Poll: Man of Steel; Why the hatred?

[RedDeadFred]

Non-linearity is great if used correctly in movies. In this one, it felt really choppy and rushed in the beginning (after the Krypton part). There were quite a few plot holes (although this is common in pretty much every super hero movie) and the story was fairly mediocre.

However, the fight scenes were probably the best I've ever seen. They were incredibly over the top and I loved them. As for the controversial ending, I liked it. A lot of people don't seem to get why he had to do this. Zod's purpose in life had been taken from him and so in his rage, he wants to destroy everything Superman loves. He wasn't going to stop trying to kill people until he was dead.

 

[King Aragorn]

I don't get how the story being a bit more gritty means Superman can't be a symbol of hope? does it have to be Saturday cartoon material for that aspect of the character to shine through? not really. I'm not claiming the movie is perfect by the way, but there is no clear exclusivity for those two things.

 

[Soulrender95]

Who is Clark Kent?
The film focuses so much on trying to convince us he's SuperJesus that we learn nothing about him as a person, he wanders around and helps people and smashes trucks over being splashed with a drink. "Rawr I am wet so I ruin your livelihood!"
you know that sounds a fair bit like the Hulk.
But who is Clark Kent? why did he set off to wander the world? where did he find the time to get all the experience and education to be a reporter and why did he choose to be a reporter?

I didn't feel like I knew any of the characters in any real sense except for Zod, he had reasons and a motivation to do what he did, sure he did it in a stupid way but I knew why.
Everyone else was just there for exposition, or to reiterate the exposition. First act we See Jor-el and his space dragon and the destruction of krypton and Zods attempted coup, Later SuperJesus finds a kryptonian spaceship and Jor-el tells us the opening half of the movie again, minus space dragon.

Nobody in this film act or speak like real people aside from one or two lines, nobody has a realistic reaction to death two characters stand blithely awaiting death, one of whom didn't even need to die. SuperJesus snaps Zod's neck and is broken up about it for five seconds then he's fine in the very next scene.
Talking of killing Zod, I didn't have a problem with the act but the setup to make it happen was so forced and contrived, there were several ways out of that confrontation, sure you can argue hindsight and that he's a young hero, but the problem comes back to the question, Who is Clark Kent? the whole concept that he won't kill or that it's against his moral code is never mentioned or even hinted at before.

To me this seems to be a movie that hates the comic book superman and yet relies on peoples knowledge of it to fill in the gaps that the movie skips over and that's just terrible film-making, So ultimately I was left disappointed by it.

 

[tranceformat]

Im starting to think people took the film way too seriously,expecting it to be a realisting portrayal of what would have happened should an alien land here.It was a blockbuster,and yeah the unnecessary drama dragged on for far too long at times but all in all,it was quite a spectacle with lots of stuff blowing up and thats what I was looking for.
Amy Adams and Henry Cavill were not two people in love with each other,though.Not bad actors,just did not seem like they had anything going on for the whole movie.

 

[Scarim Coral]

I personally liked the film since I like the portaryal of Kryton and the action film did justice to the Superman franchise as a whole (come on, he got super strength and he has to be super careful with his surrounding!).

Granted the films did has alot of flaws like pacing and plotholes (Kal El is the first natural Krytonian and yet his destiny was already chosen for him to be a savior, what make that different to the other path chosen Krytonians?) and I didn't really see the spark for Lois and Clark to fall in loved with each other.

Lastly I didn't get with the whole butthurt of the ending. I will say is yes Superman is NOT a killer but what choices did he had? You got to asked yourself, since the phantom zone vanish so Zod can't be sent away, how else would you detain a demi god like being especially when krytonite did not appear in the film at all? Even then I was still on with hin killing since he did show great remorse for doing it!

 

[Exterminas]

I don't hate the movie, but it has severe issues. They can be summed up in two points:

1. It isn't a well-written movie.
Certain scenes are visually impressive, but almost every scene with dialogue in it has a plot hole. Here are a few examples:
- If citizens on Krypton are all the product of genetic engineering and life-long training, how come the Lead Scientist Russell Crow was able to kick Zod's ass at the beginning of the movie?

- How come there is no time to evacuate any of krypton but there is still time to put Zod and his gang on Trial and send them away?

- If everyone on krypton wears that power-armor-stuff, how come superman's costume is skin-tight spandex? The only other kryptonian who wears anything like that is Zod when he is sent off to prison and when he climbs out of his armor. Did Superman's daddy just give him a set of kryptonian underwear?

