Sometimes I read this thread and wonder if I'm not part of a giant conspiracy where I see alternate versions of movies, while everyone else sees something else - because I really liked Man of Steel
Though I'll agree the Pa Kent death scene was a little dumb
In other movie news, I saw Noah this past weekend. I wasn't sure what to expect going in, and I was pleasantly surprised.
Aronofsky did well with what he had to work with, and weaved in multiple themes regarding the follies of mankind. A strong environmental conservation message runs through the movie. Additionally, the sin of the first murder (Cain and Abel) takes center stage and is a recurring visual motif throughout the film.
The only weakness is that the post-flood portion drags on a little long and weakens Noah's characterization through some choices he makes that contradict his previously expressed beliefs.
Sometimes I read this thread and wonder if I'm not part of a giant conspiracy where I see alternate versions of movies, while everyone else sees something else - because I really liked Man of Steel
Though I'll agree the Pa Kent death scene was a little dumb
It just means you have bad taste and my mom says we can't be friends anymore.
(There was a lot about the film to like. If nothing else, it was fucking beautiful to behold. While I still think it was a bad movie, it's not Transformers-bad, or anything, and I can get how other people would like it.)
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
Sometimes I read this thread and wonder if I'm not part of a giant conspiracy where I see alternate versions of movies, while everyone else sees something else - because I really liked Man of Steel
Though I'll agree the Pa Kent death scene was a little dumb
I thought the movie had a lot of problems (Pa Kent and killing Zod chief among them), and a lot of Snyder's work really doesn't do it for me in general, but it had enough going for it that I still enjoyed it.
I understand why people don't like it, but I am a bit surprised at the sheer amount of hate it gets.
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L Ron HowardThe duckMinnesotaRegistered Userregular
Sometimes I read this thread and wonder if I'm not part of a giant conspiracy where I see alternate versions of movies, while everyone else sees something else - because I really liked Man of Steel
Though I'll agree the Pa Kent death scene was a little dumb
It just means you have bad taste and my mom says we can't be friends anymore.
(There was a lot about the film to like. If nothing else, it was fucking beautiful to behold. While I still think it was a bad movie, it's not Transformers-bad, or anything, and I can get how other people would like it.)
I can't believe how they wasted Amy Adams and Lois. That casting was brilliant. And they gave her nothing to work with.
Man of Steel is a movie you can walk out of and feel like you got your money worth and enjoyed it. But the more you think about the movie, the more you will question why they made the choices they did, what the point of it was, how they could try to deconstruct superman and fail miserably...It just makes you angrier and angrier because ultimately it's a movie that COULD have worked very well, they had the right people, they had the right basics for a story, and then they just made wrong decision after wrong decision. They fixed some things, like i'm not sure i would call MoS a sterile movie like the previous incarnation but while not sterile it feels...aimless or hollow? Without the characters giving 10 minute diatribes about how things should work, they really failed to show WHY things happened the way they did. I've watched worse movies but its not one that i jump to watch if i want to see a superhero movie.
MoS is definitely a movie that I dislike more as time goes on. My first reaction was just, "Well, that was disappointing," but now I think I actively dislike it. Probably mostly just the waste of potential. A movie with that cast and that budget and that quality of effects should be fucking rad, and that it fell so short is a special kind of tragedy.
(I second Spacey being the sole redeeming factor of Returns, just because Spacey is the best part of pretty much everything he's in.)
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
MoS is definitely a movie that I dislike more as time goes on. My first reaction was just, "Well, that was disappointing," but now I think I actively dislike it. Probably mostly just the waste of potential. A movie with that cast and that budget and that quality of effects should be fucking rad, and that it fell so short is a special kind of tragedy.
(I second Spacey being the sole redeeming factor of Returns, just because Spacey is the best part of pretty much everything he's in.)
Eh... I tend to shy away from this type of film criticism. You can often see it around in comments like "I could see what they were going for, so I give them points for trying". Sucker Punch gets this, from those who subscribe to the "it was satire" view (hint: if your creative team says in early interviews that the sequences were created by spitballing the "coolest shit" you could think up, I'm going to be pretty skeptical of the argument that it's actually a scathing critique of the male gaze and modern audience expectations).
Sometimes I see brief flashes of inventiveness in movies and I think "Why couldn't the whole movie be like this?" (the awkward poetry in Mortal Instruments: City of Bones is amazing, and I wish they had kept that sensibility throughout the rest of the runtime), and there's an entire art to managing audience expectations prior to viewing so that the actual viewing experience balances the preconceptions. Superman's not that good, with inconsistent writing, poor character motivation, and muddled themes, but I don't hate it because it's a Superman movie with a cast and crew who I know are capable of better. It's that kind of thinking that made it end up on a bunch of "Worst of" lists - because it was such a disappointment for some people, despite there being a plethora of movies that were terrible vying for spots on those lists.
At the end of the day, however difficult it is, I try to judge the film that's on the screen rather than the film that's in my head.
Well, I (at least) am just judging the film on the screen. (I think it was in the last thread, by my review even had a caveat at the beginning stating that I have no opinion on Superman as a property, and how they could've done anything with the property as long as I got a good movie out of it.)
It's just that when you take a movie with so many awesome qualities - great cast, big budget, gorgeous cinematography, inspired special effects scenes - and it turns out not-awesome, it's hard not to be aware of that. Think of your favorite actor! Now think of your favorite genre! Now think of your favorite screenwriter and your favorite director! Now combine them all into one movie!
If you are a normal human person, that thought experiment probably makes you pretty excited for that movie. If that movie then proceeds to suck nards, you're going to be more disappointed, because you know it could have been so much better.
I definitely wouldn't stick it on any worst-of lists. I would absolutely make it a contender for Biggest Disappointment, though.
I would really love Snyder to just do set direction and cinematography and the like. The guy is a fucking force of nature at creating inspired visuals, but his directing success is basically like rolling a d20.
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
It's just that when you take a movie with so many awesome qualities - great cast, big budget, gorgeous cinematography, inspired special effects scenes - and it turns out not-awesome, it's hard not to be aware of that. Think of your favorite actor! Now think of your favorite genre! Now think of your favorite screenwriter and your favorite director! Now combine them all into one movie!
If you are a normal human person, that thought experiment probably makes you pretty excited for that movie. If that movie then proceeds to suck nards, you're going to be more disappointed, because you know it could have been so much better.
