The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
Rated PG-13 (So many decapitations)

Written by: J.R.R. Tolkien (novel), Fran Walsh, Phillipa Boyens, Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro (screenplay)
Directed by Peter Jackson
*** 1/2 out of ****

Peter Jackson just dropped the mic.

Boom.

We all know the story of "The Hobbit, or There and Back Again". If you don't, you probably had terrible parents, or didn't have a cool uncle or cousin, or something. Regardless, you missed out on a good chunk of childhood, and you need to stop reading this and go to the library or fire up a Kindle or something and rectify this immediately.

Back? Good.

Bilbo, Gandalf and the crew of Thorin have escaped the Goblin King and Gollum, and are continuing their quest to Mount Erebor, to reclaim Thorin's throne. They meet Elves, and Men, and Beorn, and Smaug. Seriously though, if you don't already know the story, man. Fix that.

It took a LONG time to get "The Hobbit" to the screen. Trying to figure out who owned the film rights to the book took years. Once that was sorted out, a director needed to be found. Jackson was burned out on Middle Earth, having spent a huge amount of time on "The Lord of The Rings". He had other things that he wanted to do, so Sam Raimi was attached for a while. Then he backed out, and del Toro stepped in. He dropped out because it was just taking so damn long to even get to principal shooting, but did help with the adaptation. Sadly, his designs were not used. I would have LOVED to have seen Smaug designed by him.

So, the ball was passed back to Jackson. When he announced that this would be another trilogy, nerds were shocked and confused. I could see two movies (The Shire to The Lonely Mountain, and The Battle of the Five Armies), but three? Not without some insane padding. After "An Unexpected Journey", I still had doubts. I thought the first installment was disappointing. Too many dwarves, too little character development. Not enough big set pieces. Slow going.

I no longer have these doubts.

Is this adaptation faithful? Mostly. Did I object to the changes? Not at all.

"The Hobbit" was, essentially, a children's story. I am sure I will be corrected, but I just don't feel like doing research, so, I'll go with what I think I remember.

During WWI, Tolkien wrote a sentence: "There was a hobbit that lived in a hole in the ground."  He then had to figure out what the hell a hobbit was, and went from there. He hadn't yet invented the languages and cultures of Middle Earth, but he had a rough notion. The characters are little more than sketches, apart from Bilbo, Gandalf and Thorin.

But, when he wrote "The Lord of The Rings", Tolkien remarked that "the tale grew with the telling." That's what I see here. Jackson and company have taken a perfectly fine story and slapped on some chrome.

The story here is centered on Thorin (Richard Armitage), Balin (Ken Scott) and Bilbo (Martin Freeman). The characters are far more fleshed-out than in the previous installment. They brought back Legolas (Orlando Bloom), made up a character with Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly), and, somehow, nothing felt shoehorned in.

Then, there are the action sequences. Oh, lordy. Wow.

I was actually giggling during the barrel escape, simply because it was such fun to watch. Much like the motorcycle chase in Spielberg's "Tin Tin" movie, it's completely improbable and that's what makes it great. Smaug  (Benedict Cumberbatch) is huge and impressive. The hoard beneath Erebor would make Scrooge McDuck jealous.

Everything here is bigger and better than in the first installment, and, I have a feeling that the final one will be almost entirely one huge action sequence.

Thor: The Dark World

Thor: The Dark World
Rated PG-13 (Destruction, language)
Written by Christopher Yost, Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely (screenplay), Don Payne and Robert Rodat (story), Stan Lee, Larry Lieber and Jack Kirby (comic and characters)
Directed by Alan Taylor
*** out of ****

Let's get a couple of things out of the way. Chris Hemsworth is a handsome man. I've had a crush on Natalie Portman for years. And, Kat Dennings should give me a call sometime.

I will be the first to admit that I really didn't care to see this movie. Thor was never one of my heroes. I read "Captain America". Not "Iron Man", not "Hulk", not even "Avengers", classic or west coast. I went to this movie, much like I went to the first "Thor", simply because Marvel Studios is doing something that I admire. They are working on what could be the biggest epic series in film history. Much like you don't need to read EVERY comic in the Marvel Universe (which one is an even bigger question), you don't need to watch EVERY movie (or TV series, for that matter) to enjoy the big picture.

I had, not high hopes, but certainly higher expectations for the first "Thor" movie. Why wouldn't I? It was directed by Kenneth Branagh. If anyone should know how to deal with larger-than-life characters, he should.

