Review - The Wolverine

I feel like I've been quite negative with movies of late, so I'll try to be a bit more positive for the next few films (but doesn't mean I won't nitpick!). A few people also tell me I really should loosen up and turn off my brain to just enjoy a film. Now while I generally don't like films that are bad, that doesn't mean I don't have guilty pleasures.

For example, Arnold Schwarzenegger is a really bland actor and his movies tend to be full of cliches, with super straightforward plots and terribly uninteresting villains, but I absolutely adore them. I love silly action, one-liners and over-the-top stuff, but in moderation, and only if it doesn't ruin other things along the way (like Twilight did for vampires).

But just because I watch silly this doesn't mean I turn off my brain, I think enjoying a film while examining what makes it good (or bad) is part of the movie-going experience. Films are a form of art, a means of self-expression, while movies are a form of entertainment. I examine the film aspect while enjoying the movie aspect, and sometimes I have to blur the line because I want to see past what is presented to recognise what the directors, producers and actors intended.

Now that I've gotten this off my chest, onto the film.

The Wolverine is the second spin-off of the X-Men franchise focusing on Logan/Wolverine (portrayed by Hugh Jackman again). Premise? After the events of X-Men 3, where Logan was forced to kill Jean, his lover, he is haunted by the guilt as well as by the deeper prospect of seeing every person he ever cared about die as he continues wandering an eternity with no purpose or identity other than a killing machine. He is then invited by a man who he once saved to Japan, who is now a powerful figure in the technological, corporate and political scene, and offers Logan the greatest gift an immortal man could ever get; mortality.

I'm going to be very brave here, and claim that this is my favorite X-Men film so far (beating out X-Men: First Class). Perhaps my sentiments will change over time, but as I am leaving the cinema fresh in my mind, I can safely say this film was a great experience.

Now having said that, this film isn't perfect. Is the plot predictable? Yes. Are there plot holes or things that just don't make sense? Yes. Are the themes and ideas explored by this film deeper or stronger than in the other X-Men movies? No. But it got one thing really right, and that is the characters (well, most of them).

If you are a seasoned reader you would know that I really care about character development in films, especially if they are a sequel. I feel that being able to relate to or immerse yourself into the character's perspectives on their constructed worlds is why we often want to watch movies. We want to be taken away to an alternate universe where we can do fantastical things or be part of something epic, tragic, dramatic, exciting, or even erotic.

Characters in the story are the vessels that transports us into these worlds and  scenarios. And so if the studios have the audacity to make a sequel to a spin-off film focusing on just one character from the story continuum (imagine Minions 2, Puss in Boots 2, Supergirl 2, The Scorpion King 2 etc), they darn better get it right. And in my opinion, they did so admirably for Wolverine (the character, not the overall movie).

I personally love Hugh Jackman's take on Wolverine throughout all the films. His character has a tragic backstory, and so his character is also tragic. He seeks purpose, redemption, justice, escape, humanity, anything to compensate for the brokenness and animalistic side he carries, especially after being alive for so long. In this film he is pushed further down that path of tragedy to a point where I would say this is as depressing as the character can get. The drama is theatrical, almost Shakespearean, his development as he tries to sort out his existential dread in the midst of solving a conspiracy plot tied to his past and his mutant ability is so intriguing, half the time I forget that this was a superhero movie. He is moral on his own terms, is stronger in weakness, and strongest when protecting the innocent.

The other characters were intriguing too. There are many scenes where the film slows down, detours from the plot to focus more on growing the relationships between the main characters as well as respecting the Japanese cultural backdrop, like the way of the samurai, honor and tradition. There is a lot of atmosphere and serenity in the middle section of the film that I enjoyed. Honestly I really didn't expect so much of this for a film about Wolverine.

As for the action scenes, some are good, some are in fact quite fun, some are okay, and some are hard to watch because of the shaky camera effect modern filmmakers occasionally have a fetish with. But the best fight scenes are the ones where they pause between the punches and katana swinging to show the emotions and thoughts going through Wolverine's mind. They are unspoken words as well as unspoken thoughts. His revelations are expressed as raw emotion, an intense stare at his opponent saying "I know exactly what I am going to do with you. Try me."

The only real thing that I found disappointing is the plot itself, and while for the first half the mystery and complexity of everything happening and unraveling keeps you engaged, the ending, what it all builds up to from the story perspective, is a bit weak. It's the type of ending that you probably could've seen coming based on the events in the first 15 minutes, but deep inside you really hoped they would do something differently, that they would have a smarter reveal. So even though what actually unravels does make sense, I thought there's many ways they could've ended the film that could've made this an even more satisfying film. Some of the villains are also so blunt, not fully fleshed out and just end up feeling like a one-dimensional cardboard cut out of the word "Evil", but not all of them. As it is, the film probes very interesting ideas but doesn't follow through all the way. They return to the status quo so that more X-Men films can be made!

