Directed By – Keanu Reeves
Starring – Tiger Hu Chen, Keanu Reeves, Karen Mok, Simon Yam, and Iko Uwais
A young martial artist’s unparalleled Tai Chi skills land him in a highly lucrative underworld fight club.
This was crap.
I don’t really know another way to put it. I pretty much hated it. This film marks the first time Keanu Reeves has ever been behind the camera and while the camera work is promising and occasionally impressive, the end result of his labor is a complete corn fest that seems like it was written by a 8th grader who likes karate. It’s a B level script that makes sense but takes the same generic story arcs from every bad American TV show and terrible 80s kung fu movie. We have one of the following…
1. Ambitious but naive protagonist that falls down the wrong path only to see the error of his ways
2. A gritty detective that will stop at nothing to avenge the death of an innocent, EVEN IF IT MEANS THROWING THE BOOK OUT THE WINDOW.
3. A villain who is never ever seen fighting who just so happens to be the hardest fight of all.
4. A comic relief henchman who likes American slang and rap music.
5. A disappointed master.
It all just felt so silly. If this was all just an homage to old fashioned kung fu movies and not to be taken as a serious attempt at a film then I owe Mr. Reeves an apology. Somehow I don’t don’t think that was the case. Tiger Chen happens to be an excellent and legendary martial artist so the impressive fight scenes were enough to keep my attention but just not enough to keep this film from spoiling. This also might just be the worst acting role from Keanu Reeves. He’s comically bad. The whole thing was comically bad. Maybe I didn’t get it.
Directed By – Zach Snyder
Starring – Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Diane Lane, Russell Crowe, Kevin Costner, Christopher Meloni, Antje Traue, and Laurence Fishburne
A young itinerant worker is forced to confront his secret extrastellar origin when Earth is invaded by members of his own race.
Earlier on in the year I reviewed “The Avengers”. I explained how I’m not a huge fan of superhero movies that don’t involve Batman. Most of this is because Batman is just a lunatic billionaire ninja in a cape and the rest of them have super powers that I just find stupid. Don’t get me wrong, if you’re into that kind of stuff, all the power to you. I just can’t wrap my head around it. Now, I did really enjoy “The Avengers”. The same can not be said of Man of Steel.
This is the first Superman film I’ve ever seen. I didn’t grow up on Superman. I grew up on Batman and occasionally Spiderman as long as it is represented by bad 90s animation. I had no interest in the Christopher Reeve films and when Bryan Singer made his version I skipped it as well. I guess the only reason I watched Man of Steel is because it made so much damn money and I felt that my 2013 end of the year review would be incomplete without it. I also think that Zach Snyder is perfectly capable of making a good film if he wants to evident by the vastly underrated “Watchmen” and one of the better modern zombie films “Dawn of the Dead”. When the initial trailer came out I had hope. It had a great narration from Crowe and just felt like it was going to be done right.
It wasn’t. It ended up being a big let down. However…
What I liked…
The visuals were fantastic. This is to be expected from a director like Zach Snyder. Pretty much every one of his films has that visual flare that makes in more than an ordinary film. It’s usually a spectacle and Man of Steel follows that mold. It’s a gorgeous film that really shines when the action kicks up. The second half of the film featured plenty of great fight scenes and it was fun to watch those. The acting was also good in parts as I enjoyed the always fantastic Amy Adams. I don’t think she’s ever had a bad role. Russell Crowe was also casted perfectly as the wise father of Superman. Oh and Elliot Stabler was in this. He was not saving rape victims with Benson but rather trying to kill aliens with bullets even though he knows they don’t work. Silly Stabler. Oh, and Michael Shannon is a badass. His face is made for villain-ry.
What I didn’t like…
Pretty much everything else. The story was full of holes. They tried to pack in ALL the Superman lore into a nice two hour plus package and it came off very shaky. Multiple times they had to create a situation where a talking head would come in and narrate a story so we could try to figure out what the hell was going on. It didn’t work well as I was constantly trying to figure out what certain words were or what the hell the Krytonians…Kryptons? Kryptonites? SEE? I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT THEY ARE CALLED. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I don’t know much about Superman but geez did they shove that fact in my face. They also, and I don’t see this as a spoiler, killed like a million people. Seriously, Superman with his brash fighting skills ended the lives of women and children and dudes who were getting coffee in an office building that is now toppling over. This happened in “Star Trek Into Darkness” and at least they had the decency to have a scene in which they acknowledge the fact that a lot of people died. Metropolis kinda just went “Well that sucked. Anybody wan to get a pancake or something?” Maybe we’ll get an Academy Award style memorial during the sequel and it’ll last sixteen hours.
It just wasn’t very good. I didn’t like the cheesy dialogue. I didn’t like Henry Cavill’s face. I didn’t like the same blockbuster garbage that seals the fate of promising films with great visuals. It’s like they spend the entire time making sure every detail on every ship is great but forget to write a story until it’s Monday morning and your homework is due first period. It didn’t work for me in High School and it won’t work on a 250 million dollar film.
Thoughts From the Booth 