I SHOULD BE A FILM CRITIC!

MAN OF STEEL (2013)
Starring Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Kevin Costner, Diane Lane, Laurence Fishburne & Russell Crowe
Directed by Zack Snyder
Written by David S. Goyer
Produced by Christopher Nolan, Charles Roven, Emma Thomas & Deborah Snyder
Cinematography by Amir Mokri
Music by Hans Zimmer
Edited by David Brenner

Able to change broken light bulbs in a single bound!

   Hello, hello dear readers (if I have any left at this point), I am happy to report that I AM BACK! I know my absence might have been distressing to all of you who stood so steadfastly by my movie reviews (of course, this notion is completely hypothetical on my part), but you can now finally ease that void in your troubled minds. And while it certainly plagues the guilt glands of my brain-parts for not writing a review in so damn long, I’m gonna go ahead and argue that my little break was justified. For one thing, I had all sorts of things happening with my other, more pressing aspect of existence (being a fledgling full-time musician) and for another thing, there just simply weren’t any movies I was overly interested in seeing so far this year. Oh sure, there were minor interests here or there. Iron Man 3, for example – though I thoroughly disliked its predecessor – looked like it would be an enjoyable return to form for the franchise; I still haven’t seen it.  Star Trek Into Darkness looked mildly interesting, especially since I liked the first one a lot, but it still wasn’t enough to entice me out of my comfy home to plunk down $10 (or more!!!) for a movie ticket – plus, I heard pretty lackluster things about it. Frankly, nothing this year has really excited me as a movie-goer so far – if anything, this year’s releases have just added to my increasingly cynical view of the movie industry and the state of modern cinema. Now I admit, one movie I did go see in mainstream theaters this year was The Great Gatsby – but despite Baz Luhrmann’s, Leo’s and Jay-Z’s hyperbolic attempts to utterly enthrall my senses, it wasn’t nearly worthy of penning a lengthy rant to throw onto the internet. And so, the quest went on ever more to locate the prime time to start my 2013 moviegoing experience proper.

   Unfortunately, I decided to start my 2013 here. I wasn’t excited to see Man of Steel, the latest superhero reboot in the long, uncomfortably ever-growing line of superhero reboots, and I’ll tell you the exact reason why: I am fucking SICK of these goddamn superhero movies already. Yeah, I know – they’re “exciting” and whatnot. They’re based on comic books. And everyone knows that comic books are COOOOL! But the growing market trend that X-Men popularized in the year 2000 has (ironically) mutated into American cinema’s hideously gaudy and over-reliant crutch just 13 long, uninspired years later. Seriously, these fuckin’ superhero movies have gotten SO out of hand. Reboots of reboots, endless sequels, one offs that didn’t deserve to be made in the first place (The Green Hornet) keep plaguing the American cinemascape, and the hapless masses keep going to see ‘em cuz….well, they keep makin’ em! And yes, I know Iron Man and The Avengers are pretty cool movies, and there have admittedly been some pretty killer entries along the way…but what I’m saying is, there’s an obvious lack of true cinematic progression happening in this current era of popular filmmaking, and it’s being traded in for name brand value and simple marketability – names like Spider-Man, Iron Man, Batman, Superman, and the like. Yes, we love our heroes – all the characters I just mentioned are inarguable landmarks in pop culture history. But you people have to be able to see the pandering, bottom-of-the-barrel money grubbing going on here! Movies are about escapism for sure, but they’re also about pushing the boundaries of social norms, expressing the truths of what it is to be a human, and other deep shit like that. Escapism is certifiably fine for a certain time and place, but the excessive amount of boneheaded CGI escapism currently running rampant on countless screens across America while REAL problems keep happening all around us has just become grossly extravagant and gratuitous. After an exciting, engaging and genuinely surprising year for cinema in 2012, 2013 seems to have instantly reared back to the horrid 2011 mindset of Sequels and Superheroes…and this is precisely why I had no desire to participate in any part of the bloated big-budget lineup for movies to be released in the first half of this year.

General Zod, accurately demonstrating my own “look, another comic book movie” face.

   Of course, all that being said, my first movie review of 2013 is of a superhero movie. Why? Well, because I get masochistic when I get guilty, my friends. No literally, I decided to see Man of Steel as a punishment to myself for not writing a single movie review so far this year – I didn’t want to see it, but some part of my being was telling me I had to. After reading and hearing many unimpressed and/or scathing reviews from numerous, personally reliable sources, I generally pieced together that Man of Steel is a blundering, emotionally inept and misguided reimagining of the Superman mythos, designed to be “darker” and “more serious” in tone, à la producer Christopher Nolan’s own Batman films. Now, the only thing left to do was watch it and see if I was right.

