Inside Out 2

Pardon Our Dust. Puberty is Messy.

or

Taking Inside Out 2 Twice a Day Will Take the Place of Xanax

It's nice to see that Disney* is permitting Pixar out of its streaming jail-cell and letting its movies open in theaters again. It seems to have paid off as Inside Out 2 has out-performed expectations—certainly Disney's—and has generated Barbie-land box office. One took the hopeful sign that allowing the only-streaming releases to have a theatrical run made them re-think what they were doing with its best—and longest-held—assets. Pixar product is just too good to be restricted to home theaters, and Inside Out 2 is a good example of why.

Sure, a couple of the sequels have been less than spectacular—Monsters University, Cars 2, and Lightyear (although not technically a sequel) had a creative lethargy backing the stunning visuals, but this sequel to 2015's Inside Out takes advantage of the inevitable march of time to expand and deepen its particular cartooniverse. That it is all contained in the mind of our gal-pal Riley (now voiced by Kensington Tallman), who survived her move to San Francisco and flourished, retaining her passion for ice-hockey (a big story-point in this one) and keeping it together with some help from her humors in Head-quarters.

They are Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Anger (Lewis Black), Fear (Tony Hale taking over for Bill Hader), and Disgust (Liza Lapira taking over for Mindy Kaling), who have negotiated Riley's emotional life in the intervening years and managed to make a go of it, despite outgrowing clothes, getting braces, and the near-occasion of pimples. Of course, she's had help from her supportive gal-pals on the hockey team, Grace (Grace Lu) and Bree (Sumayyah Nuriddin-Green). Her school has just won State and grabbed the attention of Coach Roberts (Yvette Nicole Brown) of a local high school who has invited the three to a weekend hockey camp.

Pretty easy for five emotions to handle, one would think. Especially as Joy has worked out a new doohickey that allows her to take bad memories and vacuum-tube them to the back of Riley's mind, where they won't do any harm to her burgeoning "Sense of Self." All very neat and orderly...just like kids are (he said with a wink).

But, remember how I dropped the mention of a "pimple"—well-rendered subtly by Pixar pixelators)? The night before she goes off with her friends to the camp, Riley's "Puberty Alarm" goes off, sending everyone into a panic, and requiring a crew to come in and do a "mitigation" on Riley's head-space, leaving the old crew with a new console that—shall we say?—is a bit..."sensitive". Plus, there are all sorts of new gizmo's and buttons no one's ever seen before.

Those "upgrades" are for a quartet of new emotions generated for Riley by her hormones and they are Anxiety (Maya Hawke), Envy (Ayo Edebiri), Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser) and Ennui (Adèle Exarchopoulos), who show up and decide they're going to run the place...that is, Riley...during her hockey weekend. This, of course, complicates matters, and one notices that having these guys around makes describing what happens in the story sounds a little too "on-the-nose." It's far more subtle—and entertaining!—in the Pixar presentation than the summation, which reads like symptoms in a psychological post-mortem.

To wit: Anxiety manages to rip away Riley's Sense of Self and locks away Joy (and her comrades) in an effort to push Riley to achieve her ambitions on the ice. Sounds a bit clinical, doesn't it? It's not, but shows how cleverly director Kelsey Mann and his co-scenarists Meg LeFauve and Dave Holstein manage to integrate human turmoil into an adventure story that's enjoyable for kids and relatable for adults (who'll be answering questions with a smirking "just you wait..."). The kids watching this movie will grow up into the answers that had previously sailed over their heads.

It all feels like a natural progression to the original. Changes are made, but they're well-integrated (even if, in the story, the new emotions have to be shown some tough love) and one is propelled along with the assurance that the film has been nuanced to within an inch of perfection. And, of course, one is always amazed at the artistic leaps that Pixar makes between films; Inside Out 2 feels richer in its animation than the original with nice ethereal edges to inhabitants of Riley's head-space and one can appreciate the little details like the way Riley's teeth are crooked to the way ice erupts from the edge of a skate.

Those details are not what's flocking audiences to theaters to see this, but it's a value-added that can only be appreciated on a large screen. Inside Out 2 may not have the holistic concept brilliance of the first one, but it's a worthy sequel that builds on it, maintaining the train of thought while not derailing it (see how lame the concept could get?).