I think I won't have a spoiler-discussion section, because I highly recommend this film and would rather have conversations with people about it face to face. If you love X-Men, or superhero movies in general, or a good film, or even just something that is set in Japan, this is very worth checking out. There is so much about Japan in this film I feel like teachers should show this to their Japanese classes; your students will love you for it!


Overall rating: 8 out of 10.


Just the nitpicks (spoilers)

• For the majority of the film, the Japanese characters speak Japanese to each other but English to Logan. But randomly there will be a few stray scenes where two Japanese characters would suddenly switch to speaking English with each other in the absence of caucasians. Especially between the Yashida family members.
• I don't like how Logan ends up sleeping with Mariko (the girl he was trying to protect from the Yakuza). I mean you can sort of see it happening from the very first scene their eyes meet, next to her dying grandfather's bed. But in between his dreams of ex-lover Jean and trying to fend off the bad guys, it feels a bit troubling, given that you know, Logan is 100 years old and Mariko looks like she is still an undergrad student. They have like nothing in common except her grandfather. I mean I like them both as characters, and Mariko is gorgeous, and if not for the X-Men backdrop, them getting together seems natural (definitely a better love story than Twilight). I just thought it would have been more powerful if he actually resisted the urge for once. Maybe that's the point; his animal instincts are strong. Alternatively, let him choose mortality, so he can commit to a real relationship for once.
• During the pre-climax scene, Logan attempts to remove the healing-factor-removing-spider-bot by performing surgery on himself to extract the spider by hand. He immediately works out how to operate the really high-tech scanner, then proceeds to rip open his cage during his vulnerable state. Even if I can buy that, how on Earth did that spider floating and tapping on Logan's heart inhibit his healing ability? I thought that ability is controlled by the brain? Whatever.
• That mutant with the ability to spit venom is so lame! You can tell she is one of the main villains from the first/second scene you see her, but her motivation is never made clear, especially why or how she is sort-of self-interestedly helping grandpa Yashida. What does she get out of the whole deal? Money? I don't read the comic books, so I don't know whether she does more in those stories, but judging by the movie alone you could have made this film without her and lose nothing. If she was secretly Mystique all this time, that might have tied in better to the franchise, but nope, she's a throwaway and I doubt we'll see her again.
• That Mecha suit revealed at the end is just...wow...suspense of disbelief completely gone. It's just too extreme and out of place compared to the rest of the film. It almost felt like someone else decided to take over direction halfway and say "you know what this film climax is missing? That bad guy from Iron Man 1, only lets make him Japanese!"
• From my understanding, Yukio is not a mutant in the comic books. Her precognitive abilities added in this film seems pointless, or underutilized. How could the Yashida family have brought her in from the slums, and not eventually recognize what a valuable member of their empire she would be for the mutant-genetics research Yashida seems to be obsessed with. Maybe she never revealed to anyone else what she could do until Logan.

Review - Despicable Me 2

I wanted to look at this film Despicable Me 2 last week, but due to illness I had to postpone till today. Now I feel sick again, sick of the self-interested decisions Hollywood studios make when trying to milk its loyal fans by producing sequels in clockwork timing, regardless of whether they can deliver content worthy of the original. I talked about sequels that should be made in my previous post, I guess now I should talk about sequels that shouldn't be made. This was one of them.

Gru, former villain who is now trying to be a good father of his three adopted girls Margo, Edith and Agnes, when the Anti-Villain League calls on his expertise to help find a villain who threatens to wreck havoc upon the world. That's the premise, and a potentially fun one. The only problem is, there isn't actually a real villain in this movie.

To put it lightly, Despicable Me 2 has no surprises, no tensions, no stakes and I would even argue no heart. It plays more like a TV episode than a feature length movie, and has such an unoriginal plot that I almost wanted to ask for a refund. It is as light-hearted as it is light-headed, and even though I did chuckle at a couple of gags here and there, most of the film was teeth-grinding to sit through. The feeling I have is that the producers of this film didn't get what made the original so good, and focused on the wrong aspects of the characters they created. It's really hard to believe that it was the same team that brought us the original. 

The minions plays a much more significant role in this film, which is perhaps the only reason people would want to see this film. They are adorable, but only up to a point. Their cuteness does get you in the earlier parts of the film, but towards the end you feel like you've had about enough of their incomprehensible, abstruse amalgamation of Asianic languages and excess presence in this film. 