   And boy, was I ever!!! Man of Steel, I’m sorry to report, is a narratively underwhelming and tonally vacuous exercise in “epic storytelling”…meaning, it tries to be “dark” like certain other superhero movies while incorporating one of the most obscene and inexcusably over-the-top climaxes in recent memory. Goddamn, did I utterly dislike this oblivious film. Never before have my already dirt-low expectations of a film been so utterly lived up to and – if it’s possible – maybe even surpassed. Man of Steel is a plodding, annoyingly shot, mediocrely acted, laughably simplistic, product placement-laden chore of a film to watch, a supreme butt-number if I’ve ever experienced one. Zack Snyder, the director of such comic book-inspired films as 300 and Watchmen, completely misses the mark in trying to combine those comic book film aesthetics with “real movie” ones. The result is a confusingly serious-toned yet ludicrously unrealistic comic book-styled action flick which inevitably leaves a contradictory and confusing imprint on the minds of the audience watching it.

Curiously missing: the scene where they strip Superman naked and make him walk on all fours while wearing a leash. (Too soon?)

   So we might as well start at the start, with Superman’s homeworld of Krypton blowing up and his parents sending him off into the universe to eventually land upon our planet and be heralded as a savior of mankind. We all know the story, because it’s been pounded into our collective heads over and over again since Superman made his debut in 1938. The first 20 minutes of the film take place on Krypton, where some asshole named General Zod (played by Michael Shannon) stages a coup against the leadership of the planet for putting it in its current apocalyptic situation. Krypton’s head scientist/Supe’s daddy, Jor-El (played by Russell Crowe) takes this chaotic opportunity to steal Krypton’s genetic codex, which holds the genetic material for the future children of Krypton, due to Zod’s (assumed) plan to control which bloodlines are continued on into the future. (All Kryptonian children are “grown” in little pods instead of being naturally born, à la The Matrix.) This pisses Zod off, and he chases Jor-El throughout the deteriorating planet as he makes his way to the place where he plans to blast his newly born son and the rest of the genetic material off into the stratosphere. (Wow, that almost sounds dirty.) Jor-El succeeds, of course, but not before being killed by Zod, who is in turn captured by the remainder of Krypton’s elites and sent away to the “Phantom Zone”…which makes a lot of sense, because sending a dangerous criminal AWAY from his planet which is currently being destroyed when he could just be kept there and killed along with everybody else is clearly the best course of action for everybody. Also, if they have the technology to send horrible criminals off into Phantom Zones, why don’t they just all evacuate the planet instead of staying there and dying like dumbasses? Anyway, little Supie’s pod jettisons to and lands on our planet, where all the limp magic desperately conjured by this movie’s opening scenes can die a horrible death.

   Now, I should point out that at this point of the film, I was actually enjoying it for the most part. And since I’m using this point of the review to point out something I liked, I’ll point out other points I liked, simply because there will never be another point to point out these enjoyable points beyond this point. Get the point? One thing I noticed was the musical score, which I was actually enjoying at first – it was pretty cool and atmospheric, a bit of a departure from Hans Zimmer’s usual assault on the senses. (The US military is currently doing tests to see if they can effectively weaponize the Inception score.) Of course, the score devolved into usual Zimmeresque grandiosity later, but I was genuinely impressed with the music at first. Then there was another scene later that showed little Superman in class freaking out because all of his extra-sensory powers are overwhelming him at the same time – his X-Ray vision, his super-hearing and etc. are all assaulting his mind like a Hans Zimmer score. It was a pretty nice touch, and I give ‘em some credit there. Also, Russell Crowe did a pretty nice job as Supe’s dad – I’d say it was the strongest performance in the film, actually. I credit this entirely to Crowe though, and his pure acting talent alone, not Snyder’s direction. But that’s about it – this intro is the only part of the film’s actual narrative I truly enjoyed. And sure, Michael Shannon’s performance as Zod was stiff and hammy, and the opening lingered on Krypton for far too long, but as far as spectacle goes, the intro to this movie was pretty neat. Zack Snyder is able to create really engaging and cool-looking scenes when he’s working in his element – that element being computer-generated effects, explosion fueled action scenes and fantastic looking worlds. But once we get down to Earth’s soil and you give him some actors and dialogue in a real-world environment, it starts to become a plodding nightmare. Now, to be fair, Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead remake dealt with real people in real locations and that was a pretty successful movie, but I’m willing to argue that he’s sort of lost his touch with realism after directing 5 films almost entirely filled with CGI backgrounds and effects (one of these being a fully computer-animated film about talking owls or some shit). Now he’s supposed to tell this “nuanced, reality-based” tale and it’s clear he no longer has any business doing such a thing. His lackluster Watchmen adaptation can serve to demonstrate his problems with nuance and subtlety, as well as getting realistic and emotional performances from his actors. Anyway, on with the schlock…

