Review

Review – Man Of Steel

Although I went into the film with a few spoilers (having listened to a movie review podcast and seeing a few questions on SciFi.StackExchange) I was surprised by the amount of information I didn’t already know.

Man of Steel
Man of Steel gets arrested after numerous FAA violations.

 

Man of Steel presents a more science fiction origin to Superman than we have previously seen in films. In the comics and cartoons we know that Krypton was technologically advanced and Superman reaps some of the benefits of that, but in the movies the Kryptonian technology seems to be based primarily on crystals and their ability to make houses. In Superman Returns Lex Luthor captures some crystal growing technology and attempts to create a new continent. When asked how he is going to defend it he says he’ll use the advanced technology. Considering it is just him and his idiot henchmen, I have no confidence in his ability to do this. I have great confidence in Zod, because with Man of Steel the technological superiority of the Kryptonians is obvious. Also, they are all supermen.

Superman’s powers are giving a slight polish to the established canon.  Having evolved from a significantly harsher planet, Kryptonians on a whole are highly adaptable. Martha Kent describes the baby Clark Kent as wheezing and coughing through the night as his lungs tried to process Earth air. He gains super strength and speed from the Earth’s young sun. His additional abilities of x-ray vision, heat vision, and telescopic vision are a result of the Earth’s atmosphere. Superman now loses some powers when he is removed from that environment (somewhat… inconsistently). Hopefully the great Superman powers race won’t begin where in every new movie he needs more and more ridiculous abilities (I’m looking at you, Superman IV).

For the first time on film we see the super speed and destructive strength of a super charged Kryptonian at work. The almost teleporting nature of the attacks is what I imagine The Flash would look like.  Speaking of other characters, there are at least two Easter eggs in the film. One referring to Lex Luthor and another referring to Wayne Enterprises. With the exception of the Easter egg billboard in I Am Legend I am not aware of any cross references between any DC heroes before in the films. Everyone knows that DC and WB would love to see the same kind of money from a Justice League movie as Marvel did with The Avengers. Green Lantern didn’t do well, but maybe if Man of Steel does extremely well JL will still happen. If DC wants to do an origin story for every member of the Justice League they still need to do 5 (Flash, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Martian Manhunter, and presumably Batman).

What did I think of it? I felt the movie was fairly slow throughout the middle. The intense action scenes at the start and end seemed to compound the feeling on nothing happening in-between. I find myself frustrated by the mentality of Hollywood that every super hero must reveal their identity on screen (or at all). Batman has told so many people that he is Bruce Wayne he has probably just started printing it in on this business cards.

Secret Identity Card
Secret Identity Card

Sadly the same may be true for poor onscreen Superman.  The action of the film was both amazing and horrifying. This isn’t the same kind of Superman we saw in the 70s and 80s. I walked out thinking the movie was okay.

 

Review: Iron Man 3

I finally saw Iron Man 3.  Better late than never, right?

I’m actually not so sure.

The movie wasn’t bad, but it definitely wasn’t good.  I really liked the original Iron Man, and felt that Robert Downey, Jr. had really nailed the character of Tony Stark.  Iron Man 2 was a bit of a disappointment, but Mickey Rourke’s performance was a redeeming factor.  Iron Man 3, however, had no comparable standout performances.

I don’t mean to detract from Ben Kingsley’s acting abilities; indeed, he did an admirable job.  Similarly, I cannot fault Guy Pearce in his portrayal of Aldrich Killian.

Rather, I place the blame on the characters themselves.

While I admittedly am not intimately familiar with the comic book series, I know enough about the franchise to have been very interested in seeing The Mandarin introduced as Tony Stark’s latest nemesis.

The Mandarin, played by Ben Kingsley
Nice shades!

The Mandarin, as depicted in Iron Man 3, is a total dud.   To say the character lacked depth is a massive understatement.  The buildup of mystery and menace the movie endeavors to enshroud him in is deliberately and intentionally sacrificed as a major plot device, yet the result of that sacrifice is the revelation of a far lesser menace.

