Escape to the Movies: Red 2

[PuckFuppet]

The original superman movies:
-Are blatantly sexist!

Gonna stop you right there.

And MoS isn't? The film where a married woman saw the love of her life and the father of her child murdered infront of her and we're expected to believe she just... cried about it?

The film where the main love interest is saved by the hero four times and continues to be relevant to the plot only because Jor'El didn't bother to take the two-three seconds necessary to explain "Hit object A with thing B to win" to Clark... And despite it being one of her only decent lines in the film, that wasn't just either setting up a better line from someone else or responding to Clark, she never once wore or considered wearing a flak vest or kevlar. At all. Even when tagging along onboard an aircraft intending to fly at the alien superweapon and then drop a bomb of sorts on it... Eh? I don't see how that is an improvement on her 70's counterpart.

There are other elements to it but where the original Superman films were hamstrung by their time and setting the recent outing in the form of MoS doesn't deserve that excuse. I'd like to call it just sexist but there were points where it was blatantly misogynistic.

 

[MarsProbe]

Sorry, Bob, but the last Iron Man was not good. It was the messiest of them all and outright silly.

I enjoyed that film, but even so, it wasn't as good as Into Darkness. That's still the most enjoyable film I've seen this summer (yet to see Pacific Rim mind).

 

[Negatempest]

To make a long story short. Just because Super Man can level a city just from fighting, doesn't mean he does if there is a possible second option to prevent the lose of lives. Super mans "theme" was that even with all of his power to level an entire city, he does his best to limit the casualties or damage. He uses his brains first before his brawn. Fans of Super-man have already made a list of possible options he could of done to limit collateral damage, but in the end it just ended up unnecessarily leveling an entire city. Which is what Super-man tries not to do unless his all options have been negated.

 

[ShardiksHunnyPot]

Always a pleasure to see your stuff, Bob.
Sorry I won't be at your book signing, but keep that shit up: you are an eloquent, well informed voice in an otherwise overwhelming shouting match of opinions, and I'm glad to hear you over the din.

 

[ShadowHamster]

The original superman movies:
-Are blatantly sexist!

Gonna stop you right there.

And MoS isn't? The film where a married woman saw the love of her life and the father of her child murdered infront of her and we're expected to believe she just... cried about it?

The film where the main love interest is saved by the hero four times and continues to be relevant to the plot only because Jor'El didn't bother to take the two-three seconds necessary to explain "Hit object A with thing B to win" to Clark... And despite it being one of her only decent lines in the film, that wasn't just either setting up a better line from someone else or responding to Clark, she never once wore or considered wearing a flak vest or kevlar. At all. Even when tagging along onboard an aircraft intending to fly at the alien superweapon and then drop a bomb of sorts on it... Eh? I don't see how that is an improvement on her 70's counterpart.

There are other elements to it but where the original Superman films were hamstrung by their time and setting the recent outing in the form of MoS doesn't deserve that excuse. I'd like to call it just sexist but there were points where it was blatantly misogynistic.

I'm tired of people making excuses for the originals. I look at Tim Burton's Batman today and I see a terrible movie. IN IT'S DAY it did what people wanted it to do, which was take away the Adam West cheese.(Until Batman and Robin baffingly tried to return it) Are you talking about Jor'el's wife? Who did the RIGHT THING, and confronted her attackers in court? What did you want her to do? Murder them on the scene? Which even Jor'el avoided doing?

Lois is saved several times BY PEOPLE WHO HAVE POWERS LIKE SUPER SAYANS!!!!! In the mean time she shows herself to be observant, smart, and honorable by being the only person capable of tracking Superman's origins and only relenting when she saw the bigger picture. In the meantime having to be saved means nothing to her trying to go back out and win the fight, right up to flying into the heart of what was a suicide mission! Jor'el was never actually there, only a simulation, and managed to give the info to the one the badguys weren't guarding heavily. The one they wouldn't think to double check because they underestimated her. If you consider all of the 4 times she was saved, she isn't even saved from imminent and hopeless threat, but from objects and security systems. At no time did I get the impression that Lois was incompetent, and actually quite the opposite.