For sure - I don't think there's such a thing as "an objective review". For any piece of media we bring our bag of preconceptions, biases, and personal experiences and use them as the lenses through which we view art. There's always some someone who will judge a film contrary to popular opinion, even if they're a goose who's just doing it for click-bait. For regular film watchers, it's hard not to be disappointed when talent is squandered. And it's probably even more difficult to extricate "I was disappointed" from "The movie was disappointing".
But I always try and think "If my grandma who watches 1 movie a year, and has no idea who any of the people involved are and barely knows who Superman is, wants to know if it's okay - what do I tell her?" Because she sure as heck isn't going to be disappointed/excited in the same way as I might be.
AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
edited April 2014
Oh, hey, people are talking about Superman Returns! Time to post that review I've been working on.
Recently I rewatched Superman Returns for reasons. (spoilers will probably follow)
I can totally see why a lot of people hated it, and there are parts that don't work (Spacey's Luthor is great but he doesn't fit the rest of the movie)--but it's thematically so complete and excellent, and it's clear it's the exact opposite of a soulless franchise cash-in. The differences between it and Man of Steel are instructive--both adhere to the requirements of the form, but MoS does so almost unconsciously. (Lois and Superman must kiss because, well, they're Lois and Superman, right? Isn't this how the story goes?)
Superman Returns, on the other hand, is fully, achingly conscious. It uses slavish fidelity to the Donner source film as both a purpose and a metaphor for the narrative, which has very little to do with Superman as a person. (If nothing else, Routh's very gentle, understated performance keeps a distance between him and the audience--and the script rarely gives us insight into anything deeper than his surface emotions, which makes the hints at his profound loneliness all the more powerful.) Instead, the story has everything to do with Superman as an icon, an ideal (hence the metaphor of the ideal Superman movie). There's a moment in the film where hard-nosed Daily Planet editor Perry (Langella, somehow crankier here than he was as Nixon) waves around some photographs of Superman, pointing out how iconic the imagery is even though it was taken by a kid with a feature phone. This is patently absurd--we all know what camera phone photos looked like in 2006, and they didn't look like perfectly posed publicity stills--but it's also somehow fitting for a film in which Superman cannot be regarded with anything but total awe and wonder (or its opposite, Luthor's utter contempt and distaste). His return is the only news story, filling every section of the paper and dominating the global media. He is the only celebrity (making Lois's husband's ignorance of Superman's basic statistics, abilities and weaknesses somewhat ridiculous). The world of the film is built around Superman, his gravitational pull affecting everyone, his absence felt by all. It's a sealed-off space where nothing more modern than computer passwords is allowed and the characters have all been defined by their pasts, half-remembered (the Reeves film) and half-invented, and the decisions they made there.
Unlike Captain America (another vanished ideal returned to modern day), Superman doesn't stand for anything political; just innate goodness of spirit, heroism and self-sacrifice. Just like All-Star Superman, the film is filled with characters who mirror Superman, reflecting his aspects back upon him. Lois's son evokes Superman's childhood, frightening until he begins to grasp the power he truly possesses. Richard, Lois's husband, reflects Superman's decency and humanity, acting courageously to save his family even without any superpowers. He refrains from being jealous of Lois and Superman's relationship (although he doesn't know the full extent of it). And he's present, unlike Clark; he's there to buy the burritos and raise the kid. He didn't run. The film's major weakness is also its most fascinating element: an ambiguous love triangle where we're not sure who to root for. The three points of the triangle (and the son) seem inextricably, problematically tangled in a way that can't easily be undone to anyone's satisfaction. Superman is a paragon of goodness, the movie seems to say, but is there still a place for him in the world? He's an alien and always will be, his dead planet more important to him than his living friends and lover, his crystalline architecture cold and unyielding and inimical to humanity. His Clark can barely communicate. He spends the film unable to connect with anyone, off apart from the family that should be his, following the memory of his father's voice in space and in deep water. At last it is the boy who represents hope for Superman, someone he can nurture and teach, someone he can finally relate to.
The film twice references 2001: A Space Odyssey, evoking Kubrick's famous shot of planets aligned in the beginning and then directly quoting the film's use of hollow, scraping howls for the desolation of space when Superman, wounded and bereft, falls from the heavens in a Christ-like pose. 2001 was also a movie about inscrutable aliens who set a path for humanity, with neither species capable of truly understanding or connecting with one another. (It's also a movie controversial because it largely discards entertainment in the search for art and meaning.) Obliquely, through Routh's stoicism, through the unconventional love triangle, through stillness and strangeness, through the words of a dead actor recut and remembered, Superman Returns conveys the vast and lonely gulf between the character and the aliens he would protect better than any other film before or since.
For all its flaws, this is a clear and intentioned movie, brimming with ideas and emotion, crafted with great love. The film itself has a rich and beautiful texture to it. The music is luminous, the cinematography like a dream. It's a very long film for the amount of plot it contains; the actual chain of events could have been laid out in a Fleischer cartoon with room to spare. Instead of twists and turns, the movie uses the time to savor its material, from a gentle, dancing flight with Superman and Lois to the genuinely eerie sequence where the family is in danger of drowning. Again and again the movie strikes for iconicism and hits home--the dramatic airplane rescue, the bullet bouncing off his eye, Superman like Atlas with the Daily Planet's globe resting on his shoulders. It is not the movie fans wanted; it is not about punching or Silver Age robots or heat vision. In that sense it is like Ang Lee's Hulk, an artist's utilization of the medium of the franchise property to create something decidedly unsuited to sequels and merchandise. It's not an action film or a blockbuster summer entertainment. If that's what you wanted, it's not for you. But it is a movie of ideas, executed with grace and clarity, expressing a singular vision born of deep emotion. What more can we ask for from a film? Now that, after Man of Steel, Superman Returns is freed from the burden of being the sole modern cinematic representation of the character on film, I hope that it can be reevaluated and rediscovered as an uncommonly beautiful, interesting, and moving film.
Astaereth on
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TexiKenDammit!That fish really got me!Registered Userregular
Routh was (and still kinda is) underrated. Bosworth and the inane focus on Lois is what brought the film down.
Oh, hey, people are talking about Superman Returns! Time to post that review I've been working on.
Recently I rewatched Superman Returns for reasons. (spoilers will probably follow)
I can totally see why a lot of people hated it, and there are parts that don't work (Spacey's Luthor is great but he doesn't fit the rest of the movie)--but it's thematically so complete and excellent, and it's clear it's the exact opposite of a soulless franchise cash-in. The differences between it and Man of Steel are instructive--both adhere to the requirements of the form, but MoS does so almost unconsciously. (Lois and Superman must kiss because, well, they're Lois and Superman, right? Isn't this how the story goes?)