- How did Klark find that military excavation in the middle of nowhere?

I could continue this list. Pretty sure every scene that contains spoken dialogue contains a plot hole like that.

The first half of the movie seems to be missing some important scenes, which make it feel rushed out. And you can constantly ask things like "Why does he know that?", whenever character spout some dumb exposition. My favourite part is when the Kryptonians ask Louis to accompany Clark on the plane when there is zero reason for them to do so.


2. It is note faithful to it's source material.
The movie pisses on a lot of things regarding the superman-lore. Stuff like Pa Kent saying that letting people die is okay as long as you don't shake their precious vision of conformity, the S-Symbol being some dumb sigil-thing on crypton, Superman killing multiple persons with his bare hands, not caring about innocent lives, the horrible Klar Kent-Impression that has zero camouflage-value etc.

This field of criticism might not be important for everyone, but it should be considered when wondering why the internet hated that movie.

 

[Catfood220]

It was alright, I've certainly seen worse movies. I thought the first half of the film dragged, but you know they've got to show the origins story for the one person in the world who has never heard of Superman. And the thing with the dog was so fucking stupid it made me headbutt the screen. But once Zod turns up on Earth, the film gets more interesting and the fight scenes were pretty good. But the only thing I was thinking during the final fight was "so many people have died here".

Its not the worst movie I've ever seen. Hell, its not even the worst Superman film I've ever seen. That honour goes to Superman Returns where everyone loses the ability to use reasoning. "Hey, Superman has been away for a while and so has Clark Kent. Oh wow, Superman is back and so is Clark Kent...Oh no, Superman is dead and Clark Kent is no where to be seen. I can't help but feel that I'm missing something here..." Terrible.

In the end, my opinion of it was that it was a Summer popcorn blockbuster and nothing more. Hopefully the sequel will be better, but going by the extra characters they seem to be shovelling in for no good reason, all I can think is that its going to be awful.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

Man of Steel is a movie I have a very...fluid opinion of.

On one hand, it was rather nice to see such a large scale veritable clash of titans between Superman and Zod; basically any time Faora and Zod got screen time was god damned gold and I felt Henry Cavill was a capable Superman and Clark Kent.


On the other hand, the back and forth switching between flashbacks in the first half or so of the movie is obnoxious to the extreme; I'm not sure exactly how much influence (if any) Christopher Nolan exerted over this whole affair but I wish he'd go the fuck away so I can see actual colour again - oh lordy how Marvel have spoiled me. David Goyer also needs to remember what fun is (make him watch Blade: Trinity again; that was hilarious) and remember to balance the drama with some levity and most of all stop TELLING us that Superman can be this great symbol and SHOW us, you miserable bastard. I know it hasn't aged brilliantly, but the scene in 'Superman' when he catches Lois and the Helicopter - there's nothing like that because all his previous heroics are tainted by a stigma of doubt and fear despite them being rather incredible.

There's a bunch of superficial shit too like Christopher Meloni and Harry Lennix desperately trying outdo each other in patriotic dick stroking: I get that as US servicemen their first thoughts will be for their home, but a Colonel and General are expected to look at the big picture so the question shouldn't be about America's interests, but the whole world's. Kevin Costner phoning in Pa Kent to an awful degree while being just a bit of a dickhole into the bargain (an issue NOT shared by Ma Kent - she was wonderful) plus the appallingly ham-fisted scene in the Church: new flash Goyer, invoking religious symbolism works better characters who ARE religious - that's why the Babylon 5 episode 'Passing through Gethsemane' is so emotionally involved and resonates with people.

Oddly enough the one person in this whole sordid affair I don't have an issue with was Zack Synder - all the action scenes, especially Faora's, are expertly put together and the utter lack of slow motion was a delight.


It isn't the worst movie I saw last year, not by a long shot, but DC evidently had so little faith in the Man of Steel that despite his movie making north of half a billion dollars, he has to share his sequel with Batman.

 

[prpshrt]

It was like watching Superman returns through a "Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight filter" if that makes any sense. Took itself way too seriously. I think the selling point for the movie was actually the Dark Knight trilogy because of Nolan's involvement in it (Just my opinion of course).

 

[V da Mighty Taco]

Simply put, the movie breaks the cardinal rule of storytelling: Show, don't tell.