None of the original characters get developed, and there is no deeper message or theme anyone can take home. The romance subplot(s) are very forced, the only good bits are surprisingly where the film recognises its own stupidity, but this is bare minimum effort, Saturday morning cartoon quality production. It's almost comparable to Disney sequels, except you have to pay $10 ticket to see it, and be saturated with modern-day pop culture references. Seriously, they have a Bruce Willis reference in this film!! So out of place. 

Kids and adults who are willing to turn off their brains for 99 minutes will probably have a good enough time, but for me I feel betrayed. I get quite invested in movies, good and bad, which is why I have a blog ranting about or advocating for things people should or shouldn't watch. And unfortunately Despicable Me 2 is one I cannot recommend simply because there are better alternatives out there, Epic for one (I'll check out Monsters University at a later date). If you adore the minions, they're making a spin-off focusing on just them, that's the movie they should've taken the spotlight in, not this one.

Anyway, there’s nothing seriously wrong or bad for kids in this film, and I can't say it's the worst thing I've seen this year, but it's definitely below the average, and overall it's not in the same league as the original and was just an unsatisfying movie-going experience.

Overall Rating: 4 out of 10

And now for the Spoilers rant... 

The Mexican 

There is no real villain in this movie. There is a former villain in the form of Gru, a bunch of anti-villains (well just 2 as far as the movie shows), a washed up wannabe villain (El Macho), and an unemployed near-retirement age 'mad scientist' (Doctor Nefario). The whole world of villainy established in the first film was discarded to centralize the attention to Gru’s family, and his daughters’ attempts to hook him up so they can have a mother, and El Macho's very random evil plot: setting a bunch of zombified minions to wreak havoc in the world. Honestly it's isn't really that diabolical compared to stealing the moon and the wonders of the world. Those minions seem easy enough to contain with steel cages. It's essentially Gremlins, but purple.

There is a lot of Mexican stuff in this film. The main* villain El Macho is Mexican, he runs a Mexican restaurant, hosts a Cinco de Mayo at his crib, and even his villain costume is reminiscent of Nacho Libre. While I should be annoyed by this aspect of the film, I actually found it amazing how accurate they encapsulated Mexican culture. The domestic chicken he keeps is not just for laughs, but an actually popular form of pet in Mexico. His metrosexual, generous demeanor is quite spot on, and the fact that his restaurant appears vegetarian is kind of cute, though I doubt most people would have noticed. And I do love those nachos hats (going to try and bake one).

*I use the term main very loosely here, as we only see him in his role in the last 20 minutes of the film

But aside from his Mexican heritage, the villain side of El Macho is one-dimensional, has poorly explained motivations, and the way he 'retires' from villainy 20 years ago was done better by Metroman in Megamind. He also suffers from having the most cliché plans with more holes in his strategy than swiss cheese. 

However his backstory was quite fun in its complete over-indulgence. This type of self-parody is very hit and miss, but I think it was passable this time, even if it doesn’t really match his character in the present. Guess having a family does change you. Wait, if he has a son, what happened to the mother? Why did he fake his death in the first place? Why did he decide to return? What is his purpose of unleashing indestructable minions on the world? 

Don't expect any of these questions to be answered ever, because he really isn't the focus of the film. He is just the McGuffin.

But despite all the flaws in his character design, of all the main characters I think I enjoyed El Macho the most, partly because he is a new character, so I didn't have any expectations of what they were going to do with him, and partly because he did bring something juicier to the film than everyone else, even if it made little to no sense. 

The Girls...

The girls don’t get much developments, except Margo, who I’m guessing is starting to hit puberty in the chronology of these films, and now that her role as a surrogate mother to her younger siblings is gone, she has been reduced to a modern-day teenage girl who is into boys and texting friends 24/7.

I really couldn’t care less about her sub-plot with El Macho’s son Antonio, because it stereotypes both teen girls and boys to a level so ridiculous it makes those Facebook meme-based micro-insights about people look like freaking scientific abstracts! Gru's reaction and over-protectiveness of Margo is so overdone that it undermines any possible message to parents or children they were going for with this part of the story. Also it resolves itself once Margo sees Antonio dancing with another girl. She makes a 'meh boys are stupid' statement and immediately moves on. Lesson learnt? She seems to have the ability to immediately reconfigure her emotions so rapidly as to not feel hurt by infidelity or betrayal. Hmm, maybe it reflects teenage girls nowadays better than I gave it credit for, but it's still boring and uninteresting to watch on the big screen.