Superman Returns, on the other hand, is fully, achingly conscious. It uses slavish fidelity to the Donner source film as both a purpose and a metaphor for the narrative, which has very little to do with Superman as a person. (If nothing else, Routh's very gentle, understated performance keeps a distance between him and the audience--and the script rarely gives us insight into anything deeper than his surface emotions, which makes the hints at his profound loneliness all the more powerful.) Instead, the story has everything to do with Superman as an icon, an ideal (hence the metaphor of the ideal Superman movie). There's a moment in the film where hard-nosed Daily Planet editor Perry (Langella, somehow crankier here than he was as Nixon) waves around some photographs of Superman, pointing out how iconic the imagery is even though it was taken by a kid with a feature phone. This is patently absurd--we all know what camera phone photos looked like in 2006, and they didn't look like perfectly posed publicity stills--but it's also somehow fitting for a film in which Superman cannot be regarded with anything but total awe and wonder (or its opposite, Luthor's utter contempt and distaste). His return is the only news story, filling every section of the paper and dominating the global media. He is the only celebrity (making Lois's husband's ignorance of Superman's basic statistics, abilities and weaknesses somewhat ridiculous). The world of the film is built around Superman, his gravitational pull affecting everyone, his absence felt by all. It's a sealed-off space where nothing more modern than computer passwords is allowed and the characters have all been defined by their pasts, half-remembered (the Reeves film) and half-invented, and the decisions they made there.
Unlike Captain America (another vanished ideal returned to modern day), Superman doesn't stand for anything political; just innate goodness of spirit, heroism and self-sacrifice. Just like All-Star Superman, the film is filled with characters who mirror Superman, reflecting his aspects back upon him. Lois's son evokes Superman's childhood, frightening until he begins to grasp the power he truly possesses. Richard, Lois's husband, reflects Superman's decency and humanity, acting courageously to save his family even without any superpowers. He refrains from being jealous of Lois and Superman's relationship (although he doesn't know the full extent of it). And he's present, unlike Clark; he's there to buy the burritos and raise the kid. He didn't run. The film's major weakness is also its most fascinating element: an ambiguous love triangle where we're not sure who to root for. The three points of the triangle (and the son) seem inextricably, problematically tangled in a way that can't easily be undone to anyone's satisfaction. Superman is a paragon of goodness, the movie seems to say, but is there still a place for him in the world? He's an alien and always will be, his dead planet more important to him than his living friends and lover, his crystalline architecture cold and unyielding and inimical to humanity. His Clark can barely communicate. He spends the film unable to connect with anyone, off apart from the family that should be his, following the memory of his father's voice in space and in deep water. At last it is the boy who represents hope for Superman, someone he can nurture and teach, someone he can finally relate to.
The film twice references 2001: A Space Odyssey, evoking Kubrick's famous shot of planets aligned in the beginning and then directly quoting the film's use of hollow, scraping howls for the desolation of space when Superman, wounded and bereft, falls from the heavens in a Christ-like pose. 2001 was also a movie about inscrutable aliens who set a path for humanity, with neither species capable of truly understanding or connecting with one another. (It's also a movie controversial because it largely discards entertainment in the search for art and meaning.) Obliquely, through Routh's stoicism, through the unconventional love triangle, through stillness and strangeness, through the words of a dead actor recut and remembered, Superman Returns conveys the vast and lonely gulf between the character and the aliens he would protect better than any other film before or since.
For all its flaws, this is a clear and intentioned movie, brimming with ideas and emotion, crafted with great love. The film itself has a rich and beautiful texture to it. The music is luminous, the cinematography like a dream. It's a very long film for the amount of plot it contains; the actual chain of events could have been laid out in a Fleischer cartoon with room to spare. Instead of twists and turns, the movie uses the time to savor its material, from a gentle, dancing flight with Superman and Lois to the genuinely eerie sequence where the family is in danger of drowning. Again and again the movie strikes for iconicism and hits home--the dramatic airplane rescue, the bullet bouncing off his eye, Superman like Atlas with the Daily Planet's globe resting on his shoulders. It is not the movie fans wanted; it is not about punching or Silver Age robots or heat vision. In that sense it is like Ang Lee's Hulk, an artist's utilization of the medium of the franchise property to create something decidedly unsuited to sequels and merchandise. It's not an action film or a blockbuster summer entertainment. If that's what you wanted, it's not for you. But it is a movie of ideas, executed with grace and clarity, expressing a singular vision born of deep emotion. What more can we ask for from a film? Now that, after Man of Steel, Superman Returns is freed from the burden of being the sole modern cinematic representation of the character on film, I hope that it can be reevaluated and rediscovered as an uncommonly beautiful, interesting, and moving film.
To be entertaining?
And not in the crass whizz-bang-action fashion, because movies can be entertaining in so many other ways.
Superman Returns is just a rather dull movie and no amount of iconic imagery will get around that problem.
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AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
What more can we ask for from a film? Now that, after Man of Steel, Superman Returns is freed from the burden of being the sole modern cinematic representation of the character on film, I hope that it can be reevaluated and rediscovered as an uncommonly beautiful, interesting, and moving film.
To be entertaining?
And not in the crass whizz-bang-action fashion, because movies can be entertaining in so many other ways.
Superman Returns is just a rather dull movie and no amount of iconic imagery will get around that problem.
I think movies can be entertaining in many ways, too. One of them is giving you beautiful imagery and music, having an interesting atmosphere, and giving you lots of things to think about. I'd say SR does all of that.
What more can we ask for from a film? Now that, after Man of Steel, Superman Returns is freed from the burden of being the sole modern cinematic representation of the character on film, I hope that it can be reevaluated and rediscovered as an uncommonly beautiful, interesting, and moving film.
To be entertaining?
And not in the crass whizz-bang-action fashion, because movies can be entertaining in so many other ways.
Superman Returns is just a rather dull movie and no amount of iconic imagery will get around that problem.
I think movies can be entertaining in many ways, too. One of them is giving you beautiful imagery and music, having an interesting atmosphere, and giving you lots of things to think about. I'd say SR does all of that.
I don't think it qualifies as entertaining just cause it looks pretty and has good atmosphere. A nice painting and a AC unit can pull that off.
It's just a dull and unengaging film, regardless of what kind of message or theme it's trying to push. It's no different then any of the "Looks pretty but boring" type films that come out, with just a slightly different set of things it excels at while being uncompelling.