 

Inside Out 2 will get you right in "the feels."

* Although one notices that the House of Mouse has put on an ultra-long company logo (that might actually qualify as a short subject) onto the beginning and the end of this one as if to emphasize who's in charge. The Pixar logo is same as it ever was. Don't let that discourage you from missing the tag-line at the very end of the movie, though.

 

Caption quiz: "Anxiety...."

Zack Snyder's Justice League

Zack Snyder's Justice League (Zack Snyder, 2021) Buying the DVD of Zack Snyder's Justice League—his sanctioned "taking-back" of the Warner Brothers "studio-notes" theater version—cost as much as two months of HBOMax, and I must say, in comparison, it was a bargain. I have been reluctant to be swayed into buying into streaming services, maintaining that theaters will come back, and there are very few enticements for having them take money out of my accounts month after month, when the economic model necessitates other means of seeing them.

 

So...(I hear you ask) "is it better?" Yup. And by a wide margin. My initial review of the theatrical version of Justice League was somewhat laudatory—more concerned with knee-jerk backlash towards it—but, in seeing it again a couple times one could see the pacing issues, grating inconsistencies of tone, a certain desperation in the product to compress the content gracelessly and be winsomely attractive. "The Snyder Cut" takes more chances and takes a lot more time doing it. The Warner mandate to cut Snyder's intended two-part 4 1/2 hour opus into a single 2 hour film must have seemed an impossible feat to accomplish (and one must give kudo's to Joss Whedon for even attempting it and managing to meet their specs despite the ham-fisted result), especially when the evidence shows just how much of Snyder's film wasn't in the theatrical version (which we'll simply call "Josstice League"). The story is basically the same, but, good Lord, there are whole completely different versions of scenes throughout the thing, with nary a line repeated. There are bits and pieces in the story-line—the first Earth-war with Apokolips, the Gordon scenes, the confrontation at the "Superman memorial"—but for the most part the shot choices and dialogue are unique to this version. There are far fewer "oh, yeah..." moments than "that's new" moments. And, for me, there weren't any "I miss that" moments...at all.

The length is daunting, which is why I think it was never, ever intended to be one film (that and Snyder has a tendency to make super-hero films that are already prepping for sequels). Still, the overall experience of watching it feels much more organic than the cropped mess of the "Josstice League." Segments progress naturally—they "feel" right. And more importantly, the big action set-pieces—like the fight under the Gotham harbor—finally "work" in how they're shot and edited in sequence—they have geography and you see how things are playing out among all parties and how the stakes rise and fall as they intensify.

What's more, the film hinges on the characters given short-shrift in "Josstice League"—those being Jason Momoa's Aquaman, Ezra Miller's Flash, and especially Ray Fisher's Cyborg. Sure, there's plenty of scenes with Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman and a lot more with the Amazon's, a couple of tid-bits with Ben Affleck's Batman (with even more taken out), less haggling among the heroes, more of Alfred (Jeremy Irons), more of Joe Morton's Silas Stone and his co-hort at StarLabs, Ryan Choi (Ryan Zheng)—these are all improvements utilizing good actors—and you get representations from Jack Kirby's gallery of "Fourth World" villains (most prominently, Kirby's "Big Bad Guy" Darkseid), and a considerable "Steppenwolf" upgrade.

It's the three heroes-in-hiding from Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, that get a lot more coverage and a bit more respect. Momoa's Aquaman has a lot more scenes with Mera (Amber Heard) and now, also Vulko (Willem Dafoe) and there's a bit of a continuity gaff in that here, nobody can talk underwater as in the Aquaman stand-alone film (they have to make air-bubbles to communicate). The Flash is given more background including a rescue of young Iris West (Kiersey Clemons) and the character's annoying geeking is toned down substantially and slightly matured. But, it's the story of Victor Stone/Cyborg that is the most expanded and the most from which the film benefits. Fisher is given much more chance to shine as he goes from bitter accident victim to reluctant super-paraplegic to confident team member.