Agnes and Edith reprise their exact same roles as before, one being the adorable innocent ticking timebomb, while the other being the almost tomboy ninja warrior who is uninterested in girly things and indifferent to social norms.

The Minions

You can’t invest an entire feature length film on people’s adoration of the Minions, the side characters, unless you give them juicier things to do other than re-hashes of what they did in the previous film. They weren’t hard to watch, but they didn’t add enough to this film to make it as strong as the first. And ironically, despite the trailers and posters indicating that this film would be about the minions, they are actually more of a plot device than the central theme of the movie. We don’t learn anything about their origin, their language, how they ended up working for Gru etc. Guess they're saving those things for the upcoming spin-off in December (which I will not watch, sorry).

I won't talk too much more about the minions, because I never really liked them, at least not as much as some of my other friends do. I think they're cute, but I'm a guy. I don't watch movies simply because it's got cute things in it, but neither am I repelled by it. I just think there was too much of them in this film but they are still mostly unsubstantial fillers.

Gru and Lucy

The romantic subplot between Gru and Lucy is passable, but too straightforward for me to be invested. The experienced moviegoer can tell from even the trailers that Gru and Lucy will get together by the end of the movie, and the question of ‘how’ just never popped up because you know it’s going to follow one of those standard formulas.

On the other hand, The idea that the girls need a mother figure would have been a very good thing to explore, but the film is so wrapped up in the detective story, the minion show, and trying to convincingly establish screen chemistry between Gru and Lucy, they literally only gave the girls 10 seconds from meeting to accepting Lucy as their future mother. The emotional mechanisms and environmental factors that lead to adopted girls accepting someone as their mother is a bit more complicated than a "love at first sight", and I would say was a more interesting thing to explore than all those (almost) meaningless minion abduction scenes, which were neither funny nor consequential. 

I'm probably rambling more than ranting now (it's late), but you see what I'm getting at. They have many potential ways of making Despicable Me 2 a good film. You can have your manly Machos and adorable Minions being adorably naughty and playful. You can have your Gru falling in love, your teenage Margo problems. But you need to find a better balance and connection to tie these subplots together. You need stake-ier climax, stronger motivations for each character to act the way they do. As it is the film feels like a random bunch of scenes stitched together, kind of like how my movie review tends to be a bunch of random rants stitched together by subheadings. The cuteness factor may fill enough butts to seats to satisfy the studio's balance sheets, but it won't get a thumbs up from me if that's the direction they go in future franchises. And if they don't have good ideas, then just don't make these sequels please.

Finally, The Nitpicks

• Despite what the trailers suggested, the Anti-Villain League has very little to do with this film. They are practically invisible and plays virtually no part in the climax and resolution of the film (other than Lucy, who I wouldn’t really consider an important part of their organisation anyway). But having said that...
• Why on earth does the Anti-Villain League have a secret laboratory making chemicals that turn creatures into indestructible monsters? Doesn't that kind of research sound villainy?
• Why did El Macho fake his death in the past? He seems to like the attention and there doesn’t seem to be any motivation for him to commit suicide. Maybe he felt the same thing as Metro-Man from Megamind and just wanted a holiday from villainy.
• When El Macho reveals his big evil plan of unleashing those indestructable minions upon the world, by demonstrating how one of them can eat a bomb and chew on steel saws, how is he able to contain the rest of them in cages when they seem so hyped up?
• Why does Gru and Lucy take 147 dates before getting married? That’s such a random thing to mention, but I guess it establishes that they’ve really made sure they’re right for each other before getting married? Up did it better!
• The AVL arrests Floyd Eagle (the wig store owner), after finding just a jar of the mutagen in his shop, and despite him firmly claiming that he was framed, immediately considers the case solved? Worst anti-villain league ever.
• In the first film, we start and end the film establishing that the world doesn’t know who stole or returned the moon. But in this film it seems like everybody knows, unless Gru or Doctor Nefario was spreading their own story, the only other two who know are Vector (who was stuck on the moon) and Mr Perkins (who I doubt would’ve been very inclined to tell people of Gru’s success). If the AVL knew about their plans to steal the moon/pyramids, why didn't they intervene in the previous film? Were they only formed after those events?
• How does Doctor Nefario know about Lucy and her importance to Gru? Gru and Lucy only got close after the doctor resigned and started working for El Macho, and until Lucy's kidnapping at the party, he doesn't know of her connection to Gru at all, so why does he know to call Gru and have a change of heart when El Macho kidnaps her? 

Reel Thoughts - 5 Films that deserves a sequel.