What more can we ask for from a film? Now that, after Man of Steel, Superman Returns is freed from the burden of being the sole modern cinematic representation of the character on film, I hope that it can be reevaluated and rediscovered as an uncommonly beautiful, interesting, and moving film.
To be entertaining?
And not in the crass whizz-bang-action fashion, because movies can be entertaining in so many other ways.
Superman Returns is just a rather dull movie and no amount of iconic imagery will get around that problem.
I think movies can be entertaining in many ways, too. One of them is giving you beautiful imagery and music, having an interesting atmosphere, and giving you lots of things to think about. I'd say SR does all of that.
So does Sucker Punch.
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AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
Sucker Punch is actively awful in a lot of ways (like, basic competency, you can't write dialogue or characters ways); it's thematically bankrupt ("Look how awful you are for enjoying the things that we tried to get you to enjoy because we enjoy them, you jerk you"); and its imagery and atmosphere have nothing to do with what the movie is saying. (If somebody can tell me what zombie nazi robots have to do with the patriarchy, I'll eat my fuckin' hat.)
Superman Returns has some issues, but it's very coherent and its imagery and style are not just there for kicks, they're deeply tied to the movie's themes and story. When Superman strikes an iconic pose, that shot resonates with our memory of the character's long history and all the other times he's struck that or similar poses in that or similar situations, drawing upon that history in order to say something about it in exactly way that Sucker Punch's placeholder nerddom porn does not.
If somebody can tell me what zombie nazi robots have to do with the patriarchy, I'll eat my fuckin' hat.
I mean the symbolism here is obvious. We resurrect the long-dead material of tradition and biblical history to assert the right of male rule, marching in lockstep with the society that creates and enforces the rigid patriarchal structure around us. If we don't break free of this fascist history now we'll all become man-serving robots with no sense of self other than man or non-man.
Routh was (and still kinda is) underrated. Bosworth and the inane focus on Lois is what brought the film down.
I believed that Routh was Superman in that movie. Like Reeve he could make heroic goodness shine. Chris Evans as Captain America does the same. All three of the mad me believe in a hero that genuinely believed in the ideals he was fighting for. A guy that would go out of his way to do the right thing out of common decency.
Whats his name in MoS just looked like a guy that was dragged into heroics and honestly wanted to be anywhere else. Him saving those workers from the burning oil rig was because he was there and not because he really wanted to. If the Kryptonians hadn't arrived he probably wouldn't even have become a hero at all.
The sky was full of stars, every star an exploding ship. One of ours.
Routh was (and still kinda is) underrated. Bosworth and the inane focus on Lois is what brought the film down.
I believed that Routh was Superman in that movie. Like Reeve he could make heroic goodness shine. Chris Evans as Captain America does the same. All three of the mad me believe in a hero that genuinely believed in the ideals he was fighting for. A guy that would go out of his way to do the right thing out of common decency.
Whats his name in MoS just looked like a guy that was dragged into heroics and honestly wanted to be anywhere else. Him saving those workers from the burning oil rig was because he was there and not because he really wanted to. If the Kryptonians hadn't arrived he probably wouldn't even have become a hero at all.
However bad MoS was as a film I honestly couldnt have cared less that he wasnt that kind of superman.
Like nothing is less interesting to me than the righteous Superman Returns superman. But then again, why make a movie that has a superman that appeals to me like it did in MoS (ie, a kind of scifi movie, more than a superhero one), when Im literally the exact opposite of the audience youre going for. But then again, MoS was sucessful and SR wasnt, so, ah, check mate to Zack Snyder then I guess.
As to being similar to Captain America, I feel like his origin as a physically weak person who stood up to bigger bullies was more interesting Superman, who has a kind of protector role. I actually do like elements of Superman as a mythos though, I thought Zod was interesting, and the idea of Lex Luthor being a guy who distrusts tyrants, no matter how benevolent, was something that didnt really come across in Superman Returns, and as the only interesting aspect in the mythos to me I found SR pretty dull.
But neither film I consider bad. I actually enjoy elements of both. The visuals and sci-fi invasion in MoS I really liked, as Im sick of super hero movies, and I felt like it wasnt really a super hero movie, but a movie about aliens. And the SR one I loved the strangeness and straightforwardness of him being a sort of Spiderman 1 style hero, without a trace of grimdark.
I sort of see them as two extremes, each missing the mark for me personally in different ways
What more can we ask for from a film? Now that, after Man of Steel, Superman Returns is freed from the burden of being the sole modern cinematic representation of the character on film, I hope that it can be reevaluated and rediscovered as an uncommonly beautiful, interesting, and moving film.
To be entertaining?
And not in the crass whizz-bang-action fashion, because movies can be entertaining in so many other ways.
Superman Returns is just a rather dull movie and no amount of iconic imagery will get around that problem.
I think movies can be entertaining in many ways, too. One of them is giving you beautiful imagery and music, having an interesting atmosphere, and giving you lots of things to think about. I'd say SR does all of that.
I'd argue that SR fails, because considering the iconic nature of the franchise and the character and the self-explanatory blockbuster status, it fails to engage its mainstream audience and inadequately displays its themes, ideas and motifs. In other words, the film does precious little to encourage deeper engagement with its source and expects people to want a "thinky-feely Superman movie" and approach it as such. For all the deeply-felt emotion and lofty ideas it might have, it expects the audience to put work in to get them out of the film. Which is quite simply the wrong approach to blockbuster film-making.
Compare it to something like Avatar, which while dull and painfully banal, was also easy enough to digest and even easier to engage with.
Both of my kids were semi-bored by MoS and loved the shit out of Avengers, proving that they have impeccable taste.
that's because avengers is a great movie with snappy dialogue, good actors and a director who understands what makes action scenes compelling. On the other hand we have Zack Snyder, who's been making these soulless 'spectacle' movies for a while now.
I will say that I legit really liked about the first half of man of steel; you could tell a really good 'immigrant story' with superman about what's redeeming about western society and how people integrate into it, and the catharsis at the end would be something recognizable as a 'superman' story. But if MoS ever intended to be that it certainly abandoned the idea about halfway through
it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
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AManFromEarthLet's get to twerk!The King in the SwampRegistered Userregular
I don't think that I can agree that Superman Returns is really all that lovingly crafted or full of interesting ideas.
