Man of Steel

I don't get all the hate heaped on Superman Returns.  Granted, I don't think I've seen it since it was in theaters, but it's not a bad movie.  If you want a bad movie based on a DC comic character, there are plenty to choose from --- ignoring the low-hanging fruit of Superman IV and Green Lantern, do you remember Steel?  Superman Returns' only real crime was being a movie that didn't act as a proper tentpole for a franchise.  It was designed to look and feel like a Richard Donner Super-film, and it succeeded in that regard.  That doesn't make it very exciting to watch, maybe, but it wasn't bad.  DC and the movie producers were not shy about their intentions for Man of Steel; if this movie was successful, it would be the first in a string of DC superhero movies, culminating in a Justice League film.  Basically, they saw what Marvel did with The Avengers and thought, "We should probably do that, too."

Aside from Superman being a hitchhiking hobo and direction from Sucker Punch creator Zack Snyder, the trailer looks pretty good.  I was curious as to whether or not they would explain what Superman uses to shave, since even flames don't affect his body hair, but that is a fairly minor point.

SPOILER ALERT: they don't

Man of Steel begins on the planet of Krypton.  Actually, we spend a surprising amount of time on this world, following Jor-El (Russell Crowe), the preeminent bodybuilding scientist on the planet, as he tries to convince the ruling class that their world is going to end.  They don't believe him, which turns out to mean absolutely nothing because they are promptly murdered by Krypton's preeminent shouting soldier, Zod (Michael Shannon).

"Kee-rist, Zod!  Inside voices, please!"

So what's the point of these scenes?  Well, Jor-El takes some desperate chances while Zod's forces battled the government; he grabs something of great importance to Krypton's people (a skull) and does something questionable with it (dissolves it over his infant son), because science.  Sure of his apocalyptic conclusions, Jor violates almost every FAA rule and sends his baby boy to Earth, via rocket, all by his lonesome.  And then Zod kills Jor and Krypton explodes.  Not before Zod and his forces are overcome and punished by being trapped in another dimension, though.

Zod looks like the sort of guy who types with the caps lock key on

On Earth, that infant grows up to be Clark Kent (Henry Cavill), and his alien physiology makes him different from normal folks in a variety of ways: super-strength, heat vision, super-speed, etc.  You know the super-drill.

Or maybe this super-drill is a little more angry than what you're used to

Clark was taught by his adoptive father (Kevin Costner) to keep his head low and hide his extraordinary abilities.  The logic to this being that people fear what they do not understand and...um...a super being might get his feelings hurt?  Whatever the reason, Clark grows up to be a do-gooding drifter, helping random people out whenever he can and then slinking off into the shadows before they can ask him any questions.  Eventually, Zod and his minions come to Earth, looking for the son of Jor-El.  Their entrance is dramatic, and they essentially offer to spare the Earth if their fellow Kryptonian turns himself over to Zod.  But what does Zod really have in mind for the people of Earth?  And what does this mean for Clark?  Where does Clark fit in, as the child of two worlds?  What kind of "man" is he?  (The answer is "super.") 

The acting in Man of Steel is all pretty much above-board.  Henry Cavill carried the angst of his character very well; this is easily the best acting I've seen from him.  Cavill also looks fairly tough, so the concept of him being able to punch through your face seems a little less far-fetched than some other actors who have played the part.  While Cavill's Superman was certainly sympathetic --- I would argue he gave the most vulnerable Superman performance on film to date --- he doesn't show much personality beyond the angst; but that is more of a script issue than a fault in Cavill's portrayal.

"Alright Henry, for this scene, imagine that your iPod has nothing but Morrissey on it"

Superman's love interest, Lois Lane, is played by Amy Adams, and this is the best Lane we've seen on the big screen.  She actually seems strong and intelligent, like an award-winning reporter should.  Almost as important, her "plucky reporter" bit wasn't obnoxious.  I thought Kevin Costner did a pretty good job as an overprotective parent; Costner can be a little one-dimensional in this role, but it was refreshing to see anyone in this movie look genuinely concerned over Superman's well-being.

"Son, just calm down...and please don't murder me and your mother"

I have some serious issues with the writing of his character, but Costner did a fine job acting.  Diane Lane was also okay as Clark's mother, although her part is pretty conventional.  I will say that it felt odd seeing her play a part that was a touch too old for her.  Russell Crowe was good as Jor-El; he was suitably stoic when he played a hologram, but his action hero turn on Krypton seemed a little un-scientist-like.  Still, he was in a lot more of the movie than I expected and wasn't bad by any means.  Ayelet Zurer had a small part as Superman's Kryptonian mom, but it didn't really amount to much.  Michael Shannon's work as Zod was tough for me to rate.