Most of the times I find myself amazed at the horrible money-grabbing decisions studios make to convert a mediocre film into a franchise, simply because they know it will sell well. However financial success of a film does not always come for genuinely good films. Many of the films that are deemed great had underwhelming performance at the box office, perhaps were not even granted a wider release than select theaters, but in retrospect deserved a far better treatment, which would have increased the chance of their continuation to be greenlit (in place of their lesser competitions).

So I have decided to honor some films I consider worthy of sequels. And obviously if you haven't heard of these films before, definitely check them out!


Number 5. Cool Runnings

I watched this film quite a few years after it was released, and despite its silliness, countless cliches and lazy stereotyping of how Jamaicans and sports people behave, it was a lot of fun and touched me emotionally. It definitely motivated me to keep pursuing athletics through most of high school. In fact I too had a moment of "getting up after falling down and walking to the finish line" as well during one of the little athletics competitions. It's one of the very few live action films Disney ever produced that was good.

Now if you've seen the film and remember the general story, you might think that this film was very self-contained. It was based on a true story, and at the end of the film everything was resolved. They managed to compete in an admirable and respectable manner, they learned what it means to work as a team, and they have their entire nation in support of them. Then the ending shows some text saying that they competed again in the future olympics and that's it.

So even if this film was good enough to warrant a sequel, what could they possibly do with it that isn't a carbon copy of the original or a completely arbitrary conflict? Plenty! Ultimately bob-sledding is a winter sport, and while you can train using makeshift environments to practice at the amateur level, the team would have to travel to colder climates from time to time for training. You can explore the challenges of having a family back at home but being away all the time. You can talk about how the Jamaican team decides they want to have a Jamaican coach instead of the chubby white guy because of national representation, which puts a strain on the friendship between the athletes and Irving (the original coach), as well as the deeper meaning of participating in Olympics.

Obviously I don't expect one to be made, since it's already 20 years after the first one's released (though it hasn't stopped some people from making Independence Day 2). I do think that as traditional as this is a stnadalone sports film, I would've loved to see them take it to the next level and focus on the purpose of competitive sport rather than the spirit of sportspeople.


Number 4. As Good As It Gets

Romantic Comedies rarely get sequels. Partly because we expect a happily ever after by the end of the first film, and thus there isn't much more character development you can work in unless you switch genres altogether. However in As Good As It Gets, the film ends with an uneasy beginning of a relationship, where Melvin is still struggling with his neuroticisms, and Carol still has a son whom Melvin has only seen in passing once. The ending is very open, which means they could have made a second movie to explore some of the more complicated issues with their relationship, such as whether Carol wants Melvin to be her son's stepfather, Melvin getting tangled up with one of his book's die hard fans (especially as he humanises through his relationship with Carol).

Okay maybe such a sequel won't be as strong as the original, but these characters were so well constructed, so well scripted and so chemically reactive when put in the same room, I just want to see more of them!


Number 3. Finding Nemo

Looking at the brief history of Pixar, they have made some groundbreaking film, but also some very questionable decisions in terms of which of their original films they choose to make a sequel. In my opinion, Toy Story was the only one that pulled it off into a franchise. Monsters Inc was a bit risky, especially to make a prequel. Cars was perhaps the worst choice to make a sequel for (except to sell merchandise I guess). But I think everyone wanted to see a sequel for Finding Nemo.

Yes they are making one at long last in 2015. But if any of their films they were to make a sequel this is the one I felt like they definitely should've gone with. I don't think I need to talk any more about it; just wait for the advanced tickets! :)


Number 2. Prince of Egypt

Being Dreamwork's most dramatic animated feature to date, and its most musical, Prince of Egypt blindsided a lot of people with its amazing visuals, well composed soundtrack and effective telling of the biblical story of Moses. It not only became a standard in the library of films churches show their kids in Sunday school, but demonstrated that the stories in the bible can be relevant to a modern audience, whether they believe in its divine origins or not. The characters are human, their conflicts very real, and their growth and relationships very convincing. The story is so tragic and personal it's almost Shakespearean. I've never seen the first half of Moses' story the same again.

It is hard to imagine that the same studio that made Shrek created a film that could rival the best of Disney's traditionally animated films. So why didn't they continue the story? I mean the story of Moses doesn't end until his people reaches the promised land, which is a good 40 years with a lot happening in between (including the giving of the 10 commandments, lots of war with resident nations). There's plenty they could have done in the sequel while remaining faithful to the biblical narrative. Instead we got a direct-to-video Joseph: King of Dreams, which I'd rather not talk about, but the fact that it didn't get a theatrical release probably says it all.