It seems to me more of a pastiche of the Donner films locked in a tepid Cat's in the Cradle vibe that, in the end, doesn't actually pay off. Maybe that's just because it's a flawed film, maybe it's because it's an unnecessary one. I'm not sure, but it was definitely a poor way to reintroduce the franchise. Lex Luthor's plan is a retread of the first film, Lois' adventures with Cyclops in the Triangle are just weird. Superman as Stalker is not a good vibe, and as much of a betrayal to the character as Superman the Snapper in Snyder's picture. We get the Does the World Need Superman angle, which is dropped as quickly as possible for a route and by the numbers Lex vs Clark adventure.
Which is unfortunate, because exploring a world where Superman has to question whether the world really needs him might have actually been interesting, especially in the heady days of 2006 where America was going through an identity crisis of its own with the floundering of Iraq and Afghanistan. I wouldn't have wanted it to get too political at all, but, and this is where Superman thrives, examining big ideas through the eyes of a god who walks with men would have really sold this movie.
The cinematography is, of course, excellent, and it looks incredibly pretty, but it commits the cardinal sin of a superhero movie: it's boring, thematically flaccid, and has as much depth as Brandon Routh has range. Routh had the look for Supes, but none of the charisma, power, or grace that makes that character work.
And I guess, in the end, that's the best way to sum up Superman Returns (a movie I saw four times in the theater, actually, because Superman!), it looks great but when it opens its mouth you find out it all means basically nothing.
It may have pretensions of big ideas and you can tell that Bryan Singer was a big fan of the Donner films but equally this becomes a crutch that allows the movie to never stand on its own feet. In the end the movie is a flawed one, and one that I would not say lends itself to making one think about the big ideas that are gilded onto the script.
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AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
edited April 2014
Oh, Superman Returns was absolutely a terrible way to start a franchise. I likened it to Ang Lee's Hulk, which also failed to lead to a sequel (although so did the Norton Hulk, which went in a much more mainstream direction). I don't like Lee's Hulk--it's a pretty muddled movie with a poor central performance--but I do kind of marvel at how both directors were given so little oversight that they were able to smuggle in much artier films than expected.
I think blockbuster franchise movies are supposed to do certain things in terms of being entertaining and accessible to a mainstream audience--but I think that those are largely business considerations, not aesthetic ones. It may just be my particular taste talking, but I rarely get angry at a movie for being more cerebral and moody and less action-packed than I was expecting.
Like, yeah, there are plenty of great movies out there that are not terribly accessible, but that doesn't really matter to me in any sense beyond the abstract so long as I can access and enjoy them.
Probably also it helps that I'm generally indifferent towards Superman as a character and a franchise; it's very understandable that fans would be frustrated with all of the recent cinematic representations of the character, Singer's included.
Speaking of which, in Singer's defense, he clearly knows how to make an accessible franchise movie--his X-Men films are absolutely foundational to the genre and to the way superhero franchises are built, and they have snappy dialogue, exciting action, and broad appeal. I think he made the Superman film he wanted to make (perhaps hoping it would appeal to more people than it did, or perhaps not caring), and I think that film is enjoyable on a lot of levels. Just not in the ways most audiences prefer.
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AManFromEarthLet's get to twerk!The King in the SwampRegistered Userregular
I guess that's where we fall apart here. I don't think Superman Returns is being cerebral or arty, I think it wants us to believe it is. And actually, if Singer had been able to pry the Donner films out of it, he might have stood a chance of making a decently interesting film. But as it is, I just think it's not thoughtful enough to be an art piece, not interesting enough to be an action film.
I think you're right that there are things to like in this movie, but taken on the whole it's a C- or so for me.
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AManFromEarthLet's get to twerk!The King in the SwampRegistered Userregular
It is a really pretty movie, though. The art deco feel is nice.
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AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
edited April 2014
I just think the Donner film aspect of it isn't just homage, it's... sort of interactive? Lois and Superman flying in this movie deliberately evokes their famous flying scene in the earlier movie, not because Singer wants to piggyback this scene on that one, but because he wants you thinking about the differences. The references in this film function as that shared past when things were happier for everyone, before the romance got tangled, before Superman abandoned his duty to protect Earth. In a way it's very similar to the way Skyfall compares past and present Bond.
--
On another subject, any opinions on As Good As It Gets? It's definitely a shameless romcom, but I've always held a soft spot for it, particularly because of Nicholson's performance. A friend of mine argued the other day, though, that the movie just forces the love interests together, despite Nicholson's character's immense awfulness. And it is kind of weird how awful they allow him to be (sexist, racist, and homophobic as well as rude and mental-illness-irrational) and yet still gradually break down Hunt's character's resistance to his advances. Is he a quirky charmer or a terrible person?
Superman Returns is a film by the very definition of 'Playing it safe'. What audiences were turned off by is the very fact that it doesn't try to push the Superman story in any new direction at all.
For me you could have easily said it was a remake of the Donner film and I wouldn't have been any wiser.
It may have pretensions of big ideas and you can tell that Bryan Singer was a big fan of the Donner films but equally this becomes a crutch that allows the movie to never stand on its own feet. In the end the movie is a flawed one, and one that I would not say lends itself to making one think about the big ideas that are gilded onto the script.
Singer is a fan of Donner's Superman, not Superman. That hurt the character's portrayal IMO. Not that he did that good a job adapting Donner's Superman either. I could never picture Chris Reeves' character not using protection for having sex, letting Lois forget who the father was (if he didn't have protection he was playing with fire) and leave Earth for five years without so much as a goodbye to a single soul.
Speaking of which, in Singer's defense, he clearly knows how to make an accessible franchise movie--his X-Men films are absolutely foundational to the genre and to the way superhero franchises are built, and they have snappy dialogue, exciting action, and broad appeal. I think he made the Superman film he wanted to make (perhaps hoping it would appeal to more people than it did, or perhaps not caring), and I think that film is enjoyable on a lot of levels. Just not in the ways most audiences prefer.
Singer wasn't an X-men fan, he had consultants who knew the mythology from the comics, like the screenwriters. He did succeed in adapting the idea into being relevant for the era it was made. With Superman he thought he knew it all and nobody probably said no to silly scenes like Superman stalking Lois.
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TexiKenDammit!That fish really got me!Registered Userregular
As Good As It Gets was good, but not Oscar good. It wasn't as Oscar Bait as other movies but it was pretty high up there in ticking off those boxes, maybe it was more an oscar tease. If the kid had autism instead of asthma that might have pushed it over. Nicholson was charming and for someone who knew him more for the Joker or Shining it was a nice range of character for him. I guess ultimately it was a mediocre plot lifted up by his and Hunt's performance, but it doesn't stand out in my mind in the pantheon of romcoms.