And, it fell short.

I don't know exactly what went wrong, but the movie felt "small". Maybe it was because we needed to be introduced to the characters. Maybe the story sucked. I don't know.

That's been fixed here, though. Wow.

It's important to remember that, in the Marvel Universe, the Asgardians are not truly gods. They aren't humans, they live far longer than us, but can die. They don't have magic. Instead, they obey one of Clarke's Laws: any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

And, by Odin, they got that right. So, so right.

The Dark Elves waged war against Asgard millennia ago. They lost, but Malekith (Christopher Eccleston) wants revenge. Loki (Tom Hiddleston) has been imprisoned by Odin (Anthony Hopkins) for being an ass. Thor (Hemsworth) has been putting down revolts across the Realms (different planes of reality, because shut up, that's why). Jane (Portman) and her "team" of scientists have been picking up strange gravimetric readings that indicate something is going to happen. The bad guys show up, things explode, Thor and Loki have to team up, and the rest just writes itself.

This installment just felt so much bigger and better in every way. I fell in love with the design of the worlds. Asgard looked carved and sculpted. Art deco done by Vikings. The Dark Elves had ships and weapons that looked extruded, like lava coming up underwater. Primal. Rough. The worlds looked lived-in, and felt right.

The characters were more developed. Yes, this is the third movie for Thor and Loki, but it seems like the writers are finally figuring out how to write the characters. I'm sure that this is at least partly due to Joss Whedon shepherding the movie universe.

I honestly can't think of anything that I didn't like about this movie. True, it didn't advance the metastory much (as far as I know), but, as a stand-alone movie, it far outshines the first.

Ender's Game

Ender's Game
Rated PG-13 (Violence)
Written and directed by Gavin Hood, based on the book by Orson Scott Card
*** out of ****

They were close. So damn close.

Before I get into the meat of the review, lemme talk about separating the art from the artist. Phil Spector is one of my heroes, and he is spending the rest of his life in prison. He is, and always was, crazy as a shit-house rat. But, the music that he recorded was just amazing. Without Spector, we would have had The Beach Boys, but, would Brian Wilson have had the guts to use the studio as an instrument?

Orson Scott Card is a homophobic asshole, but, that doesn't mean that "Ender's Game" isn't an amazing story. So, while I understand why some people might stay away from the book and the movie, it really is worth your time.

Back to the review.

Andrew "Ender" Wiggin (Asa Butterfield) is a Third. Earth has instituted population controls, limiting parents to two children. But, Ender is special. The International Fleet (a united Earth defense force) is looking for humanity's Last Best Hope, and Ender's older siblings were almost, but not quite, the right child for the job. Valentine was too compassionate, and Peter was a psychopath. Hopefully, Ender will be the balance that the IF needs to stop the next Formic (or Bugger) invasion.
Ender is recruited for Battle School, where Major Anderson (Viola Davis) is the bad cop, and Colonel Graff (Harrison Ford) is the worse cop. Ender's training is based not only on tactics and physics, but on how he relates to his platoon mates.

The team behind the movie got most of the core of the story. The events (and, I'm taking as a fan of the book) were mostly intact. But, dammit, it's what was left out that is what made the story truly great.

A good portion of the story is based around the Battle Room, a zero-G arena designed to teach tactics and improve unit cohesion. And, it looks great in the movie. It was just too damn short.

That's my main complaint about the whole thing, really. It runs two hours, but, man, there's so much STORY that was left out.

The casting was spot on. Ford was great as Graff, and Butterfield was perfect as Ender. But, it just just felt like an abridgement, and, when a screenplay is adapted, the good ones don't feel abridged.

There are two defining moments that I was worried would be glossed over, but they weren't. Two other things, however...
SPOILERS AHEAD

Ender was pushed past his limits. What he went through was a crime. At best, it was child abuse, and was presented as such in the book, and hinted at in the movie. He was brutalized physically and mentally. He was hated by squadmates, he killed two children in self-defense. When he started winning Battle Room matches, Graff changed the rules. He and his squads were forced to fight multiple battles a day, without sleep or food. At the end, Ender gave up. He, in essence, said "Fuck you" to Graff. "Fuck you. If you aren't going to play by the rules, neither am I. I'm going to win in spite of you, and then, dammit, I am going to quit."