And, at times, identify

Yes, he was suitably intimidating.  Yes, he provided a physical threat to Superman, something that most Superman villains do not do.  I think my issue has less to do with Shannon's performance than with how the character was written; when given the opportunity, Shannon made this awful monster sympathetic --- but we have to wait almost the entire movie to get to that point.  Until that moment of insight, he comes across as a gigantic asshole.  Nothing more, nothing less.  Antje Traue was Shannon's right-hand-woman, and she was decent; I liked what I saw, but she didn't really do much more than glare.  Christopher Meloni had a fairly substantial part and he played an aggressive authority figure.  Go figure.  I like Meloni, but his movie roles have been pretty bland lately.  Richard Schiff and Laurence Fishburne did very little aside from lending their familiar faces to bit parts.

I have to admit that Zack Snyder didn't do a terrible job directing Man of Steel.  Snyder curbed his tendency to throw needless slow-motion in every scene and instead played to his strength: visuals.  This is a fantastic-looking film.  The set and costume designs were good, the cinematography felt epic, and the super-battles were suitably huge.

Above: epic super-fart

Snyder still can't direct his actors to do much more than shout, but that's less noticeable in a superhero movie.  I did start to get bored during the action sequences, though.  Superman and Zod knocked created a lot of collateral damage, but a lot of it looked awfully similar.  The important thing is this: Snyder is a director with visual flair, and he made a gorgeous Superman movie.  He didn't write the movie, though.

That was the work of David S. Goyer and, to a lesser extent, Christopher Nolan.  This screenplay certainly achieved one of its goals; I can definitely see this film spawning sequels and tie-ins, just as Iron Man set the stage for the films leading to The Avengers.  It also told a solid origin story and left some plot threads dangling that will doubtlessly be used in the inevitable sequel.  From a branding perspective, I suppose this script also sets the DC movie universe apart from that of the Marvel universe; there is a distinct science fiction vibe to this superhero movie, and that could open a promising door to some of DC's other characters.  Having said all that, I must admit that I didn't actually like the writing in Man of Steel.  For every character that was done well (Lois Lane, Jor-El), there were three or four that took everything with straight-faced indifference.  I don't blame the actors or the director for that.  The script leaves very little for them to do, aside from pose and look upset.  The worst case of this was Zod, who was a raving lunatic for 90% of the movie and then, finally, had a humanizing moment, although it came an hour too late to make up for his behavior in the rest of the film.  But that's not the biggest problem with Man of Steel.

My biggest problem with Man of Steel is with the tone.  To say that it is "dark" doesn't do it justice.

***SPOILER ALERT***

Superman's Earth-Dad straight up tells his son to not save people.  Hell, his character basically commits tornado-assisted suicide just to teach his son a lesson.  What's worse is the fact that our Superman-to-be lets it happen.  He could have easily saved the life of his adoptive father, but he opts not to.  That is not exactly the sort of thing you typically see in a movie with a hero in it, super or otherwise.  Of course, the back story is also pretty bleak.  The Kryptonians had colonies spread across the galaxy, equipped with terraformers to make hostile environments suitable for their settlers.  When Krypton decided that they did not want to expand their empire, they sent out a bus to pick everyone up and bring them home cut off provisions to those colonies, and everybody died.   Later, when Zod is preparing to end the human race by terraforming the planet, he ignores the fact that Kryptonians can, over time, get used to Earth without killing every living creature on the planet.  Why?  Because he would rather eliminate an entire species than be patient.  Of course, he also could have used the terraformers on any of the other dozen former colonies that he visited, but that would have robbed him of the chance to destroy all human life.  That's pretty bleak stuff.  And then there are the approximately three million civilian casualties from the Superman/Zod battle.  The city of Metropolis is ruined.  Completely.  Most of those collapsed buildings had to have people inside them, and that ignores all the people running for their lives as their world fell on top of them.  

Yeah, hold on to your coat.  That will help you.