But, it's not all roses. This version is rated "R" for a reason. There are a couple of prominent "f"-bombs* that may be earned but won't impress the parents of young superhero fans. And the level of carnage is greater with prominent blood spatters (that would have been digitally removed for theaters) and the final disposition of Steppenwolf by Wonder Woman (she is an sword-wielding Amazon, after all) that is far more MPAA-adverse than just letting the bad guy be dispatched by his own minions off-screen. Edgier, but not the way parents, censors (or even the Comics Code Authority) would like. One is always aware that in the movie-world, the film creators are always less concerned with body-counts than the comics-heroes (as dictated in the comics by parental watch-groups) would be.

This prompts the question for whom film-makers are making movies, even though, in this special case, Snyder has had the supported mandate to please himself. With the content far more unconstrained than the behavior displayed in the four-color versions, are they making it for themselves, for the fans, or for the studio? One would say the first, less the second, with the third being the cranky arbitrator between the two. Snyder makes them for himself—what he'd like to see—and for that imagined film audience that wants more realistic, mature versions of childhood heroes (ala the Christopher Nolan model—Nolan is still the exec. producer of this one)** It's interesting to think about, given the many hands involved.

So, I was pleased with what I saw, tarnished slightly by the fact that I'd seen a bastardized version before.*** But, what a difference it does make to have a singular vision, whatever issues one might have with it, rather than an elephant made by committee. In a subtle way the film makes that point, and one hopes that Warner learns it, and that Marvel takes the lesson as a cautionary tale.

 

* One was deliberately added by Snyder in his "new footage" shot for the Snyder version. If he doesn't have to fight over it with the studio, I suppose he said "why the fuck not?" So, Batman says it. And Cyborg says the other one at the height of his bitterness.

** Nolan has been working exclusively with Warner for almost two decades, but the recent rifts over the super-hero movies he and his wife have shepherded there (and the studio's insistence on simultaneous streaming) have had a consequence—Nolan's next film (involving J. Robert Oppenheimer) is being made with Universal. Warner wasn't even being negotiated with.

*** One curiosity I had was the way the theatrical version photographed Gadot's Wonder Woman—it's more sexualized, seeming to concentrate on her posterior than apparent when Snyder and director Patty Jenkins called the shots. And, yes, Snyder had no such prurience in his cut.

Batman gets Frank Miller's goofy Bat-tank.

Chaplin

Chaplin (Richard Attenborough, 1983) Elephantine, lugubrious bio-pic of the man underneath "The Little Tramp," Charles Spencer Chaplin. If more bio-pics were this ill-serving, it would be good reason to avoid the limelight altogether. Years after sweeping the Oscar-race with his ever-so-respectful biography of Gandhi* (starring Ben Kingsley), director Attenborough took on his famous countryman's auto-biography and varnished it with the same extra coats of shellac (with broad strokes) that made a still-life out of his film of A Chorus Line.

Charles Chaplin is a more-than-worthy subject for a sweeping biography that covers a huge amount of history in both the times of the U.S. and England, but also of the film industry. Chaplin was one of the rare few film-makers to make it out of the silent era alive and functioning, amassing a great fortune, becoming beloved world-wide—his Tramp character was recognized world-wide, with even more reach than Mickey Mouse—and treading the then-virgin territory of film star-dom with all its glamor, responsibilities...and pit-falls. Only thing, part of the problem was too many virgins. A clown-comedian who made his living, first by exposing the pomposity of authority, and then—as the Tramp—actively fighting it, he ran afoul of the authorities who didn't take too kindly to his irreverent side, little noting that the Tramp's triumphs were a balm for a restless public, sublimating dissatisfaction in a permanent trap on-screen, keeping it from spilling into reality. They should have thanked him. But instead, the authoritarians, be they Nazi's or J. Edgar Hoover, fought him. And Chaplin had enough hubris and pomposity himself, to think that the public would always rally to his side.

Now, that's a story. One that Chaplin would appreciate, if he wasn't living it. But, instead, Chaplin saw himself as he always saw himself—the hero. You could say of Chaplin what Alice Roosevelt Longworth said of her President-father Theodore: "He wanted to be the bride at every wedding, and the corpse at every funeral." Chaplin loved being the Clown and the center of attention, but he also wanted to be taken very seriously, as he saw himself. Quite the dichotomy. That Chaplin couldn't embrace his own pretentiousness as part of the act was what turned his reel-comedy into real-tragedy.

