First off, in case you live under a rock, or you like Justin Bieber, you probably don’t know that Man of Steel is a moniker for Superman. So lets just go ahead and clear that up right away. Got it? Man Of Steel = Superman. OK? Check.
ANYWAYS… The first trailer is up for Man Of Steel, the new re-boot-imagining of the Superman franchise, directed by Zack Snyder, and produced by none other than the main man himself, Christopher Nolan, because… gritty. We saw a teaser trailer a couple weeks ago and I thought it looked freaking awesome. As much of a cliche it is these days, it really did seem like a “real” and “serious” telling of the Superman origin and story. The first trailer below gives us a bit more of a look into that world. And I don’t know why, but it brings down my expectations just slightly.
Maybe it is just because I am still pissed off that I wasted my time with that horrible Spiderman re-boot, but to me I kind of get the feeling (again) of “didn’t I just see this?” But other than that, the way they are presenting the film looks entirely different and I can get on board with that. The special effects look pretty bad ass, however if you listen to the show at all you know that I am not a huge proponent of mass quantities of CGI, so I really hope they don’t over do it (Suckerpunch I am looking at you), but they will. Guaranteed. Also, is it just me, or did the part where Superman is shirtless and walking through fire look like horribly bad CGI? I’m talking like The Darkest Hour bad… ouch.
Michael Shannon definitely looks the part of a pretty ruthless General Zod, but we don’t really get to see much of him here, so I’ll wait for the second trailer to pass judgement on him. And judgement I will pass!
I do like how you can see the physical representation of Superman’s powers, in the scene where he is getting ready to take off, and slamming into the bank vault causing a huge dent, rather than just see him using his powers to fly really fast or laser-beam-eye a Hot Pocket. However, I think there is definitely room for this movie to take a turn for the worse. If you look at Snyder’s track record, its pretty much a shot in the dark. Not that he has made the worst movies really, but still… for every Dawn of the Dead, you have a Suckerpunch. For every Watchmen you have Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole. Then there is 300, which a lot of people kind of thought was over the top, but I thought was pretty unique and bad ass for what it was. So, I am not saying that the new Superman movie is going to have cartoon owls, or giant Blue Man Group dudes walking around with their junk swingin’ in your face either. But hopefully we can get a real character driven Superman movie that uses CGI to enhance the story instead of tell it. By the way, anyone else notice that Clark wasn’t wearing any glasses? Hmm, must have gotten Lasik. Would they need a Kryptonite laser for that? Just curious…
Man of Steel stars Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Russell Crowe, and Michael Shannon and is scheduled to take off (get it?) June 14th 2013. Let us know what you think of the trailer in the comments! Especially the cheesy, “Me Clark, me walk through FIRE!” part.
Cinema Recon 