Man of Steel and Iron Man 3: Two movies of 2013 that has divided comic book fans and movie goers

[tzimize]

I liked Iron Man 3 a lot. With equal parts awesome action, actual character development (yeah, amazing isnt it. The avengers aftermath was pretty cool. Imo) and witty quips from Downey everything was a fantastic marvel spectacle. Fortunately Marvel seems to know how to not take their own material TOO seriously, and at the same time refrain from making it silly.

Its a feat, but they are succeeding. Imo.

Man of Steel was awful, forgettable. I recently tried rewatching it, at least for the "cool parts", but realized there was not a single scene I was really interested in seeing again. Considering the ridiculous action pieces, and the "heavy" moments of the film...thats saying everything.

 

[Zetatrain]

I rather enjoyed the twist in Iron Man 3 and as a whole I enjoyed Iron Man 3 and it more or less lived up to my expectations. However I can understand why some comic book fans were pissed with it especially since it seems a lot of people were looking forward to seeing the Mandarin.

As for Man of Steel, eh that's a bit trickier. I enjoyed it but it wasn't exactly good IMO. It was a bit too...broody I guess. I mean on one hand like the idea of Superman having a hard time while growing up on a planet where he is essentially an outcast. On the other hand I don't think they balanced out the "dark" elements/scenes with enough happy/light hearted scenes. For instance the scene where Superman flies for the first time is my favorite scene in the movie because of how uplifting it feels. I wish there were more scenes like that. Oddly enough among the things i do have with the problem the most touted ones "superman doesn't kill" or "hundreds supposedly died in the final fight" didn't really bother me.

 

[Pescetarian]

As someone who has never read a comic (well, I did quite enjoy Watchmen before seeing the film, but that practically doesn't count) but has seen quite a lot of movies, I was pleasantly surprised by Iron Man 3 and disappointed in Man of Steel.

I had actually never seen any Marvel Cinematic Universe movie before Iron Man 3 - I went to it because it was hot outside and there nothing else I wanted to see - and I interpreted it as a satirical comedy first and an action movie second, because the plot is designed to set up the humor. I actually thought it was a deconstructive parody of The Dark Knight Rises, taking the major points of that movie and turning them on its head to create both comedy and drama, and to tie in to the greater themes of the universe - the Mandarin twist being a perfect example. In TDKR, a boring and surprisingly important new character was revealed to be a villain from the comic books to general dissatisfaction. In IM3, a villain from the comic books was revealed to be a funny and inconsequential new character

Man Of Steel's biggest problem is how it failed to connect with anyone on an emotional level. Whatever you think of the Mandarin twist, you can't deny that it was important to the film's story and themes. In Man of Steel, when Superman breaks Zod's neck, it comes out of nowhere and goes nowhere - Superman screams for a few seconds, and immediately goes back to smooching Lois Lane as triumphant music plays. They should have done more to tie the neck-breaking in with the rest of the movie, because it feels out of place.

 

[Tiamattt]

I thought the twist was one of the few good things to come out of Iron Man 3. Like sure seeing a actual Mandarin would've been epic, but the twist was a nice surprise and I got some good laughs out of that guy. The rest of the movie on the other hand was pretty lousy. As a movie itself it wasn't that terrible, but for me the biggest problem was there was way too less Iron Man for a Iron Man movie. And of course when the armor did show up it looked like it was made out of paper. There's other grips about the movie that made me dislike it but the above is my biggest reasons why I thought the movie sucked.

Superman was...weird. It was one of those movies I didn't come out unhappy but I wasn't really happy about it either. Like if I had to rate it, it would been right down the middle at 2 stars. maybe with a half if I'm being generous. Not a terrible movie that makes me groan when I think about it, but something I would immediately say no to if someone asked if I wanted to buy another ticket.

 

[Nimzabaat]

I think the twist in Iron Man 3 could have worked if they had introduced the Killian character in Iron Man. As it was they've been prepping us for the big throwdown against the Mandarin for three movies and then... nope, no payoff. Fuck you Shane Black. You are the Brett Ratner of the Marvel Cinematic Universe to me. Though that's just me, obviously. Not to mention that, the kid side kick was sooo painful to watch.