Number 1. Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events

Of all the film franchises based on children's books and young adult fiction, this is the one that I enjoyed the most, especially in terms of film adaptation from a source book. It was a very grim but fascinating film, the child actors were actually good, the story was compelling, Jim Carrey as Count Olaf was really fun, despite being slightly overt at times.  It mostly lives up to its title and I think was a faithful adaptation of the books, and more than broke even at the box office. So why wasn't this film continued?

The main reason is due to lot of instability within Paramount at the time, which kept delaying any potential work on developing the sequel. By the time they did get around to reconsidering it, the original child actors were already in their teenage and could no longer portray the same characters if they were to follow the story's chronology.

I would argue that this film, along with The Lord of The Rings trilogy, which were released around the same time, helped pave the way for Narnia, which was the one that ended up becoming the three-part franchise. While it wasn't horrendous, it certainly wasn't in the same league as Unfortunate Events. If they eventually do make a sequel, even if it's with an entirely different cast, I'd definitely go check it out.

Super Review - Man of Steel

The no-real-spoilers part of the review

Aside from The Host and Iron Man 3, this was the only other film I really wanted to watch this year. Now that I've watched it, I can safely say I've probably watched too many films for my own good, as I'm not enjoying these 'big films' as much as I think I should, I blame the overpopulation of films crowding my brain fighting to be deemed worthy of long term potentiation. Shall I cut back further to maybe only one film a month? Once I finish setting up my website and start working on new projects I probably would have to anyway.

But having said all that, Man of Steel is a film that has great moments but even greater flaws. Perhaps the biggest issues I had with this film stems from the logical liberties the source material took, thus not really the fault of the director or the production team in adapting this material. Between the extensive fight scenes and rapid transitions, I could see moments of genius in the writing that took unreal, fantastical characters from modern parables and make it relevant to a modern audience. The most of the good bits were in the trailers, so if you weren't convinced by the trailer to see the film, then I'd say you should give this a pass.

I have watched the first two Superman films from 1978 and 1980, which from a nostalgic perspective were the most iconic of the comic book films before the 2000s modernized the genre, giving it a more realistic and serious tone to appeal to an increasingly pessimistic world. Honestly I can't say this film is dark as much as it is a tragedy. This is a story about the end of a civilization, and how Kal-El (or Clark Kent/Superman/The Man of Steel) is the remnant of that race, serving as both the hope and the reminder to humanity that "with great power comes great responsibility". There are social, political, psychological and philosophical undertones that could have matched those in The Dark Knight, but too much focus has been placed on fighting and screaming and duelling. Not that they aren't fun to watch but I think half the audience would have gotten bored of it as they came into the film expecting more focus on the psyche and development of Superman as a character.

Their ambition was huge, but being compressed for time you can see they rushed a lot of scenes and probably cut out some important scenes which would have glued character development better. There's a lot of assumptions that you've seen previous films as they gloss over 'familiar' characters, despite being given arguably more screen time and personality than in previous reboots. The back-stories and relationships of most characters felt like genuine improvements over previous attempts, but ironically created more suspense-of-disbelief-killing plot holes, especially on the Kryptonian side of the story.

Hans Zimmer also replaces the originally light-hearted but epic themes with panning and atmospheric music that is supposed to be ominous but also giving a sense of elevation or uplifting. While I appreciate what he was trying to convey, being paired with scenes that are too rushed or chopped up, it's hard to be fully absorbed when you're snatched out of the moment at supersonic speeds every time a fight pops up. Also, the film works so hard to hammer in the new motifs, trying desperately to make you forget John William's classic version, it ends up feeling like they have no variety at all in their soundtrack, with that same drum beat and string pattern drilled into your subconscious.

Perhaps this film deserved a 3-4 hour cut release; that way they can give more time for each of the scenes, and slow down the development so that it feels less like a reader's digest article and more like a novel. Most of the talky bits are actually the least interesting. It is seeing the subtle emotions, the facial expressions of people when they are confronted with the truth, death, hope within the quieter scenes. A lot more was said in a lot less of the film. Also, the action pieces, especially the last ones, were too reminiscent of The Matrix Revolutions; I kept forgetting that it was Superman fighting General Zod as they ripped apart the city while trying to save it.

But overall, the film has lots of intelligence, a lot of depth in between the action pieces, dialogues were mature and well intended, but perhaps too incompatible when what follows are chaotic, city-razing action that is dizzying at best and often excessive. I can see there was a lot of heart put into the film, the visuals, and character development, but at the same time I left the screening with so many unanswered questions. The Steel part of the man was shown very convincingly, but not the Super part, so I guess the choice if the film's title is appropriate. This is a unique and decent reboot, but not a fully satisfactory one. Maybe I shall just wait for its sequel, which given that Snyder is using the approach taken by Nolan, should be the best of the three!

