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NEWS AND VIEWS THAT IMPACT LIMITED CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT

"There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with
power to endanger the public liberty." - - - - John Adams

Thursday, June 20, 2013

Man of Steel




Superman has always been with us.
At least Lois Lane was not a slut in the new movie.


By Gary;

At my screening of "Man of Steel" the audience enthusiastically broke out into applause at the end.  I applauded too.  I was so happy that this overly long movie had finally ended.

For a while I thought I was watching one of those self-indulgent, ultra long, often boring Kevin Costner movies.  It took far too long, but thank God Kevin Costner finally died in the film.


A better title might have been Superman Meets Independence Day.  I don't mind the science fiction aspect.  Far from it.  After all, a SUPER man needs true super villains with great powers.

Movie Length  -  My biggest beef is the length of the film and the script.  Way, way too much time is spent on Krypton and on Superman's earth family.  Been there.  Seen that.  Move on please. 

It would made a much better film to cut out almost all the Costner-Kent family stuff and have concentrated on General Zod's character development and political infighting on Krypton as the end nears.  That would have truly been new ground for the fans.

Superman  -  Every generation wants to tell the Superman story in their own way.  George Reeves portrayed a World War II generation tough male.  Then we are given the somewhat effeminate and soft Christopher Reeve and Brandon Routh as a chick flick, girl friendly Superman.

That brings us to Henry Cavill.  Do to the strong manly drama in the Batman series and Marvel movies, the pendulum is moving back to a strong and manly Superman.  Cavill does well with the script he is given.  It was a good move that he was not made all-powerful.  Instead he is super with limitations.

The Best of all Superman Villains.
With the number of Superman films coming closer to the James Bond saga we can
start to compare the best and worst characters.  To me Kevin Spacey's nasty Lex
Luthor takes the award for best supervillain.


Lois Lane  -  The 1950s gave us a very "proper" Lois Lane. . . . smart but always getting into trouble.  Then from the 1970s on Lane become a slut.  A "modern" woman banging Superman and a single mother giving birth out of wedlock.  Not what I want at all.

Now we have been given a proper, professional Amy Adams as Lane.  But Adams has little meaningful to say in the script and even less acting talent.  Adams speaks her lines and does not drool on herself, but she has never had any screen presence.  Any of a hundred actresses at a casting call could read the part.

The Villains  -  The previous villains in the Superman series were often treated as comedy.  Gene Hackman as Lex Luthor was almost stand up comedy with endless jokes and comedy side kicks.  The tide began to turn when the X-Men's Bryan Singer made Kevin Spacey's Lex Luthor into a vicious killer.  In my mind, Spacey became the best of Superman's villains in Superman Returns (2006).

Michael Shannon does a respectable job as General Zod.  He does not have the voice or screen presence of Terence Stamp, the first Zod in Superman II, but few actors do.  The current Zod's fellow soldiers do not have much to say and even less to do in Man of Steel.  Again, script weakness.

Special Effects  -  Yes, lots of was money spent.  They are mostly well done.  But script and acting trump effects every time.  Man of Steel is a bit weak in those areas.

Movie is Rated a Six on a scale of Ten.


Superman and the Mole Men is a 1951 superhero film starring George Reeves as Superman and Phyllis Coates as Lois Lane. The motion picture is the first theatrical feature film based on the DC Comics character Superman; although two live-action Superman films starring Kirk Alyn and Noel Neill had already been shown in cinemas, they had appeared in a serial format.








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