It is safe to say that, in terms of characters, Superman is one of the hardest for the writers to pull off well. He can do anything. He doesn't have conflict. He's as Lawful Good as they come. In short, he's hard to make interesting and engaging.
It is also safe to say that Christopher Nolan, David S.Goyer and Zack Snyder tried hard to make him interesting, and failed. Well, not completely: the movie makes money, and when I went to see it, the theater was almost full, despite it being a weekday, and almost a week after the release date. But the finanicial aspect might be the only succesful aspect of this movie.
The screenplay is what really sinks it. Who on earth decided that giving it to David S.Goyer, the man responsible for the awful sequel to the Ghost Rider, is a good idea? There are no dialogues in this movie - there are speeches, most of them about how the society is not ready for the arrival of Kal-El the Messiah, and how General Zod is going to rebuilt Krypton on the corpses of the untermensch. Lois Lane stumbles awkwardly from scene to scene, contributing almost nothing to the plot; she spends, at best, 15 minutes on screen with Clark, and they share little to no dialogue. There is no difference between Superman and Clark Kent: they act and talk exactly the same. Not that our main character talks a lot: he mostly grunts, roars, and makes constipated faces. And after he finds the magical plot device about 30 minutes into the movie, there's no character development, just fight scenes. And even the flashbacks don't really help to establish the character, what with their chaotic order.
I get what they were trying to do here: Superman Returns was not well-received, so they decided that Man Of Steel should resemble it as little as possible. Also, Nolan's Batman Darker And Edgier trilogy sold well, so let's make Superman more like Batman. But the whole point of Superman is that he is not like Batman; if anything, he's the complete opposite. In Richard Donner's movie, however goofy it seems now, Superman had lots of personality, but remained true to his Nice Guy resume: he had a sense of humor and was nice even when fighting bad guys. As Clark, he looked like a dork, but he was not the one to fuck with. If only we had anything like that here.
You'll believe a man can mope.
It is safe to say that, in terms of characters, Superman is one of the hardest for the writers to pull off well. He can do anything. He doesn't have conflict. He's as Lawful Good as they come. In short, he's hard to make interesting and engaging.
It is also safe to say that Christopher Nolan, David S.Goyer and Zack Snyder tried hard to make him interesting, and failed. Well, not completely: the movie makes money, and when I went to see it, the theater was almost full, despite it being a weekday, and almost a week after the release date. But the finanicial aspect might be the only succesful aspect of this movie.
The screenplay is what really sinks it. Who on earth decided that giving it to David S.Goyer, the man responsible for the awful sequel to the Ghost Rider, is a good idea? There are no dialogues in this movie - there are speeches, most of them about how the society is not ready for the arrival of Kal-El the Messiah, and how General Zod is going to rebuilt Krypton on the corpses of the untermensch. Lois Lane stumbles awkwardly from scene to scene, contributing almost nothing to the plot; she spends, at best, 15 minutes on screen with Clark, and they share little to no dialogue. There is no difference between Superman and Clark Kent: they act and talk exactly the same. Not that our main character talks a lot: he mostly grunts, roars, and makes constipated faces. And after he finds the magical plot device about 30 minutes into the movie, there's no character development, just fight scenes. And even the flashbacks don't really help to establish the character, what with their chaotic order.
I get what they were trying to do here: Superman Returns was not well-received, so they decided that Man Of Steel should resemble it as little as possible. Also, Nolan's Batman Darker And Edgier trilogy sold well, so let's make Superman more like Batman. But the whole point of Superman is that he is not like Batman; if anything, he's the complete opposite. In Richard Donner's movie, however goofy it seems now, Superman had lots of personality, but remained true to his Nice Guy resume: he had a sense of humor and was nice even when fighting bad guys. As Clark, he looked like a dork, but he was not the one to fuck with. If only we had anything like that here.
P.S.: I really miss Ned Beatty's Otis.