What's more, the second most shown woman in the movie is Zod's lieutenant, who in the original movies was obsessed with Zod(watch superman II again and they actually just tell you this in the OPENNING!!!! OBSESSED WITH MAD INFATUATION WITH ZOD!!!) Here she is a strong military mind who obviously rose to power due to her competence and power. She overpowers every enemy that's faced and is only beaten in the face of a friggin black hole!

So yeah, MUCH better track record so far!

The thing that really bugs me though, is people who don't like MoS don't really give many reasons. I didn't even see the stuff people keep pointing out as definite fact:

"It's dark and grim tone doesn't fit the material! The movie feels depressing!" I'm sorry, but at no point did I find the movie depressing. I'd like someone to point out what elements of this film depressed them, because to me it was the classic messiah movie with Superman playing that role, while the ghosts of his past put his desired future at stake! They represent superman beautifully here, a force more powerful than you could imagine choosing to walk as an equal rather than bask in any kind of glory. A physical power balanced by a philosophy that preaches good for good's sake, with the award being people not dying. I'd even point out that he consistently breaks his father's wishes since he still saves people left and right, he just does so undercover.

"Zod is killed!" Moviebob's only legitimate argument to the film, yet Zod has died in every other medium superman has been in, and in each one has died by superman's hand! So they broke his character by having him do to Zod what he's been forced to do in EVERY OTHER INSTANCE WITH THE CHARACTER?! In Superman II he kills them AFTER depowering them, meaning he could just as easily have locked them up in a prison! In the comics, killing them is the reason for his sabbatical from earth. In MoS, they don't just kill Zod, they also show that Superman fought really damn hard to NOT kill Zod. He pleads with Zod AND ALL HIS FORCES to stop their plans about 3 times before enacting a plan to save earth at the cost of their lives. He only takes Krypton life when the Kryptonians make it very clear this is war.

"Superman doesn't need realism" and this movie has any? MoS is incredibly stylized and is painted in tones that scream "EPIC EPIC EPIC!!!" at the top of their lungs. On the other hand at no point did I think they were going for realism. I thought they were going for "larger than life" which is something superman should frankly fucking radiate! And HE DID! I'm not even calling this film at all perfect, I'm just saying it's the best representation of the character IN FILM! and I stand by that statement until someone reveals what I'm missing. I don't even think it's the best representation of the character, for that you want comics.

Seriously, what did people want out of this? My hopes weren't all that high, because Warner Brothers has DONE ZERO to make them high. I was more than happy with what I got, which I would rate as a better than average movie with a lot to say on the material. It fleshed a lot out, giving us a look at the ridiculous technology on Krypton. Telling us what made Krypton blow up.(Core Mining caused the planets Core to become unstable, and thus it lost it's center of gravity and collapsed.) It felt researched, and I've read the HELL out of superman. I'm a pop culture junkie and my favorite fix is comics man!

I just don't get it. If this was a marvel film I don't for A SECOND think that moviebob would be so troubled. It's this sacred cow thing because Superman isn't a character, he's a god damned icon, to the point where you just can't please everyone. This was very in flavor with the cartoon from the 90s, it's also very in flavor with Silver Age superman. I enjoyed the hell out of it. Sorry.

 

[Strazdas]

snippity snip

im fully behind you.
The old suprhero movies are glorified to no end and when you actually look at them with a fresh look, they are far from being good. to begin with. In the original superman movies most of characters were blatantly retarded......

 

[Drauger]

I just don't get it. If this was a marvel film I don't for A SECOND think that moviebob would be so troubled.

I kind of feel this is the reason why Bob trashes Superman and Batman so much.

 

[CelestDaer]

I had two problems with Man of Steel: 1) It was way the heck too loud. There was no reason for the insane level of noise just to fill the noise. Heck, I'm partially deaf in one ear and it was still so overbearingly loud...
2) The scene where Superman goes to talk to the preacher, and then we get that pan up to the stained glass window of Jesus. Subtle!
Those being said, I still enjoyed the movie, just... gonna wait until I can control the volume myself to see it again.
Oddly enough? I had no trouble with how loud Pacific Rim was, but it wasn't just loud for the sake of loud. It fit the moments.