Overall rating: 7 out of 10.


Spoilers-containing-rant ahead!


An alien race without rules.

One of the most glaring problems I found with this film is the back story segments; how clumsily it explains away the destruction of Krypton as well as both Jor-El and Zod's mission to save their race from extinction. We get a really rushed opening act, filled with too much action and "visionary science fiction" show off but not giving enough explanation. You see more of Zod than in the original but understand his motivation even less.

It is quickly established in the opening act that Krypton is a highly advanced civilisation that have mastered space exploration for millenia, yet it is unable to escape its home planet because of core depletion? We see later that both Superman and General Zod's prison ship had no trouble travelling faster than the speed of light to get to Earth, so really at least some evacuation ships should've been able to escape doom. I guess you could argue that the Kryptonians chose not to abandon their dying planet, but that seems opposite to their philosophy of preserving their race, given their previous attempts at finding habitable planets, other civilizations and lots of active spaceflight technology.

We are also told that Krypton has been using genetic engineering for centuries to breed a superior race and also control population. General Zod was evidently born to be a military leader, and Jor-El was born to be some form of scientist/engineer to design...err...spaceships? Lets say their genetic engineering process wasn't perfect, which is why Zod somewhat strayed/distorted from his purpose. But even so, why would Krypton need a military to begin with? That implies they have someone to defend itself against. Was the planet at war? Are there other civilisations out there other than Earth they have seen as a threat? If yes, why didn't they help Krypton in their time of need? So many questions, but this potential larger world is basically overlooked because the theatrical clock is ticking and we need to get to superman, so lets just quickly destroy Krypton so we can get moving!

Also, after so many Superman movies, we still don't really get a satisfactory explanation of how Superman's powers work. Yes this is science fantasy rather than science fiction, but given how hard Snyder was trying to construct this film as if it could happen in our world, it felt really implausible that a Superman who grew up on Earth would only discover his ability to fly in adulthood. I mean, what was he doing during his teen years, where he wasn't popular enough to be hanging out with the cool kids, and living in a farm? Did he seriously spend all that time moping about his identity and never tried exploring his abilities like Spiderman did? Of course, this aspect of the film also has very powerful moments, but we'll get back to Superman in a bit; I'll wrap up one more issue with the Krypton part of this story, and that is the Codex.

Essentially the Codex is the master copy hard drive of Kryptonian DNA, which allows them to engineer any Kryptonian baby tailored to have a particular function in their society. But then Jor-El infuses Kal-El's cells with the Codex. Does that mean Superman is the perfect Kryptonian, or does his blood cells just have two strands of DNA? Also, for something as important as the Codex, you would think that it is more heavily guarded and harder to reach. But nope, Jor-El manages to steal it just by jumping in and out of the breeding pool. By the way, I have to mention this (and probably will a few more times), but there are many scenes in this film that looks heavily influenced by ideas from The Matrix trilogy. Are babies grown in nutrition bubbles on trees really the most efficient way to mass produce offsprings?

Also:

• Do Kryptonians speak English natively, or are they just capable of picking up foreign languages in an instant? Never fully explained!
• If Krypton's gravity is a lot stronger and has a different atmospheric composition, why did Kryptonians look and move exactly like humans do?
• General Zod's men who were sent to the phantom zone are all soldiers, but they also have the scientific and engineering skills to retrofit a prison spaceship's engine into a terraforming engine in space? 
• Why couldn't General Zod just rebuild Krypton on the moon or Mars or Venus? I mean that world-creating thing seems to work to change the planet's environment to suit their needs, so why not just occupy an empty neighbouring planet? Genocide seems to be a really unnecessary way to rebuild your own civilization...

A human race without cliche

On the other hand, the best aspect of this film is definitely the human characters. I don't just mean Lois Lane and the human half of Superman, but also the side characters like Perry White (Daily Planet's editor-in-chief, who is played by Morpheus), the adoptive parents Jonathan and Martha Kent, and to my pleasant surprise, the several military characters with significant screen time like the Lieutenant who Superman initially surrenders to, and the Colonel who has the galls to fight Faora knowing he is far outmatched by this superspeed Krytonian warrior.

Firstly, I can see Nolan's influence on how they reshaped the hero and his 'damsel in distress' into a more gritty, more juicy characters and not just cardboard cutouts of cinematic cliches. I mean yeah they both still make it out alive, but their involvement in the story is a lot more complex and there are times when it's not simply one party saving another, but also both parties ready to take action despite not knowing if either will make it. They are characters who walk the talk, and show both the strength and weaknesses of humanity embedded in their personalities. They are never over the top and never straightforward. Okay Lois Lane is a bit one-note but she is a functional part of the resolution, and not simply the love interest that needs to be saved.

