Man Of Steel

[alobear]

It seems I've been maligning Henry Cavill very unfairly.  I have no idea where I go the idea that he wasn't a good actor (despite never having seen him in anything - bad me!) - I have now seen his two most famous films and I think he's great in both.  For some reason, I was under the impression that Man of Steel was dour, depressing and not very good - but that turns out not to be the case.  Like Ang Lee's Hulk of 2003, I think Man of Steel suffered on its release from defying expectations, and being more serious and more introspective than people perhaps wanted.  It's not what you would call a typical superhero movie - it doesn't contain a lot of humour, the action is slow in coming and a bit tedious when it finally does, but it explores in quite a lot of depth the psychology of being Superman, and I found that really interesting.  The last hour dragged a bit, since it mostly consisted of practically indestructible beings pounding each other through buildings - but the first 90 minutes was fascinating and very involving.  I found Cavill to be very sympathetic and appealing (it didn't hurt that he looked an awful lot like my brother at times), and I thought he portrayed Superman's inner conflicts with a great deal of finesse.

I had intended to get around to watching this movie at some point before Batman vs Superman comes out (and I'm now a lot more intrigued by that prospect than I was), and I was prompted to do so by my current Man From Uncle obsession (get out of my head, Illya - waking me up at 4am to insist I write fanfiction about you is not funny) - and I'm glad I did.

Speaking of MFU, my preoccupation with it is getting silly now.  I'm planning on trying the immersion therapy approach by going to see it again this afternoon - you know, for science...