For example, Clark's Kryptonian father serves absolutely no other purpose in the movie than to be a plot device and spout exposition. Clark's human father is in the same boat, only even more preachy and nonsensical than the Kryptonian one. Clark himself gets some character development as a child, but as an adult he becomes little more than a brooding mysterious wanderer who's destined to save the world because the writers said so (which is something that got old in anime a long time ago, and that's an often hideously derivative medium). Most of who adult Clark is was merely told to us through other characters rather than us actually seeing his development as a character, with the controversial neck-snap scene being the only one that comes to mind which actually shows us Clark growing as a character.

There's other major issues with this movie, such as the massive amount of plotholes and the fact that other characters talk about Clark like a fanfic writer talks about their Mary Sue (or Meyer about Mr. Cullen - HEYO!!!!), however in the end Man of Steel simply fails as a movie, and even the enjoyable fight scenes (at least when the shaky-cam isn't ruining them) can't fix that.

 

[Sarge034]

I just felt like the movie diverged too much from the known cannon. I have watched at least 5 min of every Superman movie to date and some tv shows when I was younger. I really don't know much about his character, but the things I do know are known universally. In short, all that destruction was so out of place that it just didn't feel like Superman. Ergo, it was a bad Superman movie. Was it a bad movie? I dunno. I would have to watch all of it before I could competently answer that question

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

I liked it, but from what I've gathered these were some of the reasons

- Dull characterization
- Needlessly disjointed story structure
- Superman not really being what Superman is about (which IMO is up to the viewer but whatever)
- The third act being nothing but overwhelming explosion porn
- The invoking of 9/11 imagery in the finale
- The Nolan effect, ie. everything has to be gloomy, dark, washed-out, serious etc. A lack of having fun, if you will
- Lots of the rules the movie has established getting thrown out the window in the finale, like how all of a sudden Zod can fly and breathe on Earth

 

[ISearchForTraps]

For me, Superman killing Zod was on par with Optimus Prime killing Megatron and Sentinel Prime, out of character and needlessly violent. There was a dozen ways he could have incapacitated Zod besides snapping his neck, much like Optimus Prime decapitated Megatron and shot Sentinel Prime to death when he was no longer a threat. Not at all heroic.

 

[tippy2k2]

Simply put, the movie breaks the cardinal rule of storytelling: Show, don't tell.

The more I think about it, the more I think that this is one of the "against" that people have brought up that I do agree with and I'm kind of surprised I didn't notice it. I was a Film Minor in school so a lot of the movie things that normies don't notice wave their hands and yell "LOOK AT MEEEEE!" in my face during the movie. I don't know if it was since I was watching it at home (I was making chili for ze Superbowl so I paused the movie repeatedly) or what but I get where that's coming from.

The poll is looking neat and partially confirms what I thought (or at least my bias allowed me to say that it confirms what I thought )

The vote seems to be pretty much split like and hate but the people that liked it thought it was good to alright but the people who don't like it really really don't like it (therefore are much more likely to speak up).

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Its rushed, jumbled and to condensed, it should have been 2 films the first one focusing on Kent becoming Superman and doing typical superman things and then Louis lane figuring it out near the end if ever.

 

[gorfias]

This was not a good movie. Dark and gloomy. These guys need to understand that Superman is not Batman. And he is not Jesus. He is a corn fed Ultimate Immigrant full of hope. He has lots of friends. His dad's death is iconic. His dad is supposed to die of natural causes to show him, with all his powers, he is only a mortal. There are things that are beyond him and are supposed to be.

Sure, we don't really know what happened to the bad Kryptonians in Superman II anymore than we understand what the hell that flying S was. We just understand... for some reason... he isn't murdering them cheerfully. (In an out take, they are taken from the fortress by the cops.) But Superman doesn't kill. A time I can think of (Against an evil version of Mr. Mxyzptlk) was a career ender for him. He knew he'd crossed a line.

But again, Superman is not Batman. And yet,

 

[Nadia Castle]

I thought it was a perfectly fine film, but then again I've never been particularly invested in DC outside of the animated universe (I generally prefer publishers other than the big two). I think the hate has stayed so vicious because the movie was never outstanding nor was it a Transformers 2 level abomination. Awful movies fade fast, merely good ones get picked apart for a long, long time. No-one bitches about the truly awful 'Attack of the Clones (minus the last 20 mins) to the same level they do about the Phantom Menace which was an okay film, just not remotely special.