Clark Kent is a lot more fascinating than Superman because you can see how he is born with a good nature, but also struggles with being brought up with human culture, philosophy and morality. His natural instinct to help people is hindered only by his adoptive father's insistence that the world would not accept him if he showed people his true abilities publicly, a belief so strong that he literally died for it when Clark could have saved him. This would have really scarred him as a teenager to feel like he should have saved his adoptive father but also that he shouldn't have.

Unfortunately, the transition from not knowing who he should be to accepting his true heritage and purpose was probably the weakest and least convincing part of his character development, given it was basically a pep talk from a projection of the biological father he never knew that convinced him to instantly don the cape and immediately become Superman.

I really liked the expanded role they gave Perry White. Perhaps he was too smart to be realistic, but at the same time I'm glad he isn't a throwaway cliche about the ignorant boss who only cares about the story and selling newspapers. Similarly the colonel and lieutenant that works most closely with Superman are reasonable people. They don't adopt the "shoot first ask questions later" cliche of military people in most Hollywood action films. Unfortunately the off-screen US government they must answer to is a bit too obvious. Good thing they're off screen.

You do really learn to appreciate what Nolan did to the superhero genre when he transformed what are essentially 2-dimensional characters squeezed into rectangles on a piece of papers into real humans (though still projected through a 2-dimensional rectangular screen). I do love how they make fun of how useless and counterproductive that cape is as well.


That climax and ending...

The crowning failure of Man of Steel has got to be its ending. I'm talking about the entire process of starting the terraforming process until Superman thwarts their plan and kills Zod. Now where do I begin...

Okay lets talk about the terraforming device first. I can buy that the Kryptonian soldiers were able to improvise a "world engine". I can buy that they built defensive transmorphing claws on one of the ends of the engine to prevent sabotage all within the matter of hours. I can even buy that you can stop the engine by crashing two engine to create a micro blackhole that is big enough to absorb the spaceships but conveniently small enough that it doesn't consume at least half of New York (or even all of Earth) thus sparing the sole Daily Planet survivors, but when Lois falls from the plane she is obviously within range of the blackhole since it is picking up building parts tens to hundreds times larger/heavier than her. How on Earth is she still falling AWAY from it? And she is the ONLY thing that is falling away from it. I guess for all the cliches they avoided in the rest of the film, this is what they were making up for.

On the other side of the planet, we also have Superman trying to destroy the other half of the terraforming device. There are several important beat-changers about how Superman's power works here. Firstly, the film suggests that the limit to what he can do is tied to both his exposure to the yellow sun, his belief in his own abilities, as well as the motivation he has for protecting Earth. This is why he is able to continue to fight with super abilities and flight despite being immersed in an increasingly Kryptonian environment. While I can appreciate this symbolism, I have to say it is too far removed from the rest of the film that it makes it hard for me to see him as the same Superman from earlier.

Obviously in a superhero movie, the climax must have action, because it needs to be the point in the film with the highest stakes and greatest conflict between the main protagonist and antagonist. However given that the end of the previous act (around 90 minutes in) was also action-filled, with short pauses here and there, this means that you have to watch a total of about 40 minutes of super fight scenes with the complete devastation of New York as a backdrop. He really makes The Avengers look comparatively professional at saving humanity. Oh well it's his first day on the job so lets give him some slack.


Superman is "as American as they come"?

The last scene of the film is not good or bad. It is however a very quick and possibly unintentional commentary about individualism, patriotism and privacy. Given the recent plethora of stories about how the privacy of American citizens has been ignored by government, the fact that Superman took down a spy satellite is in a way endorsing activites by WikiLeaks, Anonymous and other modern Hacktivists to serving people "on their own terms".

I get a feeling that Snyder wanted to leave us with an image of Superman that is not yet mature, who is good natured but still has some human selfishness. He values his privacy, he wants to serve his country in his own 'ways'. This is a very dangerous view, which the colonel does point out very bluntly. Given the globality of his original mission, what if one day America is no longer the 'good guys'? Does he change his uniform to another color (say red and yellow)?


I'm hoping there will be an extended edition released. I have very strong feelings that this film has more to it than in the theatrical cut. There is definitely a lot of good things in this film, most of it you have to pay attention and think about in retrospect to notice, but the one I saw in the cinema is too rushed to be a fully satsifactory experience, so I think I shall wait for the home media release before watching it again.