I really enjoyed Man of Steel. I guess the "Superman is a happy psychotic" take of yesteryear didn't really work for me. Does anyone remember Superman killing a helpless Zod at the end of Superman 2? He murdered him with a smirk, not to mention Lois got a cringe-worthy one liner in when she killed Ursa. Any movie that shows the death of billions of Kryptonians should be allowed to treat the material a little bit seriously in my opinion. As for "we don't need to show Superman's origin again"... i'm pretty sure that was the mentality behind Superman Returns and look how that turned out.

 

[Moderated]

I liked iron man 3. I didn't see superman, but I think he works best as a light contrast to batman.

 

[Jacques Joseph]

Well, in the case of IM3, the Mandarin "twist" was something that was sure to split the audience, so yeah, I think it is one of the main reasons of it being a love-it-or-hate-it movie. I personally liked the twist per se but even if Guy Pearce gave a pretty good performance, Killian seemed like a lackluster villain compared to the expectations they built with the Mandarin persona. So it felt more like the main villain was missing altogether in the second half of the movie.
I also think IM3 was a very ambitious movie that didn´t manage to pull it off that well. So it seems to me like there´s the movie Marvel TRIED to make and then there´s the movie they actually made and whether you like the final product depends on whether you´re able to see the movie they intended behind all the flaws that got in on the way.

As for Man of Steel, I don´t know... I don´t even feel it divides the audience that much, from what I´ve seen or read, it seems the movie is generally disliked. I think it´s partly high expectations, partly (trailer-induced) expectations of a psychological/philosophical movie confronted with those very long action sequences, partly the dark mood that doesn´t go well with everyone... for me, it was the load of BS that was the screenplay. Confused Matthew made a great review of it, I think. It lost me when it started with the Kryptonians finding out the planet is about to implode only weeks before it happened and reacted with an unbelieving "Are you actually suggesting we evacuate the planet?!?!" and it went only downhill from then on...

 

[K12]

I think both Iron Man 3 and Man of Steel attempted to make their series "grow up" a bit, one successfully and one unsuccessfully.

Iron Man 3 made the series grow out of the classic "Mandarin" villain (there's no denying that his classic persona can be summed up as "scary foreign guy"). I understand why big Iron Man and Mandarin fans would be annoyed but I think it worked really well. It's rare to find a twist that is completely unexpected and also makes sense in the context of the story, the fact that it could also potentially be seen as an intelligent political comment is an extra bonus.

There's also no stopping Ben Kingsley coming back after being corrupted by some magic rings and fitting the classic Mandarin style.

Man of Steel tried to make Superman "grow up" by taking out all the optimism and potential naivete of the character by making him a broody violent dick. In other words the 14 year old goth kid's idea of maturity. Every super hero seems to need to be broody and negative nowadays. When you grow up a bit more you realize that optimism is really valuable, even if you get screwed over every now and again.

The Iron Man 3 twist was very brave, clever and unexpected and made Iron Man 3 the overall best of the Iron Man films.

The changes to Superman with "Man of Steel" was a calculated group of "well it worked for Batman" changes that completely missed the most important parts of what makes Superman special.

I don't think it's a coincidence that they used Superman's nickname in the title to try and copy the success of a certain film that used Batman's nickname.

 

[RedDeadFred]

I didn't mind either of the big changes in the movies. It was the rest of Iron Man 3 that pissed me off. So many plot holes.... (which is alright btw if I don't notice them while I'm watching -there were some major ones in Iron Man 3 that I noticed immediately). Plus the action in Iron Man 3 wasn't even very good.

MoS was better, not a great movie but a fun watch seeing as their fight scenes (while stupid -I feel like Superman should have been a bit more careful with the wanton destruction) were a blast to watch. It had its plot holes too and just like Iron Man 3, some of them made me immediately question the writing as soon as they reared their heads.

Basically the two things that pissed people off about these movies the most were things that I didn't mind. They were both just not very good movies.

 

[[Kira Must Die]]

I liked Iron Man 3. I thought it was a lot of fun. I couldn't care less about the Mandarin thing, because I don't care about comic books, and even some of the other complaints people had never fazed me while watching it. Plot holes are fine if you can still engage your audience.