This movie’s called Man of Steel, not Man HOLDING Steel! I want my fucking money back.

   So we make it down to Earth, and the film begins its pointlessly nonlinear narrative structure, as we jump around to various points of Superman’s life which show that he’s a good dude but just so different and apart from everyone else. He saves a bunch of guys on a burning oil rig, saves his bullying classmates from drowning in a school bus after it careens off a bridge, and is told by his father (portrayed by Kevin Costner, although I use the term “portrayed” loosely) on several occasions how his powers are good and that he’s going to “change the world” someday, even though he encourages his son not to reveal his powers to anyone, ever. Five points for parental consistency there, Johnny. So basically the film takes every opportunity to point out to us just how different and strange Superman is, all the while further hopelessly alienating him from the audience. Let me tell ya something: usually, in a big sci-fi action movie like this, it’s a good idea to try and make your audience relate to your protagonist, not constantly distance us from him. And yes, I know, Superman IS different from all of us, and he IS an alien. But that’s basically the point of Superman, isn’t it? We all KNOW that already! It’s a predetermined trait of his character! Spelling it out for the entirety of the movie does nothing but create an emotional rift between us and the character, and because of this, we cannot get emotionally invested in his script-mandated tortured brooding.

   Speaking of brooding, let me just touch on this point really quick: superheroes DO NOT always have to be tortured, internally suffering assholes in movies – ESPECIALLY if their previously established character does not call for it. Let’s compare this simple-minded trait tacked on to Man of Steel with Chris Nolan’s actual emotionally nuanced Dark Knight trilogy. It makes sense for Bruce Wayne to be a dark, brooding guy filled with inner angst and turmoil, because that’s his character. He’s fuckin’ Batman, for chrissakes! Batman’s parents were murdered in front of him, he uses shadows to his advantage, he dresses up in a black, spooky-looking jumpsuit; the darkness is inherent in his character. Superman is supposed to be a brightly-colored, sunny-dispositional do-gooder who fights for “truth, justice, and the American way.” He’s supposed to inspire hope and strength in people around him, not fear and uncertainty. That’s Batman’s job, because he’s a dark scary dude! Does anybody understand what I’m talking about? What I’m saying here is, the dark, brooding tone of Nolan’s Batman films works there because that is Batman’s character. Simply tacking on that trope to Superman not only alienates us from his character, but is completely contradictory to everything Superman is supposed to represent! Think about all the Superman imagery you’ve ever seen throughout your life, and compare it to all the Batman imagery you’ve seen. Doesn’t really correlate, does it? The movie makes it a point to make everything dark, grey, and dreary-looking. It’s almost always cloudy outside, the cinematography is drab, and worst of all, Superman just looks like a depressed person throughout the entire thing. You can make Superman have real problems, and you can make him have uncertainty, but you DON’T have to make him some boring asshole the whole time to get those points across!

“I’m going to beat you mercilessly with my glaring insecurities.”

   The biggest problem I can point out with Man of Steel are its characters. Beginning with the writing and ending with the performances, the characters in this film are almost entirely flawed. Worst in show definitely goes to Kevin Costner as Superman’s daddy. The scenes with him are so horribly stilted it’s almost implausible. There’s a scene near the beginning where Johnny Kent shows his adopted son the space-pod in which he arrived on our planet, and to me it stood out as the worst acted scene in the entire film. Not only was the kid playing young Superman pretty bad, but Costner just seems to phone in his entire performance. The moment when they embrace and Costner flatly states “You are my son” is such a groaner that it sort of boggles my mind. Was that the best take they had? Also, his character is basically there to constantly remind Superman how he’s meant for great things…seriously, almost every scene he’s in, he tells Supie the same exact thing, pretty much. Even when his character DIES and they’re looking at his grave Superman’s mother says shit like “he always knew you were meant for great things”. We get it, Superman’s destined for great things, STOP SAYING IT EVERY 10 MINUTES. I know this has more to do with the shoddy script and less to do with Costner, but I’m just pissed about the character’s execution in general.