Similarly, Smallville will take a decade to recover from Zod's visit.  The nameless Asian city off the coast of where the terraformer was probably took a lot of damage in the form of tidal waves, too.  Some people have issues with Superman killing Zod, but it makes sense in the context of this movie.  Zod was going to kill those stupid people in the railway station, and Superman did all that he could to stop it, because those random people were more important than the several hundred he punched Zod through during their battle.  Actually, I was a little surprised at Zod's execution, but there weren't many options, and that thematically confirmed Superman as a citizen of Earth.  Still, the presumed off-camera body count in Man of Steel is mind-boggling.  And that sort of destruction could work in another movie.  But in a Superman movie...?  I'm not so sure.  Hell, I'm not sure that more than one of those depressing-ass factoids makes sense in a Superman movie, much less all of them.  There is usually a sense of hope and optimism accompanying this character that can sometimes come across as corny Americana.

Not this time.  Man of Steel feels like someone saw what a gritty tone did for the Batman franchise and decided "If they like gritty Batman, they'll love gritty Superman!"  And I suppose they gave the people what they wanted, if the box office numbers are to be believed.

As a standalone film, Man of Steel is decent.  It was a relief that this movie didn't completely suck, and I hope to see more DC movies in the future, thanks to the success of this film.  Amy Adams and Henry Cavill are a solid core for this franchise and I wouldn't even mind Zack Snyder returning for another movie.  I honestly believe that they're going in the wrong direction with this, though.  Sequels have to up the ante, and the angst, death and destruction in this movie are already turned up to eleven.  Man of Steel was well-executed and impressive, but the questionable thematic choices kept me from truly enjoying it.

Jonah Hex

I never had high expectations for Jonah Hex.  While I usually enjoy comic book movies, this one looked really, really bad.   When it absolutely failed with critics and viewers alike, I was not surprised at all.  I was, however, shocked when the star of the film, Josh Brolin, repeatedly trashed (but also defended) Hex while promoting his next movie.

Tags: Movie Trailers, Movies Blog

That kind of honesty and optimism did two things for me.  First, it made me wish I liked Josh Brolin more.  He's okay, I guess, but his presence in a movie is never what makes me want to watch it.  Second, it made me curious as to how entertaining Jonah Hex could be if I approached it like Brolin suggested, with similar expectations as I had for Piranha.  Hell, it couldn't be worse than I expected, even with Megan Fox acting in it.  Right...?

Hey, uh...you got something on your face.  No, the other side.

In the Civil War, Jonah Hex (Josh Brolin) fought for the Confederacy, but he was not a zealot.  When his commanding officer, Quentin Turnbull (John Malkovich), ordered for a Union hospital to be burned down, Hex refused.  This led to a confrontation  with the other men in his unit, which eventually led to Hex gunning down Turnbull's adult son (and Hex's best friend), Jeb (an uncredited Jeffrey Dean Morgan).  After the war, Quentin tracked down Hex, tied him up and forced him to watch as his men murdered Hex's wife and child.  Before he left, Turnbull branded Hex on the face and left him to die of exposure.  Hex was found, mostly dead, by an Indian tribe, who nursed him back to health.  However, his brush with death left him with an ability to speak to the dead.  So...that's something.  Turnbull was allegedly killed in a house fire a short while later, so Hex became a bounty hunter and took out his rage on some of the worst men in the Wild West.

Oh, and he had a horse-mounted Gatling gun.

One day, Hex is approached by representatives from the U.S. Government to come and meet President Ulysses S. Grant (Aidan Quinn) about a job.  Hex, being an ornery type, isn't impressed by Mr. President until he states that Quentin Turnbull is not only alive, but actively planning to destroy the country within the next few days.  I wonder if the revenge-fueled antihero will seek out his most hated enemy?

After typing that summary, I realized that this movie doesn't really sound so bad on paper.  No, it doesn't sound great, but not as bad as people made it out to be during its theatrical release (13% Rotten Tomatoes rating and a Metacritic score of 33). Sure, the whole talking-to-the-dead thing is weird, but it's not a deal breaker by any means.

Maybe the acting is what sinks this ship?  Well, Josh Brolin is surprisingly good as Jonah Hex.  He would have been even better if his facial makeup didn't cause him to slur some of his lines.  John Malkovich was surprisingly mediocre as the hate-filled Turnbull; Malkovich usually has fun with evil characters, but he didn't really come across as very interested in this movie.  Michael Fassbender played the main henchman to Turnbull and did what I presume is his best impression of Jim Carrey's Riddler.  He was certainly goofy, but even the ridiculous goatee-tattoos never made him scary.

This is why you don't pass out at tattoo parties.

