Man Of Steel (2013)

I quite liked Man Of Steel. Mostly because of the story, which I thought was the film's strongest feature. I will reveal no spoilers here, but I will say I found no fault with the story or script. Goyer and Nolan are quite brilliant.

The casting was an accomplishment as well. Everyone except for Amy Adam's timid Lois Lane seems perfectly chosen for the part. I mean Kevin Costner as Pa Kent? Come on now, that's a match made in heaven. And Fishburne as Daily Planet editor Perry White was a nice choice too. Just the right amount of gruffness for his brief parts. I also enjoyed seeing Henry Lennox again for the first time personally since The Matrix sequels. I only wished there was a scene involving him barking orders at Fishburne, that would've made me squeal with delight. Russel Crowe, Michael Shannon, Diane Lane, and of course Henry Cavill all seemed like the only logical choices for their respective parts as well.

If it were up to the work of the screenwriters and actors alone, I would've rated this film a 9/10. I firmly expected the action and effects to send it into the 10 range. Oh how disappointed I was in that respect.

Goddamn the "shaky cam" and the effing "snap pan and zoom"! Those two overused and unnecessarily relied on techniques have ruined more movies for me than I can count. Now I don't fault Joss Whedon for developing the snap-pan and the snap-zoom. His use of them in Firefly was done with restraint and logic: only in action scenes and only for a purpose, not just for effect. I do however fault everyone else in Hollywood for not knowing how to use them correctly.

I also fault Paul Greengrass for bringing the shaky-cam to the blockbuster movies. Starting with his overuse of it in The Bourne Supremacy in 2004, Hollywood seems to be using it in action films (and even some dramas) almost as much as they jerk off! (I'll leave alone the plain implication of what they're up to behind the camera to get the effect.) The only director I'm aware of who can get away with the shaky-cam technique is J.J. Abrams. But he does the camera work himself, and he although he does it stylistically, he doesn't overdo it.

All that said, Snyder needs to leave these two techniques alone. He hasn't even used the shaky-cam before to my memory, and his inexperience shows plainly here. And while the comics are full of Sups and his enemy of the month smashing eachother through buildings and generally causing havoc, I was greatly disappointed with the overuse of the aforementioned camera techniques in those scenes. Because, while I was pleased to see those sequences included in the film, the only practical result was I couldn't really tell what the fuck was going on.

Also of note, my viewing of the film resulted in hearing loss. It was so loud in the action parts that not only couldn't I see what was going on, but I couldn't make out what they were saying either. Now, I'm not sure if that was due to The Warren's sound settings or due to the film's sound designer/editor being a deaf fuckass. I'll have to withhold this mark-up or mark-down until a subsequent viewing, a viewing wherein I will be bringing earplugs... just in case.

Overall, I'm going to rate this film an 8/10. A point lower solely due to the shitty camera work. When I see this movie again, should the sound also prove to be as shitty as it was this time. That rating is going down to a 7/10. You cant have an action movie that's just a blur of motion and a blare of noise, that's just fucking stupid.

8/10.