Man of Steel Review: Is Superman still relevant?

Superman is a difficult character to crack, story wise. There isn't a person on the planet over a certain age who hasn't heard or seen some version of it at some point in their lives. Even if they aren't superhero fans, you can say the word Superman and most people know exactly who he is. Making him new and interesting then is nearly impossible. People have done it with vary degrees of success over the years, but the character always manages to gain new fans of some kind with each new incarnation.

More recently, his relevance has been called into question as many of his main stay stories and motives become less and less embraced by the general public. Finding a way to deal with them has become a benchmark of his writers in recent years. He is an indestructible, God-like figure that stands above us. Why is Lois Lane such an idiot, I mean, a pair of glasses, really? There is no real sense of danger because he never has a villain powerful enough to hurt him.

Thankfully, all of these issues are addressed in Man of Steel. He doesn't stand above humanity, he stands with it. People don't stand around waiting for him to save them. Lois Lane is intelligent and compassionate. Superman gets to let loose against an enemy that can give him a run for his money. All this and more is in a movie that portrays a truly modern take on the Man of Steel.

This is not to say that it is a perfect film. A lot of what gets "fixed" in Man of Steel are things that long time fans of the character will miss and complain about. Some of the elements that are great about the telling of his origin story get glossed over rather than explored in depth. There is very little exposition in the movie and what there is often gets woven into the main story, which can either hurt or help depending on how you approach it.

Ultimately though, I think that the character has truly been brought into the 21st century and it is about damn time. Man of Steel is an honest portrayal of the Superman mythose that proves his relevance to a new generation. Those that are concerned about Christopher Nolan's influence making Man of Steel a dark and gritty version have nothing to fear. As he said in some interviews early on, Superman is not Batman, dark and gritty doesn't work for a character who is supposed to be a symbol of hope.

It absolutely shows that Nolan took a hands off approach to Superman and let Zack Snyder, a man known for his visual effects mastery, take the lead the way a good director should. It is a bright, colorul film which is exactly what it needed to be. That being said, maybe it was seeing it in 3D but the color tones seemed a little to gray for my tastes. Contrast is a good thing people.

Also, be on the look out for what might be an easter egg for the sequel that is already rumored to be in the works. I won't spoil it for you, but if anything were a sign that might be it. It's extremely subtle and it is not in the end credits so you don't have to sit through them like you do during a Marvel film.

Henry Cavill is fantastic as Superman/Clark Kent. Amy Adams gives Lois Lane a sense of depth and honesty to her that makes her more than just Superman's love interest. Laurence Fishburne plays the role of a real editor of a newspaper today which in the story, much like modern day, is not an overpowering force in driving the plot forward. Michael Shannon has finally put Terence Stamp's portrayal of Zod to rest, much like Russell Crowe has with Marlon Brando's Jor-El. I think the cast has finally given us a reason to stop looking back to the 1970s to find a Superman story worth admiring, and a very good reason to start looking forward to the sequel or anything else DC Comics might have up their sleeve.

Is the Man of Steel still relevant? Absolutely, and he has finally joined the rest of the superhero genre in the sun.

Kick-Ass Review: How Kick-Ass can the sequel be?

Sequels can be pretty difficult to pull off. Take a look at films like Back to the Future, The Matrix or Ginger Snaps and you can see that things don’t always work out. Back to the Future 2 was great, The Matrix Reloaded had its issues, and Gingers Snaps 2: Unleashed did well but was handcuffed by a lot of the things that happened in the original film. Superhero sequels can be even worse. Sometimes the original was great and the sequel just can’t measure up. Other times they surpass the original and that makes it difficult for the third film in what ultimately becomes a trilogy.

All you have to do is look at The Dark Knight, Superman 2 or Iron Man 2 for evidence of how things end up. The Dark Knight and Superman 2 were at least better than the original, whereas Iron Man 2 just didn't have what it takes. Of course, part of the reason why Iron Man 2 wasn't what it should be is because it was the backdrop to start setting up The Avengers, and if you read my review you know how I felt about that film. Then you have a film like Kick-Ass, and with the sequel shooting here in Toronto right now, I thought I would take a look back at the original to see where they could go. Kick-Ass was a good film. In an age where superhero films are coming out of the wordwork, Kick-Ass is a commentary on the superhero genre. As a big fan of the superhero genre, I think it was a necessary commentary as well.

To quote a previous blog about the importance of the superhero genre and what they stand for, superheroes are designed to be updated and reinvented for the times they live in. Most of them are not the same as they were when they were created and there are examples of various updates along the way. Superhero films are much the same. They need to examine the world we live in and speak to that. Kick-Ass is the definition of such a film. If you go looking for them, you can find instances where people dressed as superheroes are going around doing work like a realistic superhero would. I can't imagine they do much in the way of actual crime fighting, but they exist. And that is at the heart of a film like Kick-Ass. An every day guy tries to actually make it as a superhero. Unlike the real world versions that are out there, Kick-Ass does in fact do some real crime fighting. There's even a super-villain for them to face but he's a realistic super-villan for today's world.

They use a lot of the traditional building blocks of the genre to tell a new type of story with a very modern angle. It works perfectly for what they are doing because the people involved understand the superhero genre. Mark Millar after all has written for various comic books in the superhero genre and he has been very well received in everything he has done by the fans. So it's no wonder why he is doing so well with his own property. But where does that leave him to go? Can he succeed where many have failed in the past? In interviews he often talks about how he prefers not to do ongoing stories because he gets bored very quickly with them but with this he can see himself doing multiple stories. The sequel then, must be the continuation of that feeling.