But don't drop any tears for Chaplin. He lived an extraordinary life...of his own creation. Well, feel bad for him for this movie, perhaps.

The problems start with the screenplay. The timeline uses his films as the spine of it, set up by little incidents that inspired them. A more fitting strategy for a film-symposium than a movie, especially a movie about a comedian: Nothing kills a joke faster than having to explain it. The films are the high-lights; they are punctuated by explorations of Chaplin's relationships with the women in his life, starting with his Mother (eerily played by Geraldine Chaplin, the person's real grand-daughter!), then his lost loves, whether by his own design or by his inability to maintain a love greater than his own. This is interrupted by the lamest of devices—going over the autobiography with his ghost-writer (Anthony Hopkins), in a kind of literary psychiatric session. They amount to repeated episodes of the aging Chaplin clinging to his fantasies and the writer calling "Bull-shit," once literally.

This may be a convenient way to film in the blanks, but it also splinters the narrative force. Are we to believe Charlie, the biographer, or what we see with our own eyes being represented? And as the subject is a film-maker, it's a bit like falling down a rabbit-hole of fun-house mirrors. Who do you trust? The end-result is taking none of it very seriously, as Attenborough can't resist speeding up some episodes in a representation of silent film techniques. Nothing is real. A little contrary for a biography.

Then, the tone is so heavy. Starting with a title sequence of Chaplin taking off his "Tramp" make-up (exposing the real man, get it?) to a melancholy score by John Barry, that would be more suited for a funeral, the film never gives up the tone of self-important tragedy that ultimately swamps the movie and any good feelings that one might have for Chaplin, the man, his work or the movie.

But, every dark cloud has a silver lining. In the case of Chaplin, it is its star, Robert Downey, Jr. Downey was a once-removed member of "The Brat Pack," the coterie of young actors who buzzed through Hollywood in the late 70's and 80's, appearing in ensemble pieces by John Hughes and other directors. Appearances in his father's films, a couple of featured roles and a disastrous stint on "Saturday Night Live" offer no hint of the disciplined, exemplary work he brings to the title role, eerily evoking the look—especially the smile of Chaplin—and, most amazingly, pulling off the physical comedy—Chaplin's particularly physical comedy—the role required. He was honored with his first Oscar nomination (losing to Al Pacino's first Oscar win for Scent of a Woman.), but, after Chaplin, Downey's performances would turn more physical, quick-silvered and nuanced, paving the way for a universal respect for his craft that even an errant personal life couldn't derail. Downey's evocation is the one reason to watch Chaplin, rather than, say, reading about him...or better yet, watching the man's films.

The immigrant looks upon the Promised Land: Robert Downey Jr. as Charlie Chaplin 
looks at a strip of this new medium, film, left on the cutting room floor. 
Of course, the footage is of him.

* Gandhi beat out E.T., the Extra-Terrestrial for Best Picture that year. I understand the Academy's hesitancy to give the statue for an alien combination of Shane and Lassie, but no amount of prestige attached to a project can replace a film's status years after the fact. This one was a mistake. And short-sighted, replacing typical Awards reverence for "prestige," rather than popularity or endurance.

Hollywoodland

This was written at the time of the film's release, when Ben Affleck once played "Superman" of a type. I've only walked out of two movies—the Eddie Murphy/Dudley Moore so-called comedy Best Defense...and this one. I can tolerate a lot, evidently. But I have my limits. As I recall, I labeled this movie "a waste of time."

All reviews are personal; they are opinion, after all, shaped by life and experience. This one seems more personal than most. I should avoid doing that.

Fearful Symmetry

It's been a long time since I'd seen a new movie--the last was Superman Returns--and I'd compiled a short list in my mind of films I wanted to see, and should, as the Holiday Movie Season was galumphing closer. Hollywoodland—another "Superman" movie of sorts—was the first released on the list, and by coincidence it was playing at the Uptown Theater on lower Queen Anne just a couple of blocks from where my business' post office box is.