I never really cared much for Man of Steel. I neither liked it nor hated it, but I did found that last battle hilarious.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

See I am just glad they pulled the Mandarin screwjob because I didn't want to see a big screen version of Fin Fang Foom, which you must do if you're actually going to release the comic book Mandarin upon the movie-verse. I mean we've already had a terrible Godzilla movie and Iron Man vs. Godzilla just didn't sound right to me. Just doesn't fit...

 

[oreso]

Iron Man 3 was solidly good. I'll echo that the twist was genuinely unexpected and actually fits the movieverse very well. I kinda don't want them to do any more Iron Man movies for a while though; the series has really shown Stark grow as a character and I dunno where else they could take him. I mean, if they were gonna touch on alcoholism as part of his PTSD, I'd rather that had consequences for and an intervention from the rest of the team, ie in an Avengers movie.

Man of Steel was wildly OK. Telling the origin story TWICE was insane. I like that it focused on Kal's relationship to his fathers to externalise that existential angst, but their advice really really sucked: "GO FIGHT FOR MY POLITICAL IDEALS, NEWBORN BABY!" and "Don't save people! Even me! It's just not worth it!" I also thought Supes wasn't really Supes (far too broody and didn't save enough people), but I take this on board:

Man of Steel on the other hand I still think was really good, and I still maintain that this was the ultimate "origin" movie. There's a super /man/ in it, but he's not Superman, if you catch my drift. He's still learning how to use his powers when Zod Turns up, and as a result of killing him, it would appear he /then/ takes the vow to never kill, I guarantee Man of Steel 2 will have Superman in it, more in line with his comic counterpart, as a bastion of hope that he represents to the planet. He's wearing the outfit, but he hasn't yet become the legend.

So I have hope we'll have a proper Superman in the next film.

Cheers

 

[Thomas Barnsley]

I liked both of them. I guess I'm just a positive sort of guy, eh?

Nah really, but I do get the hate toward them. From what I read about the Mandarin online he seems like a total badass, and he was reduced to a joke in IM3. I didn't mind because I wasn't familiar with the villain at first.
MoS had a lot of action and not very good writing, as well as a radically new portrayal of the big man himself. So I can see why people wouldn't like that. The thing is, I liked the action. It was very very cool. I like cgi explosions occasionally, and Zack does them very well. I also liked the Kryptonites, including Superman. I think they actually fitted with the poor script in some weird way since they are not human and can conceivably say and do things that a human would find odd. However I did not like the human characters with the poor script. Particularly Superman's human dad, he was annoying.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

I don't know if I'd rate them as fanbase-splitting as each other. Iron Man 3 wasn't bad. I haven't thought about why I don't really like it, but it was enjoyable. Make no mistake, I didn't appreciate the fucking terrorism bullshit that finds its way everywhere these days, and then didn't appreciate the complete throwing out of the Mandarin, but the rest of the movie was alright. Man of Steel I thought was fucking terrible. Decent action tempered by ridiculous sage-like characters, military fetishism, a lack of actual human dialogue, lens flare and typicality, with 3 (I counted) jokes that I thought were amusing. However, other people liked it. I'd say MoS got more mixed reviews than IM3 did.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

Didn't see Iron Man 3. Iron Man 2 kinda had me disappointed.

What I will say about the Man of Steel is that Superman should not have been in the business of killing thousands of innocent people.

 

[StormDragonZ]

I never saw Man of Steel, so I can't say anything about that.

I do have an issue with Iron Man 3. It felt way too much like they didn't care or were deliberately expecting diehard comic people to hate it in a trolling manner to the point it was more of a comedy that an actual action movie.

I remember watching an episode of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart with Ben Kingsley as his guest. Ben seemed very bothered when he was said he was playing "the main villain", which made me wonder what bizarre twist they would do.

 

[chinangel]

i really hated Iron Man 3, and I'm not someone who reads the comics. I enjoyed the first one, the second movie wasn't really that good and the third one...ugh.

Why is it that Iron Man feels the best in the Avengers movie?

 

[Reaper195]

As someone who never bothered with comics, I thought Iron Man 3 was a decent movie when I first saw it. The next time O tried to watch it, I gave up halfway through. There just wasn't enough substance for a following viewing, and the action scenes were pretty....well, just pretty. They weren't that fantastic. Man of Steel, while mostly the same in the sense that the story wasn't very deep, was the closest we'll ever get to a decent Dragonball Z flick. Also, Michael Shannon as Zod was fuckin' amazing.