I just have to squee about the movie!
It wasn't the best movie I've ever seen but it was solid. And it's Superman.
Many posters have already commented upon things, and I'll probably be repeating. Bear with me.
I liked that they had a whole lot more of Krypton than usual. The movie did a good job of showing an alien culture, an alien landscape, different and alien ways of living. The flying insectoid personal transports were just so "out there" it was neat. I wonder if every Kryptonian citizen gets a personal flying animal, or do you have to be an eminent scientist to do so? And do all families live in these towering defensive citadels? If Krypton is so advanced, how come Jor-El and Lara's dwelling had intruder repelling technology?
Usually, in Superman movies, Krypton is mentioned in passing, or not shown at all. OK, well, maybe they show it, but they tend to just show it
exploding . I believe that so far, every TV show or movie has had a flashback to Krypton's destruction.
Here\'s the version from \'Smallville\' . I'm too lazy to dig up the ones from the animated series (although I know it happened) and from "SR" (actually, did they have Krypton's destruction in there, or just the remnants?)
/returns from irrelevant tangent/ Anyway, it was a nice change to see so much of Krypton. And it turns out to very important to the movie, which is very much focused on Clark fitting in, trying to balance his Kryptonian nature with his Earth nurture.
Agreement with those above who argued that Jonathan Kent was just not right in this film. As (whoever) said, it's like Clark became Superman not because of him, but in spite of him. I can't ever see the L&C Jonathan telling Clark (basically) that he should have let those kids on the bus die to protect Clark's secret. i just
can't believe that they had Jonathan even suggest that! All through the Superman mythos, J&K have been stalwart in suggesting that Clark save lives, even if it blows his secret. Sure, they'd prefer that Clark keep his powers on the down low, but if it came down to people getting killed, we know which way they'd go and what they would teach Clark to do.
Perhaps that's why the writers had Jonathan Kent die in such a manner as he did on the show - Clark not using his powers, not showing what he could do, even at the expense of his adopted father's life. (And I have to agree with the previous posters that the set-up was lame, very lame.
The family dog? Come on!
With the killing, Clark's innocence is lost. Does this correlate to America of the 1930's and post-WWII, when we were the good guys (Superman not killing) and now we are doing some ethically dubious things (pick the political program of your choice)? Have we, the country, lost our innocence as well?
OK, no more of that. Going back to movie talk: I agree with all the posters who pointed out that Clark is really not doing much to keep the secret identity going. Let's see:
- rescues a bus as a kid
- saves a bunch of people on a going-up-in-flames Arctic oil rig (which I had to admit was a great action scene) in full view of tons of people
- tells the Army colonel that he grew up in Kansas
- tells somebody else that he's been on Earth for 33 years
- leaves a trail of miraculous rescues (I like this, it's sort of like our LnC Clark) where he has to move on because people are getting suspicious
- the alien spaceship lands in Smallville, in
his mother's backyard! Gee, do you think that people might want to backtrack where the alien ship landed, and draw conclusions about why it landed where it did?
Plus, the government could just check the metadata on Lois Lane's phone calls and GPS in her phone (given that they've got that data collection program going on in real life
) and find out where she's been. If they suspect that Lois Lane knows Superman's civilian identity (which they will, given that the FBI arrested her on suspicion of this in the first part of the movie), why wouldn't they go back and trace her movements? That would narrow down their search significantly.
Look at the intelligence effort expended on the Boston Marathon bombings. Can you tell me that tracking down an alien (ok, the alien on our side, but still an alien with astounding powers and a member of a race who almost destroyed the Earth) wouldn't gather the same or more effort?
Maybe Clark had better deploy some Kryptonian technology to confound his searchers.
Things I didn't like, or got tired of:
- there was an
absolutely insane amount of property destruction
- what about all the people that got killed when Metropolis got to be the unwilling host of a super-battle?
(I'm just hoping that everyone evacuated in time.
Things I really liked:
- the swirl of the cape when Clark is walking in the Arctic
- Lois finding out on her own, and tracking Clark down before he's "out" as Superman. It shows that she deserves her Pulitzer Prize. She's not galactically stupid; she's the one who finds out things first.
- Clark getting up from the interrogation table and casually breaking the handcuffs
- the colonel saying "This man is not our enemy"
- the communication tech in the war room - "They're calling him Superman now" (but we know that Lois said it first in the interrogation room, she just got interrupted)
- Clark Kent with his tousled hair and glasses being introduced as a new stringer for the Daily Planet
- and best of all, because I hope for sequels, Lois Lane meeting Clark Kent's eye and saying, "Welcome to the Planet" or was it, "Welcome to the planet"? I like the double meaning there. A great way to end the movie.
