Finally found time to go see it. Not bad. Not bad at all.
Loved how they emphasized during the action and fight scenes not only Superman's desire to protect and save as many lives as possible, but also his desire to end each conflict as nonlethally as possible. I never imagined we'd get a movie where Superman fights a giant kaiju and tries to stop it without killing it. I'm just so accustomed to giant monster fights where the enemy monster gets killed or destroyed by the good guy(s) that seeing Superman trying not to do that was so unexpected and refreshing, yet completely in character for him.
And despite his pacifistic intentions in this movie, there were so many points during the fight scenes where I was cheering "WOOOOOO!" like a fanboy. That is such a good feeling to have and one I haven't had at the movies in a long time.
Most of all the other good points have already been talked about.
But on the other hand, there were some parts that didn't quite enthuse me as much.
Namely, this movie feels like it expects the audience going in to have more than an average knowledge of DC Comics and nerdy sci-fi concepts, what with just how much stuff was crammed into this movie (Guy Gardner, Hawkgirl, Mr. Terrific, Metamorpho, Ultraman, the Engineer, all of the cameo characters at the Daily Planet and Luthorcorp, Lex's other-dimensional prison that relies on the audience understanding multiversal jargon, etc.). I'm not saying it I needed the movie to be super grounded in reality, but for a movie that's going to be launching a new shared-universe film series, I was kinda hoping for more of an Iron Man 1 than an Iron Man 2. All this extra stuff made the movie feel a bit crowded and unfocused as a Superman movie, feeling less like a "Superman" movie and more like a "Superman & Friends" movie. I don't hate it for being the latter, I just went in expecting more of the former.
But at the same time, all this extra stuff and the setting where everyone currently is at this point in their lives during the movie made it also feel like I missed out on another movie. Like, this didn't feel like the first part of the story, but more like the middle part of a larger story that we missed out on seeing the beginning part. Especially with how much exposition dialogue we got from many characters having to explain everything in order to get the audience up to speed on things, since so much of Superman's earlier life was glossed over, necessitating all this exposition to go for a less desirable "tell, don't show" route. I get that we don't need to see Superman's origin for the umpteenth time, but I still like the feeling we get from seeing Superman first reveal himself to the world with his first rescue scene. Superman 1978's helicopter rescue scene, Superman TAS's second episode, even Superman Returns's airplane rescue scene. That last one wasn't even chronologically that Superman's first public rescue yet because it was his first rescue after being gone for a long while, it made for a glorious return to form for him that still felt like he was revealing himself to the world. As when Superman does reveal himself in a heroic rescue scene like that, he's not just showing himself off to the movie's in-universe world, but to us viewing the movie in the real world.
I get that James Gunn likes to throw us curveballs and so having a Superman movie open with Superman getting beat up, crashing to the Antarctic (Why did the movie change the Fortress's location from the north to the south?), and having Krypto playfully bring him back to the Fortress was an attempt to give us something new and humorous, but... I still really wish we could one day just get a definitive Superman movie that just works on every level. To this day, I still don't think we've ever gotten that yet. Not even from Superman 1978 or Superman II (either version). There are elements in both of those films that feel definitive (Reeve's Superman being the obvious example), but neither really ever got me thinking "This is the perfect Superman movie." As good as a movie Superman 1978 is, it still baffles me that it doesn't have a single fight scene in it at all. And call me a heretic but I never liked Gene Hackman's wacky, nasally-voiced Lex Luthor who lives in a goofy underground lair and is so fixated on real estate of all things.
The closest I feel any Superman media that I've seen has come being the definitive Superman story is the TAS three-part pilot "The Last Son of Krypton". It's close, but what might make it perfect is if you combine it with the young Clark parts of Superman 1978 and give Tim Daly's Superman the charm of Reeve's Superman, and maybe one really big heroic climax like the aforementioned airplane rescue scene from Superman Returns. But not too big of a spectacle lest you run the risk of going full Man of Steel with an ungodly amount of collateral damage that just reeks of needless gratuity (honestly, does Zack Snyder have a destruction fetish or was he just jealous of Michael Bay at the time?).
This brings me back to one other issue I took with this movie, but it's one that was pretty difficult to avoid with everything this movie wanted to do: It was very effects-heavy. The fight scene in the pocket dimension was really hard to follow when all the CGI was flying out at the screen while Superman was trying not to drown in the stream of (IIRC?) proton matter. All while heads towards a black hole, and while holding up a CGI green baby, to boot. It was a bit much, near excessive, and further illustrates my earlier points about how one going into this movie needs to already be familiar with hard sci-fi multiversal concepts in order to understand what all is going on in that scene, and how so much felt crammed into this film's story. Again, I'm not asking for a fully grounded story, I just didn't need this to be the geekiest Superman movie ever. And I say that as a sci-fi geek.