Based on the details which have come out regarding Kick-Ass 2, I think he has a lot of room to grow and he might just pull off the second one as well. But that leaves a potential third film becoming ever more perilous. Will he burn out on the second installment and have nowhere to go with the third? Or is he thinking big and held something back for a trilogy? Let's hope he is because I want to see this go well for him and for the actors involved.

How Kick-Ass can the sequel be? It could be really great, but it could also fall flat much like a certain winged avenger from the first film.

Discuss: Why not superhero movies for our up and coming filmmakers?

A short while ago, I posted an article someone wrote that talked about the idea of new and upcoming filmmakers taking on superhero films as a way of financing smaller projects and whether or not that’s a good thing. Many of the details of the article suggest that having filmmakers, up and coming or not, doing superhero movies is a problem. That they should use their success to fuel more independent projects then superhero films. One of the examples given is Darren Aronofsky going from the success of Black Swan into his ultimately canceled participation in The Wolverine, a loosely based sequel to the film X-men Origins: Wolverine.

But why should that matter? If Aronofsky or any other filmmaker who takes on a superhero project is doing so because they care about the material and want to use their independent success on a superhero film, then shouldn’t we let them? Of course, if the filmmakers are only taking on these projects because of the paycheck and don’t really care about the film then I can understand having a problem with it. But the Hollywood system which is creating all these films isn’t really at fault for letting someone take on a project of that magnitude if they believe the filmmaker can do the characters justice.

After all, a superhero project does have enormous potential for the filmmaker in question, and I am not just talking about the paycheck or the box office boom that comes with it if the filmmakers do it properly. In some of my recent blog posts I have spoken about the idea of superheroes as a modern mythology, the idea that there are all kinds of disparate elements to the superhero story that can cross genres and be relevant to even non superhero fans. This has never been more true than in what I am talking about now. Consider for a moment, the idea of Superman. Some look at a character like that and just see an alien with powers and outdated ideals, but I see the ultimate immigrant story.

Superman is the modern retelling of the story of Moses. A child set among the intergalactic river to live with a new family, who grows up and develops incredible powers to set people free from the pain and suffering they go through every day. Batman is the story of Hamlet, a man struck by tragedy that swears vengeance against the person or people who destroyed his father and ends up consumed by it. Spiderman in some ways is a combination of both. The stories of Moses and Hamlet are considered by many to be universal truths. Why not then their modern equivalents?

Many comic books have dealt with a story similar to that of Black Swan, yet Aronofsky should be praised for one and looked down upon for another? This goes back to the bias or stereotype which some filmmakers have about the potential for superheroes or comic books in modern storytelling, a problem which largely comes out of the fact that these films have to come from Hollywood because they are too big to be played out anywhere else. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. To point this out, I need only to paraphrase a quote from Joss Whedon, a man who not only created one of the biggest films of all time and a monster at the box office, but during his spare time in the filming of which he directed and self-financed a film in 12 days based on Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing.

“The film industry has become very much about the big budget blockbuster or the small indie film, there isn’t really an in between anymore. There is no real middle ground, and I’m cool with that. I love doing both.”

And so I say, why not superhero movies for our up and coming filmmakers?

'Superman: Man of Steel', is he still the Man of Tomorrow?

People have been talking lately about the superhero genre of films. Is it the blockbuster it used to be? Does it still have a place to go with the recent success of 'The Avengers' and 'The Amazing Spiderman', not to mention the projected success of the upcoming final chapter of Christoper Nolan's Dark Knight legend in 'The Dark Knight Rises'.

It's natural to wonder if the genre has risen too fast too soon. If it has, then is it headed for a fall? And nowhere is that question being asked more then with the uncertainty of the new Superman film, 'Man of Steel'. The hero has long been regarded as past his prime, that in a world of morally grey decisions there's no room for 'Truth, Justice and The American Way'. But is that actually true or is it just part of the narrative that people have told themselves to justify their love of heroes like Batman, Spiderman and other, often referred to as 'more flawed' heroes, superheroes?

Time and time again Superman and his alter ego Clark Kent have proven people wrong. From his numerous interpretations in the comics, to television and film, he has risen from the ashes of the popularity of other heroes to be the greatness he was born into.

In my last blog post, I wrote about the difference between the Sam Raimi Spiderman films and the more recent Marc Webb interpretation. That the character, like most superheroes, is reinvented for the generation that is watching him. As a big fan of the superhero genre I do my best to keep away from spoilers about the films before I see them, but every so often little details are hard to avoid. One non-spoiler type detail that has come out which has me believing that he has been given the 'Spiderman treatment' is the fact that the war on Krypton will be a major feature of the film.

Why is this significant? Just take a look at the world today, more specifically, America. After nearly a decade of war, most of the world is tired of war. We have an entire generation who has grown up in the shadow of a divisive and destructive war that will shape the world for generations to come. And here we have a Superman who was born out of war but whose guiding principles are those of peace.

Born of war to be the champion of peace. If ever there was a need for such a man, now is the time for him to rise. Of course, I have no idea if this is in fact the approach they are taking, but given the track record of the people involved to keep the stories they tell relevant to the times and the people they are telling it to, I don't know that why they wouldn't go there.

Is Superman the Man of Tomorrow? Absolutely.

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