That leaves us with Megan Fox.  Yeah...she's not a very good actress and she takes lines that are supposed to be sassy or cool and she sucks the personality out of them.  On the bright side, she plays a shockingly clean and fit Wild West prostitute (who, of course, loves the disfigured hero), so at least she's flaunting what has made her career thus far.

The rest of the supporting cast is a collection of bit parts, played by recognizable actors.  Will Arnett plays a soldier, and his presence implies that the filmmakers were aware of the funny-bad possibilities in the script.  Michael Shannon, the third Oscar nominee in this cast, had a tiny role, as did Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and they were both fine.  Wes Bentley, who I thought (after seeing American Beauty) had a bright career ahead of him, gives one of the least impressive performances in the movie.  No wonder I haven't seen him in anything in over a decade.  I wasn't impressed by Aidan Quinn's President Grant, but that might have been because I wanted him to be drunk and make really poor decisions.  I was happy to see television actor Lance Reddick playing something other than a lawyer or police officer for a change.  He wasn't great, but I appreciated the atypical casting.

I'm not going to blame this movie on the director, Jimmy Hayward, even though this is his first live-action feature film --- he's worked as an animator on a few Pixar movies and directed Horton Hears a Who, which naturally makes him the best director for a comic book-based Western.  He didn't do a good job directing, mind you.  The acting was limited and the cinematography was mediocre, and that's if I'm being generous to both.  His editing was awful and there is some sort of recurring waking dream sequence that was pretty incomprehensible, but I will give him credit where it's due: the movie is short.  It's 81 minutes with credits.  Not just anyone would choose to put most of a character's back story into an animated form, but it cut out an awful lot of acting time from the movie, and for that, I thank him.

Nothing clever is said in this scene.

 The biggest problem with Jonah Hex is the ridiculous story.  That shouldn't come as a surprise, since this movie was written by Neveldine/Taylor, the writing team that brought us such think pieces as Gamer and the Crank movies.  Man, this is a dumb script.  Fox and Brolin have at least half of their lines devoted to quips, and they're all pretty bad.  Brolin gets away with some because he's devoted to his character's intended bad-assness, but Fox...she couldn't deliver a smart line if it came with paid postage.  Aww, snap!  Mail carrier humor!  **ahem**  Even without the dialogue problems, this is a bizarrely written movie.  Why does any Western bad-ass need gadgets?  The horse-mounted Gatling gun was ridiculous, the automatic dynamite crossbows were just silly, and the villainous "nation killer" weapon was simply bizarre.  And what was with all the explosions?  This is the 1870s --- I can buy gunfire starting a fire, but huge explosions every time?  That's just dumb.  Oh, and that weird Jonah-Hex-talks-to-the-dead thing?  And the weird crow spirit stuff?  Yeah, not in the comics at all.  Hex could have just been a smart bad-ass, but instead, he was given supernatural crow/death powers by the writers.  That may not have been the best choice.

And while this movie is very bad, it is stupid enough to enjoy.  That's not terribly shocking, given the writing team.  If you're looking for a good action movie, a fun comic book adaptation, or a cool Western, this is not the movie for you.

 If, on the other hand, you feel like laughing at something ridiculous and ridiculing a movie, this is a decent choice --- but by no means a great one.  If nothing else, this is the stupidest Western I have seen in ages, but at least it's short.  I give it a Lefty Gold rating of

The Runaways

Oh, joy.  A biopic.  Even better, a biopic about a rock band that I know almost nothing about.  Well, at least I shouldn't be mentally fact-checking the movie as I watch it.  If, like me, you were mostly unaware of The Runaways, they were an all-girl rock band that started in 1975; two of their members, Lita Ford and Joan Jett, went on to pretty huge success in the 80s.  My knowledge of the band comes exclusively from a punk box set I own, which includes their first single, "Cherry Bomb."  It's a dirty little rocker, but I was never interested enough to dig any deeper in their catalog.  Well, The Runaways wants to amend that oversight.  Let's see how they did.