It wasn't heroism, and, while Ender was a tactical genius, it wasn't just that that enabled him to win. It was Ender giving up, Ender telling authority to screw itself, Ender just wanting to go home, that won.

END SPOILERS

They were just so damn close.

There were great moments. Butterfield is a strong actor, but, because the movie was so short, we weren't able to see Ender develop. Davis was a good counterpoint to Ford, but, again, we aren't able to see their doubts, convictions and justifications. We see Mazer Rackham (Ben Kingsley) but don't see him beat the living hell out of a little boy. (That might not have been due to the length of the movie.)

I first read the book in my early 20's. Others probably read it when they were younger, as it shows up on suggested reading lists in high schools. The movie was stuck in development hell for years (when I read it, Wolfgang Peterson was attached to direct, and I don't think Asa Butterfield had been born).

It was going to be difficult to adapt for anyone, and, this is an admirable effort. If you haven't read the book, the movie is fine. Good effects, decent story, enjoyable all around. If you have read it, you'll know what's missing. They were so damn close.

Gravity

Gravity
Rated PG-13 (Space is scary.)
Directed by Alfonso Cuaron
Written by Alfonso Cuaron and Jonas Cuaron
**** out of ****

Wow.

Let me elaborate: Holy wow.

If you'll indulge me for a bit, I have a little story to tell you about me.

From my earliest memories, I have always wanted to be an astronaut. There was never any question in my mind that it was what I was going to be when I grew up. Then, one day in third grade, Mr. Saathoff, the janitor, came into the classroom (reading, I believe, with Mrs. Wood), and told us that the space shuttle, Challenger, had exploded. This news completely broke my heart. Completely.

Now that I'm older, I understand that accidents like that happen, but it doesn't lessen the sorrow that I felt when Columbia exploded on re-entry, or that I will feel the next time a spacecraft is lost.

Nor does it diminish my desire to go to space.

Space is huge and dangerous. Your body rebels in zero G, there is next to nothing to protect you from radiation, micrometeorites are zipping around at tens of thousands of miles an hour, and everything up there is amazing.

If you have any fear of drowning, or have problems with vertigo, do NOT go to this movie. If you are prone to motion sickness, you should skip the 3D version.

That being said, damn. Just... Just holy crap.

I'm sure you can put the story together from the trailers. Captain Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) is on his last shuttle mission. Mission Specialist (usually NASA shorthand for "dead weight") Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock and her legs (I'm sorry, but they are amazing legs)) is installing a piece of equipment that she has designed onto the Hubble Space Telescope. The Russians used a missile test to destroy one of their obsolete spy satellites, and the debris causes everything to go wrong.

The film is event, rather than character, driven, but, since there are only two characters in the film, we bond with them. Hard. You know how some people watch horror movies and tell the characters what to do and not do? Yeah. I did that here.

Roger Ebert once described the Indiana Jones movies as "one damn thing after another", and that's what Cuaron has here. In a movie like that, the pacing is critical. The audience needs time to breathe. Not too much, but just enough. Cuaron has this nailed here.

The special effects are stunning. I don't know if any part of the movie was filmed in the Vomit Comet or not, but I doubt it. Here's why :

The cinematic language of the film is established right at the top with a 15 - minute long single (or so cleverly edited to appear so) uninterrupted take. There are no quick shots. There is at least one shot that, when I realized what was going on, made me smile, like the scene in "Contact" that looked like a Steadicam shot of young Ellie running through her house, only to end with her opening the medicine cabinet with a mirrored door, as if the entire shot was an impossible reflection.

I'm a gigantic nerd, so, while watching the astronauts, I was paying attention to the physics of motion. I know that, in a stable orbit of Earth, one circuit takes roughly 90 minutes. I'm going to say that James Cameron has some SERIOUS competition in the scientific accuracy and plausibility department. Again, wow.

I don't think anyone but Clooney could have played the captain. He's the right age to be plausible in the role, and he's handsome and cocksure enough to fit our (my) idea of what an astronaut is. Bullock carries most of the weight of the story, and does it well. She's not an astronaut, but she's not incompetent. She's had training, but she has to think things through.

I saw the 2D version, because of my problems with motion sickness. (I watched "Cloverfield" by looking at the ceiling of the theatre and listening to the dialogue.) However, I think that this might be one to pay the extra money to see in 3D, simply because it would make it that more immersive and scary.