It is clearly supposed to be a surprise twist (I am trying to avoid spoilers), yet the only surprise seems to be “hey, guess what?  The situation is not nearly as interesting as you thought it was. Bet you never saw that coming!”  Yay?

The other major character introduced is Aldrich Killian.  He’s intended to be a brilliant mind in his own right, and the very beginning of the movie clearly shows that the character is supposed to be a foil, and potential antagonist, to the flamboyant genius and showmanship of Tony Stark.  However, the character turns out to be remarkably one-dimensional, and his motivations and overall role turn out to be decidedly generic.

The titular character also lacks the depth seen in the previous titles.  Clearly there is intent to add depth, by highlighting Tony Stark’s insecurities and emotional sensitivities, yet it seems that either the true character-building elements were largely cut from the final production, or what exists was tacked on as an afterthought.

Within the first 20 minutes of the movie, it is established that Tony is having some residual problems from the events at the end of The Avengers.  These problems crop up a couple of times during the movie, yet are never actually resolved in a meaningful way.  Instead, it’s just “stuff he’s dealing with”, and doesn’t really accomplish anything towards adding depth to the character.

Indeed, it feels like it may be tacked on strictly to provide some links to The Avengers, which appears to be a common theme in Marvel Studios’ recent titles.  It seems like they are trying to bring the same breadth and depth to the Marvel Universe on screen that the comics enjoy.  However, instead of meaningful cross-over appearances and side stories that play integral parts of individual story arcs, as seen in many of the printed titles, they are peppering the movies with just enough references for someone who has seen the other films to say “oh, yeah… I know what they’re talking about.”

Unfortunately, this also means that those who have not seen the other films will just find the references confusing or uninteresting.

The movie itself does have some redeeming qualities.  In particular, we are treated to lots of explosions, and some eye-catching special effects.  The confrontation at the conclusion of the movie attempts to incorporate some of these special effects in a meaningful way into the plot, but it doesn’t really make up for a somewhat anticlimactic battle.

The basic plot, however, is somewhat interesting, and we do see some interesting characters along the way.    Harley Keener, played by Ty Simpkins, was perhaps the standout of the movie, and I found the scenes with him better than most of the dialogues with the more prominent characters.

The fight scenes were well-coordinated, and the abilities of the protagonists are both eye-catching and distinctive.

All in all, I found the movie to be a significant disappointment.  It failed to achieve the appeal of the preceding entries in the series, and certainly fell far short of the bar set by The Avengers.

Tony Stark sitting next to his Iron Man suit.
Yeah, it’s that exciting.

Reviews: The Croods

The Croods

Easter Monday was a rainy day in Canada. As a result my kids were suffering from boredom. So we checked the local theater schedule. They convinced me and my wife to take them to The Croods. As the kids chose the movie, I wasn’t expecting too much from it and I certainly wasn’t expecting to write a review about it. However, the movie ended up being a nice trip to an amazing fantasy world, so I thought I’d share my thoughts about it.

Some technical specifications that may have affected my viewing experience: My kids barely understand English so we watched version with the French translation. I will not review anything related to the voice acting. As my dear wife cannot support a 3D movie without being sick, we chose the 2D version of the movie. So I cannot say a word about the 3d effects in the movie.  Finally, I ended up eating quite a bit of popcorn on account of having had a light dinner earlier in the evening.

As far as the story goes, I was expecting some kind of hybrid between Brave and Ice Age. We have all seen this: a teenage girl gets rebellious in a prehistoric landscape, sprinkled with action and jokes, nothing new under the sun. But I was pleasantly surprised. This is mostly a story about fatherhood. Yeah, there’s a rebellious girl and a love story, but that is secondary. The main story is really about a father who would do anything to protect his family and has to let his big girl grow up. But enough about the plot, All you need to know is that it was interesting enough, fun enough, and touching enough to be a decent family movie. My kids liked it and I wasn’t bothered by it during the viewing.

