Man of Steel (2013)

[Sam]

He is ridiculously good looking. But i bet he doesnt know to give a proper Ugoogley.

Good one, B

[Water Bottle]

B+

 

Man of Steel starts with a great central question for it's character, answers it, and then the bad guy shows up.

 

The action is fucking amazing...but....it's too epic for an origin story (which should be more personal). As such: Man of Steel makes the mistake of trying to make an origin story while trying to tell a story that can only work after an origin story has laid the foundations for it. It would have been better to have Zod be stuck in the phantom prison in the movie's...first act...and not have him come to Earth until movie 2 or movie 3.

[MrPink]

You know, I think that's what was missing. A flashback of Clark's Eugoogley of Pa Kent where he decides to retire from male modeling.

[Kvikk Lunsj]

I usually do not care about action but I love the action in this movie.

[baumer]

B+

 

Man of Steel starts with a great central question for it's character, answers it, and then the bad guy shows up.

 

The action is fucking amazing...but....it's too epic for an origin story (which should be more personal). As such: Man of Steel makes the mistake of trying to make an origin story while trying to tell a story that can only work after an origin story has laid the foundations for it. It would have been better to have Zod be stuck in the phantom prison in the movie's...first act...and not have him come to Earth until movie 2 or movie 3.

 

 

You echoed much of what I said.  I agree that Zod should have been in the next one. 

[baumer]

You know, I think that's what was missing. A flashback of Clark's Eugoogley of Pa Kent where he decides to retire from male modeling.

 

I think one of Clark's jobs should have been as a mermaid......errrr...merman...cough cough...fake tears...MERMAN!!

[75Live]

I think one of Clark's jobs should have been as a mermaid......errrr...merman...cough cough...fake tears...MERMAN!!

He can do more than just that, he's Kal-El, he's so hot right now, Kal-El

[Kvikk Lunsj]

I think one of Clark's jobs should have been as a mermaid......errrr...merman...cough cough...fake tears...MERMAN!!

I think he should have been stripper and Channing Tatum should have been working with him.

His stage name could have Man of Steel.

Edited June 16, 2013 by Queen Nikki

[jb007]

The movie is mediocre at best. The script is laughably bad. The action scenes are well staged though some of them zip by too fast. The score is loud and works part of the time. The pacing is off big time. It constantly jumps back and forth between worp and slow speeds. 

 

Scenes with Costner are quite good as are some with Crowe. General Zod is not impressive.

 

While it is not a bad movie, it is not a good one either. Hopefully the sequel will be better.

 

Above all, it is not a fun movie to watch. It is too dour for its own good.

 

B-/C+

[Accursed Arachnid!™]

 First off, as most of you know, I was going into this with a relatively negative point of view. For me, the trailers and preliminary buzz served as more harbingers of doom than anticipation building. I surprised everyone when I came back from a hiatus(yeah another one) in April to say I was not really looking forward to this film. My fears were that Goyer and Snyder had crafted their own version of Superman rather than staying reverent to the core of the character. It seems my fears were unfounded. In fact, I was completely shocked how much they stuck to what, in my mind, make Superman what he is.

 

 This film was, first and foremost, about sacrifice and heroism. Which was not evident from the trailers I saw. In the trailers, I saw Pa Kent tell Clark maybe it was better to let people die to keep his identity a secret. What I saw in the film was Pa Kent tell Clark that sometimes it's best to sacrifice a little now for a greater end. That his potential was not to be squandered on a few people if it kept him from being able to help billions in the future. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, if you will. And in one of the best scenes from the film, this belief was further cemented when Pa himself was willing to sacrifice himself for the greater good.

 

 In the trailer I saw a loner doing journeyman work rather than saving others. In the film, I saw him using his journeyman role in a quest to find out what his role in the world should be and saving others along the way. In the trailer I saw no kryptonite, no Lex Luthor and no Clark Kent, mild mannered reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper. In the film, I saw no need for any of those things, but hints that they were coming in future installments. In short, what I believed I saw in the trailers was wrong, or taken out of context.

 

 What I saw was reverence for the core values of the character while giving him very human choices. One of my favorite stories in the comics had Superman choose to destroy the Phantom Zone and all who resided in it for the greater good. Here we had Superman having to make similar choices. I applaud Snyder and Goyer(and Nolan) for updating Superman by humanizing him for modern audiences, but not by making him physically weaker, but by changing the choices he would have to make. By giving him complex problems and opportunities to make the same mistakes we do. By bringing him down to earth in more ways than one, they've made Superman relevant again.