Wow.

Riddick

Riddick
Rated R (violence, gore, brief nudity)
Written and directed by David Twohy
** 1/2 out of ****

If there was such a thing as an impressionistic action character, it would be Richard B. Riddick.

Years ago, I saw "Pitch Black", and thought it was a perfectly fine B-grade sci-fi flick. Solid premise (a planet with multiple suns that had constant light until an eclipse, creatures that hunted with sonar, a bad ass with night vision), decent story (a group of people who depend on a murderer to survive), everything hit the right notes. It was small, self-contained and fun.

Then, "The Chronicles of Riddick" came out, and it tried to be, like, seven things at once. There just wasn't enough room in the movie for all the ideas it had. However, it was designed within an inch of its life. It LOOKED amazing, but, it FELT impressionistic. Characters and situations were sketched out, but never fleshed out. Concepts were introduced, but, it's like we had to (along with the actors) fill in the blanks.

In "Riddick", the series has returned to its roots, as it were. It's small, self-contained, and has an absolutely gleeful amount of gore.

And it's still impressionistic. Riddick (Vin Diesel) is a bad man. When we last saw him, he had become Lord Marshall of the Necrons ("The what of the who?" You ask. And I nod in agreement.), but, apparently, things happened, and he's stuck on this planet. With monsters. And a dog. And he somehow determines that something bad is coming, so, he finds a merc/bounty hunter way station and calls in two ships with a distress beacon. One is only looking for the bounty on Riddick, the other is looking for answers from him. And then violence happens.

The movie looks great. It was obviously filmed on location in Green Screen National Park, with additional scenes filmed in Available For A Few Months Memorial Soundstage, but the design more than makes up for it. Everything looks lived-in and detail was not skimped on. The team loves this world they've created, and it shows. The acting isn't going to win any awards, but that's fine. David Bautista is not a bad actor, and I've had a crush on Katee Sackoff for years, but, we come to this little sticking point:

How does Riddick know what he knows? He seems to be a genius in tactics, he apparently understands alien biology and human behavior, but none of the how or why is presented. I know that there is TONS of backstory that isn't put on screen, but I want to see it. "He's a bad ass" is fine for a character sketch, but if a psychopath all of a sudden displays sympathy or caring, I want to know WHY.

The characters aren't one-dimensional, but, in movies like this, with worlds that aim for space opera epicness, you need more than impressionism.

Elysium

Elysium
Rated R (Violence)
Written and Directed by Neill Blomkamp
*** out of ****

Let's get this out of the way first of all: Conservatives are going to HATE this movie. 

Well, maybe not all of it, but, good chunks of it.

I don't want to get all political in what should ostensibly be an entertaining review of light entertainment, but, dangit, Blomkamp opened up that door, and I'm going through.

I may have said it before, and I'm sure I will say it again, but, science fiction is rarely about the future.  It's more about the present, in a round-about (and sometimes, not-so-round-about) way.  "Farenheit 451" was (regardless of what every single person who ever read it thinks) not about the government censoring literature in the future, but rather television taking the place of books.  "1984" wasn't about a dystopian future with unlimited government control, but rather it was about 1948 London.  "2001: A Space Odyssey" was... well, it was about EVERYTHING.

Let's get another thing out of the way: Space stations are supposed to be round, with a docking bay in the center, with PanAm flights in and out daily, and with a Hilton Hotel and video phones.

"Elysium" got the round space station completely correct.  Perhaps at a lower orbit than the one in "2001", but still, nice and round.  The reason for the Elysium torus was because rich people didn't want to be around poor, stinky, dirty, sick people on Earth.  So, they took their toys and, I don't know, went Galt, I guess.  Conservatives are going to HATE the fact that the super-rich are, at least in the case of Sec. Delacourt (Jodie Foster), bad guys.  Like, boo-hiss bad guys.

Down on Earth, in Los Angeles (which looks a lot like the slums around Johannesburg, South Africa), Max (Matt Damon) is a laborer in a plant that makes robots.  Fully-articulated humanoid robots that provide security, medical care, etc.  Due to an accident at work, he needs to get to Elysium, which has all of the high-tech medical equipment, and they don't share with non-citizens (Boo! Hiss!).  To get a black market ticket, he has to go back to an old partner-in-crime and do One. Last. Job.

