throughout this film, and he even wins a couple of ‘em! I know Reeve’s Superman fought Zod and his cronies back in Superman II, but do you really consider this to be an acceptable action piece? Personally, I don’t think so.
Now I think there are two moments in these movies that are unequivocally Superman to me. One is this scene where Superman tells everyone not worry about flying, it’s still a very safe way to travel. The other is when Supes is being interrogated by Lois and the General.
Ultimately, I wanna call it a tie, but I’m gonna go ahead and say Henry. He just reminds me a lot of the Superman I loved to watch as a kid when I turned on Cartoon Network to watch Justice League. Always authoritative, but never intimidating. Always polite, but never a pushover. Perfection!
And that’s no slight towards Brandon, he does the best with what he has!
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Best Lois Lane
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Which of these ladies would you say looks like a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist? Which of these ladies would you say looks like someone who has worked in journalism for over a decade? Which of these ladies looks like a woman who could single handedly piss off people like the Pentagon? If you’re confused, I’ll give you a hint, it’s not the girl in purple.
No, but seriously, it takes several years to get a degree in journalism and then a good while to get an actual job writing something and then even longer to actually come up with something worth winning a Pulitzer Prize over. They don’t just hand those things over to anyone. So based on that, Kate Bosworth was unqualified to begin with. She was 23 at the time of this movie’s release! Amy Adams however turned 39 two months later.
But even looking at the actual performances, Amy comes off like she IS Lois freaking Lane! Kate comes off more like a really smart girl on the school paper. I could easily see her one day becoming Lois Lane, but as is, I cannot see her as Lois Lane now. Point for Man of Steel!
Best Villain
Now THIS is the tough part. Not only do you have two amazing actors in these roles, but their both playing two of the most iconic Superman villains ever brought to life.
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In Superman Returns’s corner, we have the great Kevin Spacey as Lex flippin’ Luthor! In Man of Steel’s we have the one and only Michael Shannon as the mighty General Zod! These two gentlemen turned excellent performances, in fact, while I am extremely excited to see Jesse Eisenberg as Lex, I would have loved to see Man of Steel 2 pull a Casino Royale and bring back Kevin. After seeing him as Frank Underwood on Netflix’s House of Cards, he could’ve owned it as this new DC Cinematic Universe’s Lex! But hey, we’ll see what Jesse brings to the table, I’m sure it'l be great!
But speaking of Man of Steel, we’ve got a certain General to talk about. Now, after seeing this movie in theaters, I decided to do a review series on Michael Bay’s directorial efforts, and what I gathered from it is that Michael Bay really knows how to waste talented actors! Especially Michael Shannon, and what’s worse is he wasted the guy in two separate movies!
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Here he is playing a fool in Pearl Harbor
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And here he is playing a racist fool in Bad Boys II, which is a God awful movie! It’s far worse than anything you could possibly hate about these movies.
Anywho, let’s talk about the villains themselves. Zod is the definition of Lawful Evil. He outright spells it out, I will do anything and everything to ensure the survival of my race, even it means destroying a whole other race. You can tell at times, he doesn’t want to be doing these things, but he feels like it was the only way to ensure what he needed to ensure.
Lex on the other hand has ZERO moral qualms with anything he’s doing. When his henchwoman, Kitty, asks him if billions of people will really die because of what he’s doing, he simply says yes. He doesn’t even given the tiniest indication that the idea of killing the majority of the world population is anything he genuinely has any thoughts about, in fact, if you’ll recall the confrontation he had with Lois earlier, he even seemed kind of excited by it. I think his best moment in the movie isn’t actually the scene where he stabs Supes with the Kryptonite shank, but just a couple minutes before it where he outright calls Superman an alien.
If I were to compare the two with other villains, I would say Lex is the Davros to Superman’s Doctor, while Zod is his Master. The former is a character who believes that his own will is supreme and that his intelligence makes that so. While the latter is the only other member of Superman’s race and would sooner kill them both than surrender to him.
I again, want to say it’s a tie, but Michael Shannon’s Zod really leaves more of an impact, it’s partly for the same reason why I think Henry was better than Brandon. This guy got to do his own thing, he had no one else to live up to, while Kevin and Brandon were both doing a version of the same thing someone else did. Terrence Stamp’s Zod was just a megalomaniac even more so akin to the Master than Shannon’s, while Michael’s Zod is a military man who wants desperately to do what he thinks is right even if it goes against the very nature of being a decent person.
Kevin, you’re fantastic, but point goes to Michael!
And now for the final two, starting with Best Supporting Cast
Returns pretty much only had Jimmy Olsen, Perry White, and Lois’s beau, Richard. I mean, you could maybe count the little kid and Lex’s crew, but Jason doesn’t do anything, and the only one actually says anything is Parker Posey’s character.
On the other hand, Man of Steel had Perry, Jor-El, Ma and Pa Kent, Steve Lombard, two military guys who have something resembling a character arc, Zod’s own henchwoman (Faora), and Emil Hamilton! And what’s great about them is they serve a purpose within the movie! To be honest, there’s really not much point to Superman Returns’s cast. So yeah, another point for Man of Steel.
And finally, Who Told The Story Best
Look, I did genuinely like Superman Returns! I don’t think it’s a crappy movie, I just don’t think it’s an especially great movie! I can honestly say I’d rather sit through this than something horrible like Sharknado! But, I have to say, I don’t think this really works for what it was going for. It’s some sort of weird limbo between the full reboot we got with Man of Steel and the original Christopher Reeve films. I understand that Bryan Singer wanted to make his own little tribute song to those first two Superman movies, and I can understand why. I mean I grew up loving the Tobey Maguire Spider-Man movies, and I’d love to make my own little homage sequel to those movies, but even then you have to move the story forward. While Man of Steel takes Superman in new and exciting story directions, Superman Returns just leaves the series off slightly better than it was after Superman III came out.
What I like about Man of Steel over Superman Returns could really be summed up pretty well in a Frozen quote, “I’m never going back, the past is in the past!” In other words, you needed to let it go Singer. The Christopher Reeve films were done with. I think what you did was an interesting experiment that could pay off with other stories, but not yours I’m afraid to say.
As for you Snyder, you told the best story you could and you told it brilliantly! And once again to quote Frozen, I don’t care what they’re going to say. This movie was perfect, and I’ll have no arguments otherwise. This movie said, screw the old stories, this is our story and we’ll tell it how we want to! If it flops, it flops. If it’s critically panned, it’s critically panned. And what’s life without a gamble every now and again? Unless you’re a recovering gambling addict in which case, hang in there buddy!
So when it comes right down to it, I’m going to give the prize to Man of Steel.
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Thank you for reading this and have a wonderful day!

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