Fifteen year-old Cherie Currie (Dakota Fanning) has just officially become a woman (read: she's not pregnant), and she's never felt so alone.  Her father left to be a drunk, her mother is setting up a new life with her new fiance that may or may not include her kids, and Cherie's sister is a few years older than her, and that's a big gap in high school.  She finds solace in glam rock and fashions her appearance after David Bowie, because that's how you win friends in small towns.  Meanwhile, Joan Jett (Kristen Stewart) is a glue-huffing wannabe rocker with no money or connections.  One night, Joan spots Kim Fowley (Michael Shannon), a pervert/sleazebag/record producer.  She starts to tell him that she wants to start a band, but he blows her off; she then says that she wants to start an all-girl band, and his interest is piqued.  He introduces her to a girl drummer, and they begin to slowly build a band, one female member at a time.  Kim knows that something is missing, though.  the band is missing a sexpot.  Specifically, an underage sexpot, because jailbait is awesome.  I guess.  So, he and Joan troll the teen clubs for a sexy blonde, find Cherie hanging out and offer her an audition.  Next thing you know, she's in the band and they're touring.  The first gigs are supporting, and they're terrible, but they stay on the road, land a record deal, and tour Japan.  All the while, the girls are delving deeper into alcohol, drugs and sex, and tensions keep rising as Cherie becomes the media's focus instead of the group.  They're all still underage, and something has to give.

If that plot sounded like a "...and then this happened, and it was followed by that...," I apologize.  There's not really a whole lot to work with here.  From the movie title, I assumed that this would be the story of the band.  It's not; the other three members of the group hardly get a line.  This movie is about Joan and Cherie.  But what about them?  Their friendship?  There are literally four scenes where they have intimate moments, and one of them is a hazy make-out scene without dialogue.  One scene is after a drug overdose, and one scene is an awkward phone conversation.  That means they had only one chummy moment in the whole movie.  Well, maybe this movie is about Cherie Currie.  The movie is loosely adapted from her autobiography.  But the last act of the movie focuses on Joan.  So is the movie about Joan Jett?  Again, not really; the movie begins before The Runaways began and climaxes with Cherie leaving the band, but Joan kept the band going for another two years before finding solo success in the early 80s.  So what is this movie about?  It's about the Runaways, and then it's got some Cherie Currie bits in it, and then it has some Joan Jett parts, too...and then this happened...and it was followed by that...

Okay, I get it.  The plot suffered from that frequent biopic Achilles Hell, the dramatic arc (and consistent plot focus).  Biopics are usually about the performances more than the story.  There are really only three characters in this movie (Cherie, Joan, and Kim), and they're pretty good, on the whole.  Dakota Fanning clearly enjoyed playing a sexed-up bad girl, even though her best scenes came when she was being timid or innocent.  Kristen Stewart spent most of the film looking absolutely drunkle, but she was really good in the few scenes where she and Fanning actually interacted.  And they looked eerily like their real-life counterparts.  There were many scenes where their costumes absolutely matched what the girls wore in their major concert or press events.  When they played on stage, they were also pretty good.  Michael Shannon was the best actor in the movie, though.  He said and did all the wrong things, but they were the most rock 'n' roll moments in the movie and absolutely made this watchable.

Floria Sigismondi wrote and directed The Runaways, her second feature film, although she is primarily a high-end music video director.  Not surprisingly, much of the time spent on exposition in this movie feels like a tedious waiting game for the next band performance.  The music scenes looked good, and the details to things like costumes were even better, but the story felt hollow.  To take advantage of the actresses she had, Sigismondi needed to create scenes that gave insight to their characters.  Instead, they just looked the way they were supposed to.

Sigismond's script is unfocused, to say the least.  This story does not adequately tell the tale of Cherie Currie, Joan Jett, and the Runaways, much less any of them in particular.  The two main characters don't really get many opportunities to bond, and the rest of the band never feels like more than just extras.  The huge conflict that tore the band apart was apparently Cherie's sexy media persona; the band argued that her sexy magazine posing and spotlight hogging cheapened them all and ruined their credibility as a band.  Those are decent arguments in 70s rock, but they are made at a point in the film where the band is being worshiped by a crowd of exclusively female fans; without thinking much about it, I would say that the band had successfully avoided being just a T and A show.  The story also covers a surprising amount of time without mentioning it to the audience.  If I had to make guess as to how many years this movie spanned, I would say two, maybe three at the most.  After doing a little research on the band's history, I realized that this movie could very well cover anywhere from five to seven years.  That's a pretty significant difference, when the rush of fame is allegedly part of a movie's plot.

My favorite random thing about this movie had to be the use of four Joan Jett and the Blackhearts songs to close out the movie.  The band only plays four songs in the entire movie (there are snippets of about six or seven other Runaways songs in the soundtrack), and Joan Jett's solo stuff get almost equal attention?  What kind of point is this supposed to make about the Runaways?  Apparently, Joan Jett was better off without them.