Mousephant

What is interesting in this movie, from a fantasy stand point, is the world they created for it, especially the fauna. Most of the species you could see in the movie are some kind of hybrid between two or more modern day species. Mix an elephant with a mouse or an elephant with a giraffe.  Combine a leopard with a bear and an owl. That’s just a small sample of the incredible animals the caveman family encounters on their trip. It’s where this movie shines. Instead of dragging us into another world of silly talking dinosaurs; it creates an original and exotic world that stands on its own. It is what amazed my inner child and surprised me more than once. These inclusions give the movie a unique artistic signature and literally steal the show by the end.

Finally, I would recommend the The Croods as a family movie outing, kids will be happy and, what proud parent would not do this for his offspring? Especially if it involves eating popcorn.

Star Wars Identities : The Exhibition

After two unsuccessful attempts to attend it earlier this summer, I finally went to the Star Wars Identities Exhibition in Montreal.

This exposition is presented as a exploration of what forges a person’s identity and uses the different characters of Star Wars to represent this. It’s divided into sections that explore these factors, and in each section, you build your character by responding to questions relative to your character’s identity. The first choice you make is the species of your character. From there you choose genes, parents, a culture, mentors, friends, events, an occupation, a personality, and values. From these choices you build an identity, and this experience is meant to give visitors some insight into how identity is formed.  I was very skeptical about this part of the exposition. If it were about some historic figures, instead of the fictional Star Wars universe, it might have been more interesting to me. Maybe if George Lucas had a Ph.D in Psychology and had made sure his characters were built to reflect the latest scientific research on the subject of identity, I could have better understood the connection. So, while some others visitors around me seemed to enjoy the character identity building, I wasn’t really interested in that part of the exhibition. I did design my own hero and I watched most of the videos on the subjects which were scattered all over the exhibition, but I skipped some in the end. It was not that boring and I would probably have watched all of them if I had had more time. However, there were so many other things I wanted to see.  Anyway, it was a good decision, because after two hours of exhaustive examinations of the other areas the clerks had to kick me out of the showroom because they were closing.

So, the quest to identity yourself as a Star Wars character is not why you should visit this exposition. The real reason to go is to see the impressive collection of original artifacts. Being in the same room with all these objects is something a Star Wars fan should not miss.

First, you can see at least one costume for each of the main characters. The Jedi Knight outfits are a bit redundant, but  Amidala’s dress is beautiful. The real treasures are the Stormtroopers, Bobba Fett, C-3P0, and Darth Vader. All are worth a lengthy examination.  And Chewbacca! You have to stand in front of his fur costume how realize how tall and impressive he is!

I was also quite impressed by the various artworks. They are meant show the progression of the characters identity when they were designed. My favorite was one showing Han Solo as a bearded lightsaber wielder. How awesome it would have been if Han had sliced first!

Additionally, there are many other props, like the ominous Meson Taloscope (Midi-chlorian analyzer), a carbonite frozen Han Solo, and Anakin’s full size pod-racer. But the things I found the most impressive were the starships and the starfighter models. The details on those! I would still be staring at them and discovering new features, if I hadn’t eventually been kicked out.

I really enjoyed my visit to the Star Wars Identities Exhibition and recommend it to every Star Wars fan. I will probably forget about all the identities theories, but will forever remember leaning toward an incredibly detailed Imperial Star Destroyer.

You may check out some of the photos I took during my visit. bitmask also visited the exposition last April, and you can see his photos here. If you want to see the exhibition with your own eyes, the show will be in Montreal until September 16, 2012. It will be in Edmonton, Canada, from October 27, 2012, to April 1, 2013. Note that this exposition is quite popular and I had to buy my tickets a day in advance to finally see it.

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