 

 Now this is not to say Man of Steel was a perfect film. It had pacing issues and went a bit over the top on some of the action when a more minimalist approach may have been more appreciated. With all that was going on, the characterization of the supporting characters took a backseat(When Jenny Olsen was trapped I kept thinking, "it's like she's just some random girl and not very important in the grand scheme of things"). Some leaps of logic are here and there, but I feel they can mostly be forgiven when in the context of a film about a superhuman alien who decides to be human(the concept itself is a bit of an oxymoron).

 

 The performances were all very good, especially Cavill, Crowe and Costner. Amy Adams was fine, but I had a hard time getting into her character. Perry and the rest of the cast were a bit more cardboard cutout-ish. And Shannon did not really impress me as Zod. I understood his character's motives but maybe it was his dialogue. It was like Goyer focused on Superman/Clark's minimalist dialogue and everyone else ended up getting the derivative scraps. I kept waiting for Shannon to scream "FIRE EVERYTHING!"

 

 Bottom line is this is an entertaining super-hero epic and I hope most can overlook the reviews and appreciate the film for themselves. Because this is one not to be missed.

 

Solid A/A-(Final grade upon second viewing).

 

P.S. There were a few great moments of humor, so the reviewers who say it's joyless and no fun need to have whatever is jammed up their colons surgically extracted.

Edited June 16, 2013 by Dining on Crow on Krypton™

[dashrendar44]

He is ridiculously good looking. But i bet he doesnt know to give a proper Ugoogley.

 

Man Of BLUE STEEL!

 

[junkshop36]

I give it a A-

 

First off, the action in this was awesome!! I loved the fast pace of the fighting. It made sense to me that it would occur that way considering who is doing the fighting. They're not slow moving humans after all, LOL. The amount of destruction in this movie was epic. Made the destruction in TA look down right puny in comparison.

 

It didn't bother me at all that we don't see him as just Clark, Daily Planet reporter. What happens in this movie was a set up for the person that he'll become. And I liked the explanation he gives his mother at the end for taking the job at the Planet. It allows him to be in the know about what's going on around the world. Also, his reaction after killing Zod was perfect and you know that it's going to inform how he deals with future adversaries.

 

Cavill, Shannon, Adams, Crow and Costner all do fantastic jobs in the movie. Everyone else was solid and served their roles. Obviously, we'll get more Perry White in the next one now that he's working at the Planet.

 

I didn't find the score to be all that good. In fact, most of the time I barely even noticed it; especially during the action scenes. Nothing in it even touched Williams' iconic main theme from the original movie.

 

I had no problem with the pacing of the movie. I thought it was just fine.

 

The only other negative I have was how quickly he and Lois get romantically involved. It felt a little rushed. They could have waited to really build that up in the next movie.

 

While it didn't have much humor, I was ok with that do to the nature of the story and what Goyer and company were clearly going for. I have a feeling we'll get more humor in the next now that he's going to be playing more of the Clark side of his character.

Edited June 16, 2013 by junkshop38

[The Dark Rock]

I think the movie was good but not very good (definitely better than SR though)

May be the linear story could have served the purpose better. I will give credit to Snyder for the actions/visuals (which are good) but 300, Watchmen effects were more impressive. Why the shaky, blurry cam?

Cavill was really good in his role...a very restrained performance. And so were Crowe and Costner. But Shannon's performance was very disappointing. He fails to create threat/fear most of the times and comes across some as mad shouting person. The 3d adds nothing to the movie and I think this will be more enjoyable in 2d format. A good effort which could have been better and hope the sequel will be better.I will rate it 7/10 as of now.

[Omario]

So just saw it...in a nutshell i thought it was amazing. 

 

The performances were all brilliant. I really loved Faora. She whooped superman's ass and look extremely hot doing it. Kevin Costner and Russell Crowe showed their talent and stole the movie with their performances. Great actors. Micheal Shannon was great. I don't see the criticisms of him the people have here in the movie. Amy Adams was good as was Diane Lane. Needs more to work with though. Henry Cavill is Superman now. You can't deny it. He is what will be ingrained in the younger generation now. He was brilliant. 

 

I liked how they showed his journey to becoming the Clark Kent we will see in the sequel. To me it seemed more an origin movie of Clark Kent rather than superman.  

 

You had better take your asthma inhaler because the action is BREATHTAKING! The movie had loads of action, like tonnes of it. More than Transformers 3 and definitely more and better than the Avengers action.  It was seriously top notch. To see Superman go all out was something i have been wanting to see all my life and it really hit the spot.  

 

Effects were great too.

 

Zod fight at the end was like the best fight i have ever seen. It was miles better than the end Matrix Revolutions fight between Smith and Neo. 

