It's basically a slow week at the movies; I have no plans of seeing Fast and Furious 6 or The Hangover III or of spending money on repeat viewings, so instead I'll muse on the movies that I intend to see in the upcoming months. I start with Man of Steel, which is due out this June.
I was only three years old when the first Superman movie came out in 1978, so I did not catch it in movie theaters, but I do remember watching Superman II, from which Zack Snyder's upcoming Superman reboot draws some characters and story elements, and how cool it was at the time. Superman was my first big screen superhero, and though I have grown to favor Marvel's heroes, both on the printed page and the silver screen, over those of DC, I have never forgotten Superman's stature as the granddaddy of all superheroes.
As an icon, Superman arguably deserves an update like fellow old-timers James Bond and Jim Kirk, and like his fellow superheroes Batman, Spider-Man and even Iron Man, a living, breathing film franchise. From the look of the trailers of Man of Steel, it looks like he'll be getting both.
Warner Brothers seriously dropped the ball with Superman Returns for a number of reasons, the first and arguably the most of obvious being that as a direct sequel to a movie released in 1980, it didn't make an ounce of sense considering that it was quite obviously set in 2006. Director Bryan Singer was so enamored with the first two films that rather than try to put his own stamp on the character and the material he tried to make something that would stand as a companion to these films, something that simply didn't work. Singer's film came up with some pretty astonishing visuals, and to my mind, had SR been more memorable as a whole, the shot of a bullet bouncing off Superman's eye would have been downright iconic.
In making Man of Steel the folks at Warner Brothers have finally come to recognize that the best way to show reverence to the first two Superman movies is to leave them alone and start anew. They did exactly that with Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy, which completely departed from Tim Burton's well-received take on Batman, and are doing so again here.
I'm not without my reservations over this new film; the de-saturated, bluish tint I've seen in a lot of the scenes seems to suggest that Superman's gotten a "darker" treatment, which is the last thing the character needs, but as the trailers have gradually come to show more and more material I've gone from being cautiously optimistic to highly enthusiastic. What I think I'm seeing here is a slightly more "grounded" Superman, or at least, as "grounded" as a guy from space who flies, can shoot beams from his eyes, and has super strength can get.
One of the things that that really strikes me about this film is Russell Crowe's somewhat majestic rendition of Superman's doomed father Jor-El. This is the perfect role for Crowe as he nears his 50s and with all due to respect to the late Marlon Brando, Crowe's Jor-El looks far more convincing as a father of a superhuman than Brando did. The costume design, from Superman's briefs-free outfit to the clothes of the Kryptonians, designed by Spider-Man costume designer James Acheson, looks like a somewhat welcome update as well from the outfits worn by Marlon Brando and Terence Stamp many years ago. I'm also eager to see more of Amy Adams' take on Lois Lane; while I'm not entirely happy she didn't dye her hair black to be more faithful to the character, I can easily see her playing the ambitious reporter that Lois has always been, and can even overlook the fact that she kind of looks her age (which is seven years older than that of Henry Cavill, who plays Superman, for whom she is supposed to be a love interest), and a character as well-known as Lois Lane certainly deserves not only a performer with acting chops but an attractive one, and unlike Kate Bosworth and Margot Kidder before her, Adams definitely brings both to the table. Cavill is a little more of a question mark for me, but he looks pretty convincing in the red and blue tights, and that's good enough for now.
All told, while I'm still basically a Marvel guy, Man of Steel is now one my most highly-anticipated films for this year.
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