This job attracts the attention of Delacourt, who calls in some serious Black Ops (Boo?) named Kruger (Sharlto Copely), who also helps deal with the illegal immigrant problems for the torus (Yay!).

Blomkamp is a fine director.  "District 9" was a really good sci-fi flick that was basically about Apartheid.  "Elysium" is a really good sci-fi flick that is about... lots of things. 

I don't want to say that he spread himself too thin with the themes he was working with.  They are presented, not so much in a political way, but, much like "Black Hawk Down", simply as how things are.  However, much like there is no such thing as a "neutral" documentary, you can see what Blomkamp feels about certain issues.

And, hoo boy, are there issues.  Illegal immigration, Libertarian philosophy, drone strikes, government surveillance,  Christian philosophy, unregulated capitalism, and mercenaries just off of the top of my head.  These things are presented, and, while not thoroughly explored, the shorthand for how he wants you to feel is right there.

Is this the best movie I've seen this summer?  Nope.  That's still "Pacific Rim".  However, the special effects in this movie are by far the best I've seen.  Copely could, someday, give Christoph Waltz a run for his money in the bad guy department.  The story is fine, there are some good moments of tension, and there were some really cool camera tricks in the fight scenes that I hadn't seen done before.

I think, however, that, if there is one lesson that we can all learn from "Elysium", it's that mercenaries are terrible, terrible people.

Pacific Rim

Pacific Rim
Rated PG-13 (for roughly the same reasons as "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom")
Directed by Guillermo del Toro
Written by del Toro and Travis Beacham
**** out of ****

I don't see how it's possible to see a better movie (not film) this summer than "Pacific Rim".

Summer movies are supposed to be big, colorful, loud and entertaining, with clear-cut good guys and bad guys.  Mellerdrammers with bigger budgets and similar acting styles.  Like summer stock theatre, these movies should be acts of love on the part of the cast and crew, and the best ones are.  "The Goonies", the first "Iron Man", the original "Star Wars", "Super 8", "The Cabin in The Woods" -- all very entertaining, all very loud and colorful (except "Super 8"), and all of them just dripping with the sheer, unbridled joy that the makers poured into them.  The joy in these movies is contagious.  And this movie, oh, man.  I couldn't stop smiling.

Monsters called "kaiju" (the Japanese term for the giant monsters like Godzilla and Mothra) are invading the planet from beneath the Pacific Ocean.  As you all know from the trailers, to fight monsters, we had to make monsters.  Apparently, the solution to the kaiju invasion was to throw all the world's money at Japan to make giant battlemechs called "Jagers" (the German word for "hunters").  Each Jager is piloted by a pair, because one person doesn't have the brain power to make the mech move.  The pilots are rated by compatibility called "drift" -- how well their minds work together.  A kaiju appears, a Jager team is deployed, the Jager punches the holy hell out of the kaiju, and humanity lives another day.

The plot is pretty bare-bones, but that's OK.  We see glimpses of things like the UN, and are made to understand that, after several years, the Jager program is losing its effectiveness.  Marshall Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba) is given six months to make it work, or it will be shut down.  Former Jager pilot Raliegh Becket (Charlie Hunnam) is brought back into service for One. Last. Mission.  We meet the other pilots, the research team of Dr. Newton Geiszler (Charlie Day), who is a wanna-be rock star and Gottlieb (Burn Gorman), who is a weird crippled math dude.  We see bits of the black market for kaiju body parts, and the best of the worst is Hannibal Chau (Ron Goddamn Perlman).  That's pretty much it.  There's very little interpersonal drama between pilots, there are hints at romance (but, for the target audience and for those of us who remember what it was like to be the target audience, girls are kind of neat, but kind of scary at the same time).  

Mostly, it's giant robots punching giant monsters in the most awesome ways you can imagine.

"Pacific Rim" is a big, giant, live-action anime.  It's a less-epic "Robotech", a less David-Lynchian "Neon Genesis Evangelion".  It looks and feels like the best after-school cartoon EVER.  del Toro is an amazing designer, and, wow.  This movie is almost entirely about design.

One of the challenges Bryan Singer had with making a live-action X-Men movie was making the costumes not look stupid on-screen.  It looks like del Toro went the opposite direction.  The Russian Jager pilots have blonde pompadour haircuts.  The Chinese team is played by triplets.  The guy manning the ops station looks like he stepped out of the original "Speed Racer" cartoon.  Hannibal Chou has a switchblade, sunglasses, and the best damn shoes I've ever seen.  Every character is a stereotype, and every character SHOULD be a stereotype.  We don't want to think here.  We want to see giant goddamn robots, and, by god, we do.  