   Also, let’s focus on Amy Adams and her character of Lois Lane for a few moments. Amy Adams is a generally talented actress, but she kind of just goes with the horrid flow in this movie, not really adding any of that spunky charm I’ve seen imbued in the character in previous incarnations. And seriously, what is with her being SO GODDAMN CRUCIAL in this fucking movie? She’s flying around dangerous combat zones with the military when I’m pretty damn sure they wouldn’t let any civilians on board, regardless of how involved they were, Zod requires her presence on his ship with Superman later in the film for NO REASON other than to serve the plot, and she nearly always manages to be around to have expository dialogue delivered to her in any situation. WTF is up with that?! Lois Lane has always just been the nosy yet intrepid reporter who manages to sneak her way into situations and end up being the damsel for Superman to save. And don’t get me wrong, I’m all for making her character a little more involved than that, but not to the point where she’s unnecessarily shoved into scenes to give the audience someone normal to relate to because we’re so alienated from our protagonist. That’s just straying too far into shitty storytelling mode.

I dunno about you, but I think this scene was way more effective when they did it the first time with The Joker in The Dark Knight….

   Ah yes, our protagonist. I’ve already talked about how poorly his character was written, but I want to focus on the new (and British) dude playing Superman, Henry Cavill. Actually, despite my misgivings about the way his character was handled, I didn’t have much of a problem with his performance as Superman. I feel like if he had some better, more fitting material to work with, he could have shined brightly as the iconic American hero. Instead, he has to use his obvious charisma and charm to try and play a tortured, angst-ridden emo guy. I honestly didn’t have any big qualms about his performance, other than the fact it was wasted on such poorly thought-out schlock.  There’s some genuine empathy in his eyes, and you get the feeling he could knock a more proper Superman role out of the park. Poor guy…he’s probably going to catch most of the flack for why this flick is such an exhausting, emotionally cold clunker, but it’s not really his fault…god-awful writing and direction are the primary killers of this piece.

   Not to mention jerky, needlessly handheld camera work. The cinematography in this movie borders on incomprehensible in its execution. I will say that despite the numerous problems with this movie, the general look of the way it was shot is probably the only real thing going for it. There are a lot of pretty-looking shots in this film, but sadly, they only exist for a more deceptive purpose. By focusing on things like socks on a clothesline blowing in the wind, or close-ups of random objects or young Superman’s dog, we’re supposed to get the impression that this movie has deeper or more personal implications than it really does. By utilizing desaturated, art-house styled establishing shots of random things, Zack Snyder thinks he can trick us into emotionally connecting with the characters and story being told, basically on the simple notion that “the imagery is so pretty. This movie must be good!” These duplicitous shots are especially used in scenes like the one of young Superman at home on his farm, playing with his dog. This type of emotional trickery is about the only place where subtlety is exercised in the film, and it’s not for the audience’s benefit, let me tell you. It’s to try and subversively convince the audience that the film they’re watching actually has some artistic value or integrity, to ingrain in us some notion of poetic cinematic composition that isn’t really there. Luckily for all of you, I can see past such cheap tomfoolery, and I can tell you firsthand that there is NO integrity to be had here. To make matters worse, when we’re not being fed sappy, faux-sentimental shots of peaceful households, the camera is almost ALWAYS moving around in a jerky, found-footage-emulating style. Snyder seems to think that the countless shaky-cam shots in his film somehow enhance moments, or give his film a dramatic, first-person sense of immediacy…yet most of the time it’s both highly unnecessary and nausea-inducing. Seriously, WHY DOESN’T THE CAMERA JUST STAY STILL?! There are moments where it’s just close-ups of characters talking and the camera is jerking around like it’s the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan or something. STOP. MOVING. THE CAMERA. We need to be able to comprehend what is going on, not trying to hold in motion-sickness induced vomit.

Wow, look at those amazing special effects.