I know this is coming across as mostly negative, but don't get me wrong, this is way better than the last few outings we got with Superman on the big screen (which I know isn't saying much, but you know what I mean). I just got my positive feelings out in front before diving into my criticisms. And even then, I don't think any of the problems I had with the movie were deal-breakers. This is still a good movie. Lots of fun, lots of action, and lots of heart. But also, lots of "extra" that made it feel just a bit too indulgent for my tastes.
And despite his pacifistic intentions in this movie, there were so many points during the fight scenes where I was cheering "WOOOOOO!" like a fanboy. That is such a good feeling to have and one I haven't had at the movies in a long time.
Most of all the other good points have already been talked about.
But on the other hand, there were some parts that didn't quite enthuse me as much.
Namely, this movie feels like it expects the audience going in to have more than an average knowledge of DC Comics and nerdy sci-fi concepts, what with just how much stuff was crammed into this movie (Guy Gardner, Hawkgirl, Mr. Terrific, Metamorpho, Ultraman, the Engineer, all of the cameo characters at the Daily Planet and Luthorcorp, Lex's other-dimensional prison that relies on the audience understanding multiversal jargon, etc.). I'm not saying it I needed the movie to be super grounded in reality, but for a movie that's going to be launching a new shared-universe film series, I was kinda hoping for more of an Iron Man 1 than an Iron Man 2. All this extra stuff made the movie feel a bit crowded and unfocused as a Superman movie, feeling less like a "Superman" movie and more like a "Superman & Friends" movie. I don't hate it for being the latter, I just went in expecting more of the former.
But at the same time, all this extra stuff and the setting where everyone currently is at this point in their lives during the movie made it also feel like I missed out on another movie. Like, this didn't feel like the first part of the story, but more like the middle part of a larger story that we missed out on seeing the beginning part. Especially with how much exposition dialogue we got from many characters having to explain everything in order to get the audience up to speed on things, since so much of Superman's earlier life was glossed over, necessitating all this exposition to go for a less desirable "tell, don't show" route. I get that we don't need to see Superman's origin for the umpteenth time, but I still like the feeling we get from seeing Superman first reveal himself to the world with his first rescue scene. Superman 1978's helicopter rescue scene, Superman TAS's second episode, even Superman Returns's airplane rescue scene. That last one wasn't even chronologically that Superman's first public rescue yet because it was his first rescue after being gone for a long while, it made for a glorious return to form for him that still felt like he was revealing himself to the world. As when Superman does reveal himself in a heroic rescue scene like that, he's not just showing himself off to the movie's in-universe world, but to us viewing the movie in the real world.
I get that James Gunn likes to throw us curveballs and so having a Superman movie open with Superman getting beat up, crashing to the Antarctic (Why did the movie change the Fortress's location from the north to the south?), and having Krypto playfully bring him back to the Fortress was an attempt to give us something new and humorous, but... I still really wish we could one day just get a definitive Superman movie that just works on every level. To this day, I still don't think we've ever gotten that yet. Not even from Superman 1978 or Superman II (either version). There are elements in both of those films that feel definitive (Reeve's Superman being the obvious example), but neither really ever got me thinking "This is the perfect Superman movie." As good as a movie Superman 1978 is, it still baffles me that it doesn't have a single fight scene in it at all. And call me a heretic but I never liked Gene Hackman's wacky, nasally-voiced Lex Luthor who lives in a goofy underground lair and is so fixated on real estate of all things.
The closest I feel any Superman media that I've seen has come being the definitive Superman story is the TAS three-part pilot "The Last Son of Krypton". It's close, but what might make it perfect is if you combine it with the young Clark parts of Superman 1978 and give Tim Daly's Superman the charm of Reeve's Superman, and maybe one really big heroic climax like the aforementioned airplane rescue scene from Superman Returns. But not too big of a spectacle lest you run the risk of going full Man of Steel with an ungodly amount of collateral damage that just reeks of needless gratuity (honestly, does Zack Snyder have a destruction fetish or was he just jealous of Michael Bay at the time?).
This brings me back to one other issue I took with this movie, but it's one that was pretty difficult to avoid with everything this movie wanted to do: It was very effects-heavy. The fight scene in the pocket dimension was really hard to follow when all the CGI was flying out at the screen while Superman was trying not to drown in the stream of (IIRC?) proton matter. All while heads towards a black hole, and while holding up a CGI green baby, to boot. It was a bit much, near excessive, and further illustrates my earlier points about how one going into this movie needs to already be familiar with hard sci-fi multiversal concepts in order to understand what all is going on in that scene, and how so much felt crammed into this film's story. Again, I'm not asking for a fully grounded story, I just didn't need this to be the geekiest Superman movie ever. And I say that as a sci-fi geek.
I know this is coming across as mostly negative, but don't get me wrong, this is way better than the last few outings we got with Superman on the big screen (which I know isn't saying much, but you know what I mean). I just got my positive feelings out in front before diving into my criticisms. And even then, I don't think any of the problems I had with the movie were deal-breakers. This is still a good movie. Lots of fun, lots of action, and lots of heart. But also, lots of "extra" that made it feel just a bit too indulgent for my tastes.