Special effects-wise, I don't see any other contenders winning Oscars over this one.  It's almost flawless.  And, unlike Michael Bay's "Transformers" movies, nothing hurts to look at.  I mentioned that with Zack Snyder's "Man of Steel", I like Snyder's ability to keep the huge action sequences focused on what they should be focused on.  In "Pacific Rim", the objects in the screen are too big to allow for distraction.

Does this movie have toys?  Because I want to get all the Jager models that I can.  8-year-old me loved this movie.  Teenage-anime-watching me was just enthralled by the fact that they actually did it, and it didn't suck.  36-year-old me smiled, and smiled, and smiled.

Monsters University

Monsters University
Rated G (It's about monsters, but, you know, Pixar monsters)
Directed by Dan Scanlon
Written by Robert L. Baird, Dan Scanlon and Daniel Gerson
**1/2 out of ****

This one has me baffled.  I love animation as an art form.  The Fleischer Studios "Popeye" and "Superman" shorts, Henry Selick's peerless stop motion, Aardman Animations, "Cowboy Bebop", "Neon Genesis Evangelion", "Animaniacs", the Looney Tunes, "Batman: The Animated Series", Studio Ghibli, Pixar... There's no reason I can think of to outgrow watching cartoons.  Some cartoons are made for children, some are made for everyone, some are made for adults.

Pixar has been amazing for decades.  They all but invented the animation landscape we have today, and most of the tools that are used to produce that animation.  They specialize in family movies, not movies that parents are forced to sit through with their children, growing stupid and irritated.  Pixar's movies are filled with clever details, stunning technical execution, and, in their best films, emotional manipulation that would make Spielberg jealous.

As Meatloaf said, two out of three ain't bad.  Sadly, two out of three ain't what I want from Pixar.

Maybe the problem was the fact that "Monsters University" was a prequel.  We know how it's gonna end for the most part.  We know that Sullivan (John Goodman) and Mike (Billy Crystal) are going to be friends.  We know that they're going to work for Monsters, Inc.  It's tough to build drama when the audience knows what's going to happen at the end.  So, rather than focus on tension, you would need to focus on character and story.

Which is what Scanlon & Co. did here.  Sadly, the audience has seen this before.  The kids with the "Harry Potter" books and movies, the adults with "Revenge of the Nerds", "Police Academy", pretty much any underdog movie you can name.

Now, there were some little twists to the formula, but, I almost think that they were constrained by the G rating.  So much more could have been done in the cabin in the woods, for example.

Pixar all but owned up to the fact that they swiped the character designs for the monsters from Jim Henson.  Art, a purple... arch? thing is a dead ringer for a Muppet from some of the early, anarchistic Jim Henson commercials, when Henson was mostly concerned with blowing up the proto-Kermit or any other Muppet that was nearby.

From a technical standpoint, yes, this is an amazing exercise in animation.  The movie looks stunning, but, it didn't feel stunning.  The characters are much younger here, and, unless I'm completely wrong about monster physiology (which wasn't discussed in the movie, and I'm afraid of what I might find on the internet if I look), they should be more energetic, more spry, more agile.  More like what I think I may have been back in college.  Yet, there are no really memorable setpieces.  Nothing like the Door Rollercoaster in "Monsters, Inc."  The movie feels... smaller.

And there just isn't an emotional hook.  There's no Boo.  Perhaps I just like the idea of a sound engineer following a two-year-old around with a microphone as she wanders and babbles, because that makes me smile.  Maybe I'm just let down because this is the first Pixar movie that I've seen in which the theatre's HVAC system functioned correctly and didn't allow dust to get into my eyes.  Either way, I wasn't tricked into feeling emotions, and I wanted to be.

Now, the opening short, "The Blue Umbrella", on the other hand, that had some good feels.  There's an old Disney short called "Johnny Fedora and Alice Bluebonnet" that tells a similar story, albeit with song and not street objects, but it's just as sweet a love story when told by Pixar.

"Man of Steel"

"Man of Steel"
Rated PG-13 (Pow! Kablam!)
Directed by Zack Snyder
Written by David S. Goyer and Christopher Nolan

*** 1/2 out of ****

I'm kind of rusty at this, so, patience, please.