   I can’t express enough how boneheaded and turgid this movie was. It’s almost insulting how they thought they could force this inept, deceptively heartstring-pulling tripe upon us. I mentioned the overblown, insufferable climax earlier so I guess I’ll talk about that shit now. So basically, Zod has come to Earth in the very ship he was banished in (because once Krypton blew up, Zod and his accomplices’ electronically-controlled shackles were lifted. Glad the Kryptonians thought that shit through so well) and he’s taken Superman into custody under the pretense of sparing the Earth in return. Little does Supes or the Earth know, Zod plans to make Earth the new Krypton with a giant planet-altering machine, and the entire human race is not invited. WHOOPS! So Zod sets up his monstrous device – one part in Metropolis, one part in the Indian Ocean – to start thwomping Earth into New Krypton with gravity or some shit. This causes MASSIVE damage and loss of life in Metropolis, with entire buildings being decimated and humans being visibly crushed and thrown up and down violently by this horrible machine. Snyder makes it a direct point to excessively show the destruction being caused by this device, and it’s pretty gruesome to watch because the entire tone of the film has been this realistic, moody and depressing one. And since we’ve been alienated from our protagonist for so long, we’re projecting ourselves into the position of the people and not Superman. Yeah, so this climax is going pretty well so far. To make matters worse, Superman decides to take out the Indian Ocean half of the death device first, and not the Metropolis half for…..some….reason. I feel like the area of the planet where people are dying by the thousands would sort of be the primary choice, don’t you? Anyways, Superman ends up destroying the device with some kind of convoluted black hole that somehow sucks up only the machine and the evil Kryptonians but not anything else around it. I guess the filmmakers liked the new Star Trek a lot and wanted to incorporate (read: rip-off) their ending into theirs, no matter how out of place it would be.

   Oh, and speaking of incorporate, just really quick I want to point out the obvious product placement and brand-pimping going on in this movie. At one point in the film we see lil’ Supie getting bullied by a kid, and then he saves the bully’s ass (along with the rest of his classmates in the bus incident I mentioned earlier). This kid inevitably winds up as an overweight loser who manages an IHOP later in life (nice touch) and we’re reminded of this numerous times, as Lois Lane finds him at IHOP while trying to track down who Superman is. Then later when Superman is having a destructive battle in his hometown of Smallville (before the climax), he’s thrown through the same IHOP, with the restaurant’s logo clearly displayed. Then they keep cutting back to this irrelevant character in IHOP and we get an impression of how deep Zack Snyder’s pocket must go. There’s also a scene in the climax where they do battle in front of a Sears with its giant logo clearly displayed, then shortly after Superman is tossed through that building as well. A 7-11 is also blown up in this film, and we see its logo, but it’s not featured as prominently as my other two examples. I understand product placement in films – it happens, and it’s no biggie if you find a clever way to incorporate it into the movie. Man of Steel wouldn’t know clever if it actually had a sentient mind capable of comprehending thoughts. The only positive thing I can say about this blatant and shameless commercialism is that the businesses depicted in the film are all implicitly destroyed, so that kind of makes things a little bit better. And maybe that was Zack Snyder’s clever little stipulation for being forced to include product placement in the film or something…although I just may be giving him more credit than he deserves. Whatever the case, it’s still just extraneous and distracting on the overall film, to say the least. Anyways, on with the carnage!

   So after the death machine gets sucked up and a sizeable portion of the city lays in ruin, General Zod is still somehow alive. I honestly can’t remember if he was in the death machine or not when it got sucked up (because it was never made clear), but part of me feels like he was, and that just irritates the fuck out of me. So Zod and Superman exchange some stupid dialogue and Zod attacks, and they continue to fight and continue to destroy MORE of the city as they battle! Seriously, at this point of the movie, I could not have been more bored or uninterested. What, did they want us to care about this drawn out, overly destructive battle? At least when The Avengers had the entire city being destroyed we cared about the characters enough to be distracted from all the carnage and human suffering happening all around. But in this shit, we’re reminded of it every moment with two assholes we don’t care about fighting and causing over-the-top destruction that looks like a horrible nightmare turned real. Also puzzling is the fact we spend pointless time following around some random fucking co-workers of Lois Lane’s (one of them being a tragically miscast and out of place-looking Laurence Fishburne) whom we’ve met only once or twice before, and then watch as they try to escape the horrible things happening all around them. I DO NOT CARE ABOUT THESE PEOPLE. WHO ARE THEY. WHY ARE WE FOLLOWING THEM. WHY DOES MY BRAIN FEEL LIKE A CAT STUCK IN A MICROWAVE. These are thoughts I couldn’t help having during this long, drawn-out battle scene. Also worth mentioning are the HILARIOUS crowd reaction cutaways strewn throughout this fight scene. Everybody looks waaay too calm for what’s happening around them. There are shots with people not even expressing the mildest amount of concern, and there are buildings exploding all around them! I guess when you stage an entire city being destroyed inside a computer and tell some extras to look at nothing but thin air and react to it, you can get some pretty embarrassing shots like that.

