Friday, July 5, 2013

Special Holiday Movie Review

For my summer vacation I saw a movie called MAN OF STEEL about a super man who can beat up people real good and makes stuff go kablammo. Sort of like a Transformer robot but without the Martin Buber-esque nuance.


The movie opens with an Attack of the Clones alien vista of weird buildings and people with queer hair.

"Dame Edna, ladies and gentlemen..."

Russell Crowe is a scientist, apparently the only one on the planet, who is concerned about global imploding. Because those damn space congressmen won't do anything about it, Russell has to put his baby into the only spacecraft on the planet (also apparently)--which is funny since Russell had just put his baby inside his wife's vagina ha ha. Just before he hits the eject button he is stopped by a bad guy named General Zod.

"I'm bad. Get it? GET IT?!?!"

Zod and Jar-Jar-El have a tense conversation about their respective agendas. Crowe screams, "Haven't you read Gore-El's book 'An Inconvenient Implosion'?!" Meanwhile Crowe holds a very, very large gun. The screenplay, being written by an utter moron, doesn't bother with simple realities like a military man asking a potential antagonist to put down his weapon first before they have their chat. No, no. Just let him hold that gun. No prob. What--? Crowe shot the henchmen!! NO FUCKING WAY 

And yet this movie gets dumber. Much, much, much dumber. Superman grows up on Earth and we get some flashbacks to his tender years when he has to endure Kevin Costner's acting.

"Dad, why Waterworld? WHY?!?!?"

In one particularly brainless scene, Clark gets bullied by bullies (because bullies love to single out the intensely good-looking normally-proportioned kid) and his booky-wook goes flying. What is it? The camera zooms on the cover: Plato's Dialogues. Ha, typical NERD. Reading some book about Mickey Mouse's dog! And we all know that Superman embodies the ideas and virtues of Platonic philosophy. I kept waiting for trenchant references to the cave allegory. Maybe I'm naive...?

Anyway, Superman has two Dads which is very progressive of him. Jar-Jar-El, though dead and stuff, keeps popping up at opportune moments to help the creaking plot along.

"Use the force, Clark. And by that I mean your super fists. Go ahead, fucking smash everything. It's all insured!!..."

General Zod arrives on Earth and announces his coming out party on every internet and TV channel. This arouses the interest of the Daily Planet--poignantly the only newspaper left in the world. Laurence Fishburne is the hard-as-nails editor who wishes he was watching one of his daughter's "movies" rather than be involved in this krypturd.

"No way is this a hoax. I mean, it's on a computer screen!"

Superman fights General Zod and his transformer henchmen. On their spaceship he tries to get a threesome going, but that would actually be interesting, so forget that.

"I'm confused. Are they going to kiss, or what?"

In the end there is much mayhem and many, many people die, which is sort of good, I guess. That's what Superman is all about, right? Tons of indiscriminate slaughter? General Zod glowers and gnashes his teeth and tries to kill some dorks with his eye lasers, but Superman mercifully ends the movie by twisting the guy's head--which, uh, couldn't he have done this about two hours ago and saved us the dullness??

I never thought I'd say this, but I miss Richard Pryor hacking the kernel. At least there was some FORTRAN going on.


Yes, MAN OF STEEL was a movie filled with lazy, hacky, idiotic writing and many, many loud explosions in the hope that the logic cortex in our brains would be non-functioning. Hell, not even Superman himself understood it. Maybe he should go back to his Plato! 

"I've mastered confusion. What other expressions do you want me to do?"

Next Week: THE LONE RANGER (please kill me)

2 comments:

  1. I agree with that LaToya Jackson looking military girl at the end. Superman is kinda hot. Logic Smogic. When you're that good-looking, you don't need a cortex.

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  2. I haven't seen this movie yet, but I think I need to say, it's probably one of the better movies I haven't seen. Or worst. It's entirely up to you.

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