I'd been following the movie's production process for years. Kyle McLachlan was attached, then not. It was greenlit, then not. "Snake-bit" was more like it. It was based, supposedly, on the investigation into the George Reeves' (TV's winking "Superman" in the 50's) suicide, which had more than enough "urban legends" attached to it to make an interesting idea for a movie. Besides, I liked Reeves. And his co-workers 'descriptions of him belied the depressed suicide scenario that was the accepted explanation.

But if you're looking for answers, Hollywoodland gives you none. What it gives you is a shabby L.A. P.I. (Adrian Brody) late of studio security (nice angle, that), asked by Reeve's mother (Lois Smith) to investigate her son's death. She doesn't know who did it, but it can't be her shining baby boy. Also, true, supposedly.

At that point, the movie goes awry. As investigator Louis Simo (who never really convinces you of "competence") goes over the details of Reeve's life, we are given the usual trope—the big break in Gone with the Wind that never pans out, "B" movie existence, the dalliances, the affair with the wife of Eddie Mannix, "Superman" and its career-killing effects, the From Here to Eternity disappointment (cut from the final print because the presence of TV's "Superman" was considered a distraction—which is fiction, evidently) and the ultimate feeling that his career had dead-ended on a kid's show. Fortunately (and yes, its a surprise to say this), Reeves is embodied terrifically by Ben Affleck, who manages to convey Reeves' "nice guy" casualness with a "bad-boy" swagger that never trashes Reeves, but emphasizes the charm. Affleck becomes Reeves, to the complement of both. If only the rest of the movie did as much research....

Reeves' "Superman" is shown flying with ropes. Uh...no. Didn't happen. Yes, he had accidents, but not like depicted (stage hands hauling a suspended Reeve around a dilapidated studio for flying scenes makes a funny, sad scene but it's just not true). Also, they hedge their bets on the suicide angle by having the "Superman" series cancelled (celebrated by Reeves with a bonfire of the vanities, burning his "Super-suit" on the barbecue--really, they'd let him have that?) when, in fact, "Superman" was about to go back into production with several episodes to be directed by Reeves. Suicide is a bit harder to swallow when a guy's got career possibilities ahead of him. That aside, the movie also starts hedging its bets with the investigator's story--the deeper he digs, the more resistance he gets, the more determined he becomes to find "the answer" (Detective Movie 101), his personal life starts to disintegrate, he starts to drink, and act stupidly--and I began to hear faint echoes that indicated the screenwriter'd been dipping into Robert Towne's "Chinatown" script. Hmmm.

I could see where this was going--in the course of the detective's backslide, two possible scenarios of Reeves' death are played out as murder, but as the ersatz detective starts to spiral down into depression and drink it's only a matter of screen-time before he inevitably reaches that place where he would see it as natural for Reeves to commit suicide. The only surprise left in the movie being whether he follows Reeves in the death-wish.

Now, earlier in the day, I had gone to a luncheon held by the temp agency I was working for and they gave me a little certificate for exemplary work—I'd been reviewed well and recommended for recognition. It was all very nice, but I couldn't help but dismiss it. This isn't the work I do. It's not work I love. I do it well, but I do it to make money. That's all. And in this sort-of telling of the Reeves story, that's exactly where he was, too. Stuck playing Superman, unable to do anything else because of it—hopelessly typecast and no prospects (in this telling of the story) for the future. I could relate. Too well. And as if to put a sick little bow on the paralleling, I had received at this luncheon a tee-shirt from the agency for my service...with a quasi-Superman logo on the chest of it--I was a "VOLT Superstar." Huh. It all felt a little too close. And watching the characters on-screen spiral to oblivion wasn't helping much.

I checked my phone. Three calls. I should return them. I got up from my chair in the dark and headed for the lobby. I obviously had better things to do with my life and it was best that I get on with it. I walked out of the theater and outside into the sunshine.

Man of Steel

Written at the time of the film's release.