 

[ShadowHamster]

I had two problems with Man of Steel: 1) It was way the heck too loud. There was no reason for the insane level of noise just to fill the noise. Heck, I'm partially deaf in one ear and it was still so overbearingly loud...
2) The scene where Superman goes to talk to the preacher, and then we get that pan up to the stained glass window of Jesus. Subtle!
Those being said, I still enjoyed the movie, just... gonna wait until I can control the volume myself to see it again.
Oddly enough? I had no trouble with how loud Pacific Rim was, but it wasn't just loud for the sake of loud. It fit the moments.

Actually, had the same problem with both scenes. I liked his talk with the preacher as so much as the preacher gave a good answer, but the whole scene wasn't just cheesy, it was literally bending over backwards to be smermily nice to everyone...
Similarly, I had a friend go with me who missed 15 minutes because the noise was too much.

Still loved the hell out of this movie. Every scene could be filtered into a Comic scene, it was stylized and cool, and I thought they got the humble goodness of the big blue space jesus down. I don't understand what people were wanting. I really don't know what you were expecting from this film?(This message is not to quoted poster, I fully agree with him/her)

 

[Olas]

EPIC EPIC EPIC Snip

Thank you for putting into words what I've been wanting to for the longest time regarding MoS. I don't think it's a perfect film, but it damn well deserves more respect than it gets.

 

[Dyan]

Still waiting for a review of This is The End...

 

[Happiness Assassin]

All I took from this was: Disney Planes.

WTF?

And apparently it is just the first installment of an EPIC trilogy. God help cinema and god help us all

Also the main character is voiced by Dane Cook.

 

[Paradoxrifts]

Sometimes an unpretentious solidly constructed action-film is just what the doctor ordered. And I'll be going to see Red 2, because the last one was great fun and since we'll all get old, wrinkled & grey someday I find the geriatric cast quite charming.

Also, it was largely inevitable that Movie Bob would start bashing the ever-living shit out of Man Of Steel. I think that he openly lied to his viewership about originally taking a liking to it, and was just waiting around for the opportunity to start relentlessly tearing into it much like he has previously done with Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy. Man Of Steel in all honesty wasn't as good as that trilogy but since it started off below average and finished strongly I can't wait to see what else the Man Of Steel gets up to.

 

[Evil Smurf]

I liked RED so I'll check this out.

 

[endtherapture]

Right this is it. I am done with Bob and his reviews. Farewell Bob you will no longer get any views from me.

Over the past year, with Bob's constant praise of The Avengers (and the Raimi Spider-Man films) as the pinnacle of modern film-making and constant put downs of The Dark Knight franchise and The Amazing Spider-Man (and now Man of Steel and Star Trek), with your praise for Iron Man 3, I've come to realise we are completely different wavelengths, because I thought Iron Man 3 was shit, and Pacific Rim looks average. I also hate the Raimi Spider-Man films and think the Avengers was very average.

Since you tell me to go films I will hate, and not to go films that I end up liking, this is it. Bye Bob.

Honestly I'm not really surprised by MovieBob's take on the summer so far. I don't agree with most of it, but I get why.

MovieBob... you're getting old.

Just accept it. Accept that shit is not going to be as shiny as you remember it when you were young. Accept that sometimes things in your childhood get rebooted or rebranded. Sometime they cater to what once made them awesome, like Pacific Rim, but most of the time they're going to be changed for the current era, because they actually want the movie to sell well. Sure there's been some horrifying bad examples of rebooting; Lone Ranger doesn't even star the Lone Ranger, WWZ is plain old doing zombies wrong, and I'll even go out on a limb and say that splitting The Hobbit into three movies is just Peter Jackson spanking the movie market out of every dollar he can, but sometimes movies get rebooted and changed for the right reasons.

Man of Steel is exactly what every Superman movie ever made was missing; its only flaw was missing some of the components that most Superman movies got right: chemistry, for example. I dislike Sony Pictures about as much as anyone else, but the Spiderman reboot was actually good and catered to the actual comic book Spiderman more than the previous trilogy. Oh, and Star Trek was DEAD before Abrams brought it back to life; you don't have to like what he did with it, but doing nothing would've caused the franchise to just fizzle out and be forgotten.

You're gonna have to start calling yourself a Nostalgia Critic here pretty soon if you can't reign in your nerd rage a little more.