If I were to have a complaint about "Man of Steel", it would be that Zack Snyder is, surprisingly, not a subtle director. More on this later.

It's 2013.  EVERYONE knows Superman's origin. Writers David S. Goyer and Christopher Nolan recognize this.  Their depiction of Krypton is, however, much different than Richard Donner's or John Byrne's.  Think Cloud City, but have it be designed by the team that did the second "Riddick" movie.  Speaking of that, when are we as a culture going to move beyond the School of Funny Hats Science-Fiction Costume Design?  Seriously.

OK.  That looks like two complaints.  But that was more of a general critique of the industry as a whole, not of this movie.

Anyway, Krypton is destroyed.  Jor-El (Russel Crowe) saw this coming.  So did General Zod (Michael Shannon).  They disagree over the best way to save their people.  Jor-El is given a bigger role than the one I recall Brando having in Donner's original "Superman".  Zod, of course, is evil.

Duh.

So, Kal-El lands in Kansas (slipping under NORAD surveillance somehow.  One more reason to increase NASA's funding.).  He's raised by Ma and Pa Kent near Smallville.  Kevin Costner was just perfect as Pa Kent.  On the other hand, after seeing her in "Unfaithful", I just can't accept Diane Lane as a small-town farmer's wife.  Damn.

Kal-El is re-christianed (Ha!) Clark, and is raised as a typical small-town kid.  One thing that the crew does very well is show, for all intents and purposes, the worse case of ADD ever as Clark's powers emerge.  Ma is Clark's anchor, and Pa is Clark's... mentor?  Conscience?  They both clearly love their adopted son, and want him to be the best person that he can be, but, to have to raise a being that is, for lack of a better word, a god... That's an unenviable position.

Clark (Henry Cavill) spends his 20s living the life of TV's "The Incredible Hulk", wandering from job to job, moving on when his abilities are revealed, eventually getting a job with a cargo company contracted by the military which has found... A Thing.

Daily Planet reporter Lois Lane (Amy Adams), who has been embedded with platoons before and is already a Pulitzer Prize winner, is dispatched to the Arctic, where The Thing has been found.  Journalism! ensues.  Discoveries are made!  Action setpieces happen!

And they are amazing.

I don't think that there is an American director working right now that is better at constructing action sequences than Zack Snyder.  Michael Bay is, in some circles (not mine), regarded as an avant-garde genius.  Seriously.  "Transformers" hurt by brain to look at.  Far too much geometry for my visiual cortex to process.  Snyder maintains a VERY clear focus.  Buildings are collapsing, debris is flying, stuff is blowing up real good, but there is no waste on the screen.  Nothing is distracting you from a) the action or b) the story.

"The fights?" you may be asking.  I don't know.  I'm not you.  "What about the fights?"

Oh, lordy.

Wow.

You saw "The Avengers".  Don't lie.  The movie made more money than God last year.

Remember Hulk vs. Loki?

Make that last longer than one very short scene.  With equally-matched opponents.  And goddamned A10 Warthogs.  And Lawrence Fishburne as Perry White.

You feel the hits connect.  Force and mass accelerate.  And it is glorious.  It looks, sounds and feels completely RIGHT.  These are gods fighting.

I'm burying this next bit.

I'm so straight it's boring.  I'm pretty damned vanilla.  But, oh my god, Henry Cavill without a shirt.  Oh.  My.  God.

I did not expect to like "Man of Steel" as much as I did.  I new that Snyder was a more-than-competent director, and Nolan has his fingerprints all over this movie.  I want to say that they knocked it out of the park.  I want to say that it ranks up there with "The Dark Knight".

But!

But, Snyder is not subtle.  Nor is Nolan.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe (Iron Man/Captain America/Thor/Avengers, not Spider-Man/Fantastic Four/X-Men) has made changes to the lore of its heroes.  I'm fine with the changes as long as they make sense.  Kubrick's "The Shining" is VASTLY different from King's novel, but they are both good enough to be judged on their own merits.

You may have heard or read on the internet or seen things on the tv about an... equivalency?  Cross-cultural metaphoric symbol switching?

Superman = Jesus.

WRONG!

Superman =/= Jesus.

Superman = Moses.

Why would a couple of nice Jewish boys like Jerry Seigel and Jerome Schuster make a Jesus character?  That's dumb.  You're dumb for thinking that.