Zod It
or
The Never-Ending Battle (No, Really. The Never-Ending Battle)

Marvel Comics' film division has so saturated the movie market that its Direct Competition, DC Comics looks like a 98-pound weakling by comparison. Oh, they did well with Christopher Nolan's "Dark Knight" Batman series (very well), but the Warners film version of Green Lantern was a little dim. So, if they put out any more product, they'd better do it right, or be seen as also-ran's. And the one they HAVE to nail is the DC super-star and cornerstone, Superman. The Last Son of Krypton debuted in comics in 1938, has been on-screen since the Fleischer cartoon days of 1942, a radio series since 1940, on television since 1952, and the big screen since 1980 (ushering the current glut of superhero movies). Superman has had several iterations since, especially on television, starting with George Reeves, then "Lois and Clark," then "Smallville." Much tribute has been paid the last few years to the movie version starring Chris Reeve—he even appeared on "Smallville" a few times before his death—and Bryan Singer's attempted re-boot, Superman Returns, was a slavish recreation with better technology, that, in retrospect, was so slavish, it was a little creepy.

The rumor is Warner Brothers HAD to make a Superman movie or pay out a healthy sum to the family of Jerry Siegel, the characters' co-creator, and coincidentally, David Goyer gave Christopher Nolan a great idea for how to handle Superman while they were making The Dark Knight Rises. Nolan wants to direct other things besides super-heroes, so he brought in Zack Snyder (300, Watchmen) to do the film, and in some ways its a good choice. Snyder knows how to bring comic books to the big screen, transposing the static images to a hyper-dramatic movement, even if he sometimes misses the point of what those stories are saying. The trick was making a GOOD Superman movie—even the Reeve ones corroded after a few years—out of an essentially "old-fashioned" character that is powerful enough that it is a challenge to come up with worthy opponents (on a budget, that is). What can you do with Superman that hasn't already been done? How do you present it/him? Is he Moses or Hercules? Christ or Pro-Wrestler? There have been lots of interpretations over the last 75 years, and Nolan-Goyer-Snyder have snatched quite a few of them to their purposes.

Lets talk about what's good about Man of Steel: they're no slavish interpretations: on Krypton, there are no gleaming towers, head-bands, or crystal palaces, but instead an interesting steel-chrome re-imagining, with no plastic in sight (even their view-screens are pointilated metal images), with no clean architectural lines but re-engineered as if by Frank Geary. Superman's suit is more rococo than Ringling Brothers. 

Casting is uniformly excellent: yes, Laurence Fishburne makes a great Perry White; Amy Adams a spunky, no-nonsense (for once) Lois Lane; and Henry Cavill is empathetic as the many identities of alien Kal-El, preternaturally handsome, almost beautiful, and alarmingly ripped, he never winks, acts cute, and plays it straight and un-ironically, with maybe a little too much furrow in his brow. Russell Crowe's Jor-El is a bit more of an action-figure this time, which seems unnecessary, and Ayelet Zurer has much more to do as Lara than just cry and fret. Kal-el's Earth foster parents, the Kents, are marvelous, both Diane Lane and Kevin Costner, but especially Costner, whose Jonathan Kent is a moral force to be reckoned with, fully aware that his son is not only a special-needs child, but a sociological game-changer, the answer to "we're not alone in the Universe" and all the potential for panic and fear that his very existence might produce. Costner's been waiting in the wings doing good, unsentimental character work in smaller movies, shucking his ego, for many years for the opportunity to do something this good and remind people that, yeah, he's a good, clever, disciplined actor capable of great things.

One of the best things about Man of Steel is its cast, 
including Kevin Costner as Superman's Earth Dad.

The other thing that gave me great hope for Man of Steel was its re-interpretation of the whole "growing up super" problem. Kal-El/Clark Kent grows up with a gradually increasing set of powers—in class one day, he freaks out because he can see the skeletons of all his classmates, a cacophony of sounds from miles around threaten to split his skull, he runs to isolate himself in (as by media tradition) a broom-closet, and when the teacher threatens to open the door, he zaps it with heat-vision. He can't tell people what's going on—Dad's orders—but he has to learn to deal with being different and suppress it, even to the disservice of others. It's the "gift or curse" dilemma, which has been touched on before in the mythos, but never to this extent. 