But all that goodwill was ruined with Something's Gotta Give, which kind of felt like a movie made for the same type of moviegoer who saw AGAIG about seven years earlier. Man I hate that movie so, so much, Diane Keaton is hella overrated.
I just think the Donner film aspect of it isn't just homage, it's... sort of interactive? Lois and Superman flying in this movie deliberately evokes their famous flying scene in the earlier movie, not because Singer wants to piggyback this scene on that one, but because he wants you thinking about the differences. The references in this film function as that shared past when things were happier for everyone, before the romance got tangled, before Superman abandoned his duty to protect Earth. In a way it's very similar to the way Skyfall compares past and present Bond.
--
On another subject, any opinions on As Good As It Gets? It's definitely a shameless romcom, but I've always held a soft spot for it, particularly because of Nicholson's performance. A friend of mine argued the other day, though, that the movie just forces the love interests together, despite Nicholson's character's immense awfulness. And it is kind of weird how awful they allow him to be (sexist, racist, and homophobic as well as rude and mental-illness-irrational) and yet still gradually break down Hunt's character's resistance to his advances. Is he a quirky charmer or a terrible person?
That film always bothered me because the romance at the end didn't feel authentic. The power differential between Nicholson's character and Hunts is so vast, that it actually made me deeply uncomfortable. In particular, the fact that Nicholson's character is spending a large sum on money to provide medical care for her child, Hunt's eventual romantic interest seems to stem less from true attachment, and more from a sense of indebted obligation.
On another subject, any opinions on As Good As It Gets? It's definitely a shameless romcom, but I've always held a soft spot for it, particularly because of Nicholson's performance. A friend of mine argued the other day, though, that the movie just forces the love interests together, despite Nicholson's character's immense awfulness. And it is kind of weird how awful they allow him to be (sexist, racist, and homophobic as well as rude and mental-illness-irrational) and yet still gradually break down Hunt's character's resistance to his advances. Is he a quirky charmer or a terrible person?
I think blockbuster franchise movies are supposed to do certain things in terms of being entertaining and accessible to a mainstream audience--but I think that those are largely business considerations, not aesthetic ones.
Hardly. Making a blockbuster movie using such a well-known, understood and well-regarded license and then wasting this opportunity by not telling a story that connects with people, that people can relate to and understand... isn't failing to take business factors into consideration. It's a failure on an artistic level.
SR might look pretty, but if it fails to connect, if it fails to engage its audience... it's a failed movie.
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Aronofsky did well with what he had to work with, and weaved in multiple themes regarding the follies of mankind. A strong environmental conservation message runs through the movie. Additionally, the sin of the first murder (Cain and Abel) takes center stage and is a recurring visual motif throughout the film.
The only weakness is that the post-flood portion drags on a little long and weakens Noah's characterization through some choices he makes that contradict his previously expressed beliefs.
It just means you have bad taste and my mom says we can't be friends anymore.
(There was a lot about the film to like. If nothing else, it was fucking beautiful to behold. While I still think it was a bad movie, it's not Transformers-bad, or anything, and I can get how other people would like it.)
I thought the movie had a lot of problems (Pa Kent and killing Zod chief among them), and a lot of Snyder's work really doesn't do it for me in general, but it had enough going for it that I still enjoyed it.
I understand why people don't like it, but I am a bit surprised at the sheer amount of hate it gets.
But then I'm quite fond of Kevin Spacey.
I can't believe how they wasted Amy Adams and Lois. That casting was brilliant. And they gave her nothing to work with.
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(I second Spacey being the sole redeeming factor of Returns, just because Spacey is the best part of pretty much everything he's in.)
Sometimes I see brief flashes of inventiveness in movies and I think "Why couldn't the whole movie be like this?" (the awkward poetry in Mortal Instruments: City of Bones is amazing, and I wish they had kept that sensibility throughout the rest of the runtime), and there's an entire art to managing audience expectations prior to viewing so that the actual viewing experience balances the preconceptions. Superman's not that good, with inconsistent writing, poor character motivation, and muddled themes, but I don't hate it because it's a Superman movie with a cast and crew who I know are capable of better. It's that kind of thinking that made it end up on a bunch of "Worst of" lists - because it was such a disappointment for some people, despite there being a plethora of movies that were terrible vying for spots on those lists.
At the end of the day, however difficult it is, I try to judge the film that's on the screen rather than the film that's in my head.
It's just that when you take a movie with so many awesome qualities - great cast, big budget, gorgeous cinematography, inspired special effects scenes - and it turns out not-awesome, it's hard not to be aware of that. Think of your favorite actor! Now think of your favorite genre! Now think of your favorite screenwriter and your favorite director! Now combine them all into one movie!
If you are a normal human person, that thought experiment probably makes you pretty excited for that movie. If that movie then proceeds to suck nards, you're going to be more disappointed, because you know it could have been so much better.
I definitely wouldn't stick it on any worst-of lists. I would absolutely make it a contender for Biggest Disappointment, though.
I would really love Snyder to just do set direction and cinematography and the like. The guy is a fucking force of nature at creating inspired visuals, but his directing success is basically like rolling a d20.
But I always try and think "If my grandma who watches 1 movie a year, and has no idea who any of the people involved are and barely knows who Superman is, wants to know if it's okay - what do I tell her?" Because she sure as heck isn't going to be disappointed/excited in the same way as I might be.
So good.
Recently I rewatched Superman Returns for reasons. (spoilers will probably follow)
I can totally see why a lot of people hated it, and there are parts that don't work (Spacey's Luthor is great but he doesn't fit the rest of the movie)--but it's thematically so complete and excellent, and it's clear it's the exact opposite of a soulless franchise cash-in. The differences between it and Man of Steel are instructive--both adhere to the requirements of the form, but MoS does so almost unconsciously. (Lois and Superman must kiss because, well, they're Lois and Superman, right? Isn't this how the story goes?)