Superman feels a little uneasy about letting Lois get anywhere near this weird, kinky S&M alien chick…

   So FINALLY, this monstrosity ends in a train station, whereupon Supes has Zod in a headlock and Zod threatens a helpless family in the corner with his laser eyes. After ignoring Superman’s pleas to desist, Superman cries out and straight up breaks Zod’s fucking neck in order to stop him. No, really. Superman straight up kills this dude. And you can argue that the ends justify the means, but Superman doesn’t just straight murder motherfuckers. EVER. Dude, even fucking Batman doesn’t kill people, no matter how goddamn evil they are! THIS IS A SUPERHERO MOVIE ABOUT SUUUPERMAN!!! Did we really need to see Superman snapping a guy’s neck? Regardless of how much genocide this crazed alien wanted to commit, wouldn’t it have been more in line with traditional Superman morals if he somehow found a way to stop him and preserve his life? Oh but no, we’re not making a “traditional” Superman movie, we’re making a darker, edgier, “updated” version of Superman. So I guess murdering someone when it’s convenient for you is the new “truth, justice and American way.” Great, sounds great. I guess sacrificing character for “intensity” is an acceptable thing to do in movies now.

   Gone are the days when Superman flew around in sunny skies, doing charming things like connecting broken railroad tracks or saving people from burning buildings, or humorously implausible things like flying around the world so fast he reverses the earth’s rotation, and therefore, time itself. Gone are the days of lighthearted adventures and genuine spectacle, filling us with a sense of wonder and awe. Now we have a depressed, angst-ridden, gloomy alien who fails incredibly hard at saving thousands upon thousands of people from being gruesomely (and ridiculously) killed by a murderous genocidal psychopath. Now we have a guy who snaps bad guys’ necks at will, like he’s fucking Rambo or something. Hey do you guys remember what FUN is? Anyone? Can we put some JOY back into our movies? How bout some CHARM, or HUMOR, or any kind of LEVITY in there? Yeah, there were a couple moments in the film where they tried to throw in a little joke (like the American general’s female soldier exclaiming how she thinks Superman is hot), but they were either terrible or completely ineffective at brightening up this overly depressing fiasco of an action flick.

“COME, SON OF JOR-EL! KNEEL BEFORE ZOD!!!……….Snoochie Bootchies! hehehehehehehe”

   Man of Steel, in courting the same gravitas the Dark Knight trilogy evoked with its tortured hero, inexorably misses out the one simple thing which should be the driving force behind a film of like this – a true heart. Its emphasis on “grittiness”, or “reality”, or any of those other now commonplace modern superhero movie tropes does nothing but create a film of contradictory and grating tonality, and any real humanity of any kind. Superman is a boring, straight-faced, impossible-to-relate-with simpleton in this film, and it’s just not fun to watch at all.  There’s no joy here, or any kind of charming humor at all. I haven’t seen all of the Superman movies, but I am familiar with Superman lore (who isn’t, really?) and from what I’ve always known about Superman, he’s a positive-minded guy who has the glorious power to rescue people from horrors, and does. The original Superman movie (which I have seen) portrayed him as a kind-hearted defender of the people, and he did cool shit that made him look heroic. Superman does heroic things in this film, but it’s all dragged down by the bloated sense of conflict imbued throughout the film’s entire running time. It’s murky, confused, bloated, overlong, and worst of all, absolutely 0% fun to watch. Hollywood may be trying to reboot a reboot of Superman, but I haven’t even seen Superman Returns and I already prefer it WAY more over this trashy commercial schlock trying to pass itself off as respectable art with its “poetic” cinematography. Give me a fuckin’ break. I advise all people on planet Earth to avoid Man of Steel, and to avoid it at all costs. It genuinely left me with a depressed, uncomfortable feeling as I left the theater, and my friend Noah, who attended the screening with me and is a genuine comics lover in his own right, felt the same way. I paid the matinee price of $7.25 and I still feel like I was overcharged! Man, I’m just glad they didn’t get more. So in closing, and to sum up my opinion of this cultural shitbomb appropriately, I’m going to end with a quote from my good friend Moss Worthington: “Guess it’s more like Man of Steal All of My Money.”

Aaaaaaand I’d say my 2013 is off to a great start!