And the other nifty thing is that more than any other "Super"-movie, this one is more science-fiction oriented, it's an alien invasion movie that "Superman" just happens to star in, and be the chief target for. And there is a concerted effort to make this "THE moment" when Clark becomes Superman. Here, Kent's been going from one job to another for years, hiding from society, and when Super-Opportunity rears its ugly head, he moves on, lest he be found out (it's also the impetus to introduce Lois Lane, who happens to stumble on this urban legend of a "mysterious stranger" and, reporter that she is, tracks him down). But, that "alien threat" text is a great way to keep Superman under wraps,* dealing with the anonymity, and bringing Lane into it. There's great potential there, as the one person who exposes to the people of Earth that there are "aliens among us," is the picture's chief villain, Krypton's General Zod.

And this is where the movie gets into trouble.  Not that Zod isn't a great character. Genetically-engineered—the Kryptonian way—to be a soldier, he stages a coup in the last days of Krypton in a misguided attempt to keep Krypton "pure." He finds the naturally-birthed Kal-El repellent, Jor-el a traitor, and is single-mindedly determined to return Krypton to its proper way. And as spewed by Michael Shannon (who's terrific here, but then he's always terrific), he is a seriously deranged megalomaniac. And although his plans are simple, his means of doing them are so complex,** they tend to bog the movie down, leading to the worst problem with the film—it's ultimately dull and tedious.

We all remember Superman II—with Terence Stamp as General Zod—and the extended fight between Christopher Reeves' Superman and the three Kryptonian criminals which, while good for its time, seemed to be merely a bunch of fighting Cirque De Soleil wire-work. This time, it's the way it's imagined in the comics, super-fast, punching, punching, punching, the combatants sending each other crashing through buildings and skidding across pavement to screw themselves up and go at each other again...over and over and over again.

Comics-geeks (including me) have always wanted to see this, it's a dream-nightmare come true, but like Hitchcock's retort to why his characters never go to the police ("because it's bo-oring" and then proved it in Psycho), it's too much of the same thing, no matter how much collateral damage is being inflicted, it becomes as dull as a "Transformers" movie—one shouldn't be looking "up in the sky" by rolling their eyes. 

Someone once expressed a dissatisfaction with "super-hero" movies because Hollywood has turned them from adventure stories to war stories, and the ante is being upped to the point of unsustainability and sameness. It's the familiar (in recent story-challenged movies) city-calving carnage, but just in different costumes, and if film-makers are going to keep trying to tap this dry well, they need to come up with unique stories besides battles royale, ones suited to the particular characters (and not particularly the villains').

And that's where Man of Steel ultimately fails—the screenwriters let the character down. What sets Superman apart is he IS so pure, his intentions are the best, he's "the big blue boy scout," with a moral compass that's been set on both Krypton and Earth, the best of both worlds. Here, Superman makes choices for his adopted home-world that should scare the bejesus out of its citizens, and they're made about twenty minutes of destruction (and how many unseen lives) too late. Forget the considerable property damage sustained—whole city blocks are turned to scrap, buildings collapse, with I'm sure lots of people crushed in the rubble—his ultimate action and the timing of it, is just not what The Man of Tomorrow represents in any of its incarnations. The filmmakers negate what makes the character of Superman so special in that one act, making the character just another guy with too much power in a suit, and not a very good guy at that.*** 

Lots of good things here, but lots of bad things as well, and I argued back and forth with myself over what to rate this, but just because of the tedium factor I chose what I chose, so one could fast-forward—like a speeding bullet—through the never-ending battles.

Direct dialogue grab from Grant Morrison's (and Frank Quitely's) "All-Star Superman"

* The TV-series "Smallville" did a similar thing, hiding "Supes'" as "The Blur," but Clark Kent stayed illogically stationary as a target.

** In fact, it's the same story-line of the recent story-arc "H'el on Earth" that spanned through the comics last year.

*** It's not like the filmmakers don't know it, they're preaching it throughout the entire movie.  In fact, at one point, Kal-el surrenders to the military as part of Zod's ultimatum to Earth.  He sits in an interview room, placidly, in hand-cuffs, the allowance of which is brought up by reporter Lane.  His explanation and one of the best lines in the movie:  "Well, it wouldn't be much of a surrender if I didn't..."