Superman Returns, on the other hand, is fully, achingly conscious. It uses slavish fidelity to the Donner source film as both a purpose and a metaphor for the narrative, which has very little to do with Superman as a person. (If nothing else, Routh's very gentle, understated performance keeps a distance between him and the audience--and the script rarely gives us insight into anything deeper than his surface emotions, which makes the hints at his profound loneliness all the more powerful.) Instead, the story has everything to do with Superman as an icon, an ideal (hence the metaphor of the ideal Superman movie). There's a moment in the film where hard-nosed Daily Planet editor Perry (Langella, somehow crankier here than he was as Nixon) waves around some photographs of Superman, pointing out how iconic the imagery is even though it was taken by a kid with a feature phone. This is patently absurd--we all know what camera phone photos looked like in 2006, and they didn't look like perfectly posed publicity stills--but it's also somehow fitting for a film in which Superman cannot be regarded with anything but total awe and wonder (or its opposite, Luthor's utter contempt and distaste). His return is the only news story, filling every section of the paper and dominating the global media. He is the only celebrity (making Lois's husband's ignorance of Superman's basic statistics, abilities and weaknesses somewhat ridiculous). The world of the film is built around Superman, his gravitational pull affecting everyone, his absence felt by all. It's a sealed-off space where nothing more modern than computer passwords is allowed and the characters have all been defined by their pasts, half-remembered (the Reeves film) and half-invented, and the decisions they made there.
Unlike Captain America (another vanished ideal returned to modern day), Superman doesn't stand for anything political; just innate goodness of spirit, heroism and self-sacrifice. Just like All-Star Superman, the film is filled with characters who mirror Superman, reflecting his aspects back upon him. Lois's son evokes Superman's childhood, frightening until he begins to grasp the power he truly possesses. Richard, Lois's husband, reflects Superman's decency and humanity, acting courageously to save his family even without any superpowers. He refrains from being jealous of Lois and Superman's relationship (although he doesn't know the full extent of it). And he's present, unlike Clark; he's there to buy the burritos and raise the kid. He didn't run. The film's major weakness is also its most fascinating element: an ambiguous love triangle where we're not sure who to root for. The three points of the triangle (and the son) seem inextricably, problematically tangled in a way that can't easily be undone to anyone's satisfaction. Superman is a paragon of goodness, the movie seems to say, but is there still a place for him in the world? He's an alien and always will be, his dead planet more important to him than his living friends and lover, his crystalline architecture cold and unyielding and inimical to humanity. His Clark can barely communicate. He spends the film unable to connect with anyone, off apart from the family that should be his, following the memory of his father's voice in space and in deep water. At last it is the boy who represents hope for Superman, someone he can nurture and teach, someone he can finally relate to.
The film twice references 2001: A Space Odyssey, evoking Kubrick's famous shot of planets aligned in the beginning and then directly quoting the film's use of hollow, scraping howls for the desolation of space when Superman, wounded and bereft, falls from the heavens in a Christ-like pose. 2001 was also a movie about inscrutable aliens who set a path for humanity, with neither species capable of truly understanding or connecting with one another. (It's also a movie controversial because it largely discards entertainment in the search for art and meaning.) Obliquely, through Routh's stoicism, through the unconventional love triangle, through stillness and strangeness, through the words of a dead actor recut and remembered, Superman Returns conveys the vast and lonely gulf between the character and the aliens he would protect better than any other film before or since.
For all its flaws, this is a clear and intentioned movie, brimming with ideas and emotion, crafted with great love. The film itself has a rich and beautiful texture to it. The music is luminous, the cinematography like a dream. It's a very long film for the amount of plot it contains; the actual chain of events could have been laid out in a Fleischer cartoon with room to spare. Instead of twists and turns, the movie uses the time to savor its material, from a gentle, dancing flight with Superman and Lois to the genuinely eerie sequence where the family is in danger of drowning. Again and again the movie strikes for iconicism and hits home--the dramatic airplane rescue, the bullet bouncing off his eye, Superman like Atlas with the Daily Planet's globe resting on his shoulders. It is not the movie fans wanted; it is not about punching or Silver Age robots or heat vision. In that sense it is like Ang Lee's Hulk, an artist's utilization of the medium of the franchise property to create something decidedly unsuited to sequels and merchandise. It's not an action film or a blockbuster summer entertainment. If that's what you wanted, it's not for you. But it is a movie of ideas, executed with grace and clarity, expressing a singular vision born of deep emotion. What more can we ask for from a film? Now that, after Man of Steel, Superman Returns is freed from the burden of being the sole modern cinematic representation of the character on film, I hope that it can be reevaluated and rediscovered as an uncommonly beautiful, interesting, and moving film.
To be entertaining?
And not in the crass whizz-bang-action fashion, because movies can be entertaining in so many other ways.
Superman Returns is just a rather dull movie and no amount of iconic imagery will get around that problem.
I think movies can be entertaining in many ways, too. One of them is giving you beautiful imagery and music, having an interesting atmosphere, and giving you lots of things to think about. I'd say SR does all of that.
I don't think it qualifies as entertaining just cause it looks pretty and has good atmosphere. A nice painting and a AC unit can pull that off.
It's just a dull and unengaging film, regardless of what kind of message or theme it's trying to push. It's no different then any of the "Looks pretty but boring" type films that come out, with just a slightly different set of things it excels at while being uncompelling.
So does Sucker Punch.
Superman Returns has some issues, but it's very coherent and its imagery and style are not just there for kicks, they're deeply tied to the movie's themes and story. When Superman strikes an iconic pose, that shot resonates with our memory of the character's long history and all the other times he's struck that or similar poses in that or similar situations, drawing upon that history in order to say something about it in exactly way that Sucker Punch's placeholder nerddom porn does not.
Come on Astaereth this is like patriarchy 101.
I believed that Routh was Superman in that movie. Like Reeve he could make heroic goodness shine. Chris Evans as Captain America does the same. All three of the mad me believe in a hero that genuinely believed in the ideals he was fighting for. A guy that would go out of his way to do the right thing out of common decency.
Whats his name in MoS just looked like a guy that was dragged into heroics and honestly wanted to be anywhere else. Him saving those workers from the burning oil rig was because he was there and not because he really wanted to. If the Kryptonians hadn't arrived he probably wouldn't even have become a hero at all.
However bad MoS was as a film I honestly couldnt have cared less that he wasnt that kind of superman.
Like nothing is less interesting to me than the righteous Superman Returns superman. But then again, why make a movie that has a superman that appeals to me like it did in MoS (ie, a kind of scifi movie, more than a superhero one), when Im literally the exact opposite of the audience youre going for. But then again, MoS was sucessful and SR wasnt, so, ah, check mate to Zack Snyder then I guess.
As to being similar to Captain America, I feel like his origin as a physically weak person who stood up to bigger bullies was more interesting Superman, who has a kind of protector role. I actually do like elements of Superman as a mythos though, I thought Zod was interesting, and the idea of Lex Luthor being a guy who distrusts tyrants, no matter how benevolent, was something that didnt really come across in Superman Returns, and as the only interesting aspect in the mythos to me I found SR pretty dull.