 

the movie was extremely emotional. Anyone that says otherwise has a serious perception problem. To see Clark remember his childhood was very upsetting and you really felt for him when he said to his dad that couldn't he just keep pretending to be his son. He didn't want to be like this. All his life he has been alone. 

 

Now there is one gripe that i have that probably hinders my final score slightly. The movie took it self too seriously. I love serious movies, hence my love for the Dark Knight trilogy...BUT even that movie had its laughs....scenes that were memorable. There were some laughs in this movie but more like little giggles rather than laugh out loud moments. The truck scene at the bar was probably the funniest thing in the whole movie. A lot of people laughed then but the rest there were just some giggles here and there. It needs to lighten up slightly. I love serious but there is a limit. I can understand some people not accepting this incarnation of Superman because of this but i don't think it brings the overall quality of the movie down too much. 

 

As for the scene that got everyone talking...

 

Spoiler

As soon as superman snapped Zods neck it sent a shockwave through the audience. You could actually feel the silence in the crowd. it was shocking. The guy next to me nearly jumped and covered his mouth with his hand. It was an extremely well done scene. Supermans regret was displayed spot on. Its just i'm not sure if it was really necessary to do that. They could have had the plot of him sending Zod back to the Phantom Zone with the others and had the final fight done before that. I can see them using this scene in the future hence he will never kill again as this will weigh heavy on his heart.

 

 

I can see them lightening the sequel up abit with Clark Kent having now joined the Daily Planet. other than that i thought it was a brilliant movie....best action ever for a superhero movie but not better than The Dark Knight Trilogy. i would put it just a bit lower than the Avengers. 

 

TDK trilogy- 10/10

 

Avengers - 9/10

 

Man of Steel 8.5/10

 

 

 

i went with 4 other friends....one said he believes now that a Superman movie cant be done. He thought it had pacing issues and that it jumped from one scene to the next too quick. His ranking was 6/10

 

Another said he would have liked it to be light hearted and that the action was non-stop...he wanted a longer rest inbetween fights though he was amazed by the action. It was too serious for his liking. his ranking was 6.5-7/10

 

The other two agreed with me... and gave it a higher rating of 9/10 and said they loved it and that they will defo watch it again soon.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

after a few years of thinking, i feel i rated this movie too highly. It is not as bad a some people here think but its not as good as i used to either. I still love the action but yes it does swallow you up a little. 

 

7.5/10

 

B

Edited May 7, 2016 by Omario
opinion has changed

[Omario]

So anyhow i have been thinking about the ending since i saw it and it just is such a hard pill to swallow. It was a great scene and all and obviously they are trying to change the character for modern times. i just thought of something that has made this whole thing easier to bear...

Superman killed Zod in superman 2 too

 

 

 

I have less of an issue with it now:)

Edited June 17, 2013 by Omario

[Brilliant Dynamite Neon]

 

I have less of an issue with it now:)

Honestly, in hindsight I like the way it's handled in Man of Steel much more than it was in that movie.

Edited June 17, 2013 by Brilliant Dynamite Neon

[Blankments]

It improves on rewatch, mostly thanks to the first act's structure being jarring the first time you see it. Enjoyed it more, which surprised me.

[narniadis]

Since I have had 2 days now to mull it over, I give the film a grade of B. Its better than IM3, but beneath STiD as far as the summer sci-fi action films are concerned. My biggest issues are the pacing problems others have mentioned and that blasted first act jarring jump to current age Clark. I really feel like by pushing to combine Superman 1 & 2 they lost an opportunity to fully flesh out these characters and the universe we find them in before bringing in the Big Baddie of the Series - would have preferred a similar approach to what Nolan used in BB where Joker was teased at the end leading into an "Epic for the ages."

 

Not a bad film, but certainly not the great one it had the potential to be.

[redfirebird2008]

Since I have had 2 days now to mull it over, I give the film a grade of B. Its better than IM3, but beneath STiD as far as the summer sci-fi action films are concerned. My biggest issues are the pacing problems others have mentioned and that blasted first act jarring jump to current age Clark. I really feel like by pushing to combine Superman 1 & 2 they lost an opportunity to fully flesh out these characters and the universe we find them in before bringing in the Big Baddie of the Series - would have preferred a similar approach to what Nolan used in BB where Joker was teased at the end leading into an "Epic for the ages."

 

Not a bad film, but certainly not the great one it had the potential to be.

 

The thing is, a Kryptonian villain in a movie that features Superman's origin story on Krypton makes a lot of sense. They certainly could have done much better with the pacing and editing to make it all flow together better, but I definitely don't mind the villain choice.

[Accursed Arachnid!™]

One thing I really liked was how they had him jump first before actually flying. I thought it was a nice tough and homage to the first stories.