Agreed on almost all counts, Bob is now just nostalgic for own things and let's his personal nostalgia prevent him making an honest judgement on what are actually pretty good films.

I think I was truly done when he started bashing TASM for "not being like the comic books" or "ashamed of it's comic book origins" when it's actually incredibly faithful to the comic books.

 

[Vedli]

Bob is now just nostalgic for own things and let's his personal nostalgia prevent him making an honest judgement on what are actually pretty good films.

Translation: honest judgment = liking, pretty good films = films I like. But hey if you need emotional validation from your critics that badly by all means stop watching Bob. Personally I don't feel the need to make passive aggressive insults at the man just because we have different tastes on some things.

On another note when did this idea start knocking about that Bob doesn't like The Dark Knight franchise? Because he said Dark Knight Rises was a bit of a disappointment? Because he sometimes makes jokes about the dark tone in order to contrast them with other movies in the genre? My god you people must be very thin skinned if you can't handle even the smallest joke been made about those movies. For the record I was (having read and watched all his stuff here) under the opinion he thought the first one was good, the second one great and the third so-so (bad when compared to the second one but which even Bob felt was unfair since the second one was "Lightning in a bottle". If someone can point to the article where he said I thought the Dark Knight franchise sucked I read it and update my opinion.

 

[endtherapture]

Bob is now just nostalgic for own things and let's his personal nostalgia prevent him making an honest judgement on what are actually pretty good films.

Translation: honest judgment = liking, pretty good films = films I like. But hey if you need emotional validation from your critics that badly by all means stop watching Bob. Personally I don't feel the need to make passive aggressive insults at the man just because we have different tastes on some things.

On another note when did this idea start knocking about that Bob doesn't like The Dark Knight franchise? Because he said Dark Knight Rises was a bit of a disappointment? Because he sometimes makes jokes about the dark tone in order to contrast them with other movies in the genre? My god you people must be very thin skinned if you can't handle even the smallest joke been made about those movies. For the record I was (having read and watched all his stuff here) under the opinion he thought the first one was good, the second one great and the third so-so (bad when compared to the second one but which even Bob felt was unfair since the second one was "Lightning in a bottle". If someone can point to the article where he said I thought the Dark Knight franchise sucked I read it and update my opinion.

It's not that he's said it's bad...he just keeps bringing things up OVER and OVER and OVER again in every episode and it's clear he doesn't like it just for the fact he brings the films up so much. And the fact that it's brought up so much goes from "okay Bob, I respect your opinion" to "will you please shut the fuck up that you don't like TDK/TASM/MoS ffs this is the 50th time you've told" and his reviews are just becoming annoying, irritating, fanboy rants.

I can respect that he doesn't like something, I can't respect that he has to bring it up in every single review and being an arse about it. Either way, my problem is more about his treatment of Spider-Man than TDK.

And film Bob enjoys, I think are average, and ones he hates, I enjoy...so why should I be watching his reviews then?

 

[josemlopes]

snip

I agree with this, the movie is somewhat flawed:

Spoiler

The death of Jon Kent was really dumb, why the hell didnt Clark go get the dog and how didnt they saw that shit coming, etc... It had a point but it felt very forced

But still I agree that its the best Superman movie out there and it completely stands on its own well.

 

[Strain42]

Why is everyone so ready to assume to Planes is going to suck?

I mean yeah...it probably won't be great, and I certainly don't have my hopes up that it went from a Straight to DVD film starring Jon Cryer to a theatrical release starring Dane Cook (...just...why?) but I've heard from a few people who saw advanced screenings of it who said that it really turned out alright. I think at the very least it'll be a fun little animated film that'll be perfectly fine for people who...well...like animated films.

Sure it's not a Pixar movie, and people seem to be latching onto that nut like it...y'know...matters. So what if Disney is doing it instead of Pixar? That doesn't automatically mean it'll be bad. Wreck-It-Ralph was done by Disney and I actually vote that better than a fair number of the Pixar films, and I'm one of the biggest Pixar fanboys there is (I'm literally watching the DVD commentary fro Toy Story 3 as I type this)

Bob, I gotta admit I was really hoping for an RIPD review this week. That's one of those movies I'm actually really interested in seeing, but I'm hesitant on whether or not it'll be good.

Next week, The Wolverine?