But neither film I consider bad. I actually enjoy elements of both. The visuals and sci-fi invasion in MoS I really liked, as Im sick of super hero movies, and I felt like it wasnt really a super hero movie, but a movie about aliens. And the SR one I loved the strangeness and straightforwardness of him being a sort of Spiderman 1 style hero, without a trace of grimdark.
I sort of see them as two extremes, each missing the mark for me personally in different ways
I'd argue that SR fails, because considering the iconic nature of the franchise and the character and the self-explanatory blockbuster status, it fails to engage its mainstream audience and inadequately displays its themes, ideas and motifs. In other words, the film does precious little to encourage deeper engagement with its source and expects people to want a "thinky-feely Superman movie" and approach it as such. For all the deeply-felt emotion and lofty ideas it might have, it expects the audience to put work in to get them out of the film. Which is quite simply the wrong approach to blockbuster film-making.
Compare it to something like Avatar, which while dull and painfully banal, was also easy enough to digest and even easier to engage with.
that's because avengers is a great movie with snappy dialogue, good actors and a director who understands what makes action scenes compelling. On the other hand we have Zack Snyder, who's been making these soulless 'spectacle' movies for a while now.
I will say that I legit really liked about the first half of man of steel; you could tell a really good 'immigrant story' with superman about what's redeeming about western society and how people integrate into it, and the catharsis at the end would be something recognizable as a 'superman' story. But if MoS ever intended to be that it certainly abandoned the idea about halfway through
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
It seems to me more of a pastiche of the Donner films locked in a tepid Cat's in the Cradle vibe that, in the end, doesn't actually pay off. Maybe that's just because it's a flawed film, maybe it's because it's an unnecessary one. I'm not sure, but it was definitely a poor way to reintroduce the franchise. Lex Luthor's plan is a retread of the first film, Lois' adventures with Cyclops in the Triangle are just weird. Superman as Stalker is not a good vibe, and as much of a betrayal to the character as Superman the Snapper in Snyder's picture. We get the Does the World Need Superman angle, which is dropped as quickly as possible for a route and by the numbers Lex vs Clark adventure.
Which is unfortunate, because exploring a world where Superman has to question whether the world really needs him might have actually been interesting, especially in the heady days of 2006 where America was going through an identity crisis of its own with the floundering of Iraq and Afghanistan. I wouldn't have wanted it to get too political at all, but, and this is where Superman thrives, examining big ideas through the eyes of a god who walks with men would have really sold this movie.
The cinematography is, of course, excellent, and it looks incredibly pretty, but it commits the cardinal sin of a superhero movie: it's boring, thematically flaccid, and has as much depth as Brandon Routh has range. Routh had the look for Supes, but none of the charisma, power, or grace that makes that character work.
And I guess, in the end, that's the best way to sum up Superman Returns (a movie I saw four times in the theater, actually, because Superman!), it looks great but when it opens its mouth you find out it all means basically nothing.
It may have pretensions of big ideas and you can tell that Bryan Singer was a big fan of the Donner films but equally this becomes a crutch that allows the movie to never stand on its own feet. In the end the movie is a flawed one, and one that I would not say lends itself to making one think about the big ideas that are gilded onto the script.
I think blockbuster franchise movies are supposed to do certain things in terms of being entertaining and accessible to a mainstream audience--but I think that those are largely business considerations, not aesthetic ones. It may just be my particular taste talking, but I rarely get angry at a movie for being more cerebral and moody and less action-packed than I was expecting.
Like, yeah, there are plenty of great movies out there that are not terribly accessible, but that doesn't really matter to me in any sense beyond the abstract so long as I can access and enjoy them.
Probably also it helps that I'm generally indifferent towards Superman as a character and a franchise; it's very understandable that fans would be frustrated with all of the recent cinematic representations of the character, Singer's included.
Speaking of which, in Singer's defense, he clearly knows how to make an accessible franchise movie--his X-Men films are absolutely foundational to the genre and to the way superhero franchises are built, and they have snappy dialogue, exciting action, and broad appeal. I think he made the Superman film he wanted to make (perhaps hoping it would appeal to more people than it did, or perhaps not caring), and I think that film is enjoyable on a lot of levels. Just not in the ways most audiences prefer.
I think you're right that there are things to like in this movie, but taken on the whole it's a C- or so for me.
--
On another subject, any opinions on As Good As It Gets? It's definitely a shameless romcom, but I've always held a soft spot for it, particularly because of Nicholson's performance. A friend of mine argued the other day, though, that the movie just forces the love interests together, despite Nicholson's character's immense awfulness. And it is kind of weird how awful they allow him to be (sexist, racist, and homophobic as well as rude and mental-illness-irrational) and yet still gradually break down Hunt's character's resistance to his advances. Is he a quirky charmer or a terrible person?
For me you could have easily said it was a remake of the Donner film and I wouldn't have been any wiser.
Singer is a fan of Donner's Superman, not Superman. That hurt the character's portrayal IMO. Not that he did that good a job adapting Donner's Superman either. I could never picture Chris Reeves' character not using protection for having sex, letting Lois forget who the father was (if he didn't have protection he was playing with fire) and leave Earth for five years without so much as a goodbye to a single soul.
Singer wasn't an X-men fan, he had consultants who knew the mythology from the comics, like the screenwriters. He did succeed in adapting the idea into being relevant for the era it was made. With Superman he thought he knew it all and nobody probably said no to silly scenes like Superman stalking Lois.
But all that goodwill was ruined with Something's Gotta Give, which kind of felt like a movie made for the same type of moviegoer who saw AGAIG about seven years earlier. Man I hate that movie so, so much, Diane Keaton is hella overrated.
But then Jack got some back for The Departed.
That film always bothered me because the romance at the end didn't feel authentic. The power differential between Nicholson's character and Hunts is so vast, that it actually made me deeply uncomfortable. In particular, the fact that Nicholson's character is spending a large sum on money to provide medical care for her child, Hunt's eventual romantic interest seems to stem less from true attachment, and more from a sense of indebted obligation.
"You make me want to be a better man"
He's a terrible person, but he realizes it.
Hardly. Making a blockbuster movie using such a well-known, understood and well-regarded license and then wasting this opportunity by not telling a story that connects with people, that people can relate to and understand... isn't failing to take business factors into consideration. It's a failure on an artistic level.
SR might look pretty, but if it fails to connect, if it fails to engage its audience... it's a failed movie.
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Because you guys can't see Amazing Spider-Man 2 yet.