00:00 They'll race behind you.
00:02 They will stumble.
00:03 They will fall.
00:06 But in time, they will join you in the sun.
00:10 Man of Steel is a Superman film from 2013,
00:13 with Henry Cavill playing Superman.
00:15 It's quite a standard Superman story.
00:17 There's Lois Lane, there's General Zod.
00:19 You know the drill.
00:20 So, Josh, you picked this one.
00:22 So tell us a bit about why you picked it.
00:24 Yeah, so I picked this because I think it's underrated
00:26 and I think it deserves more love.
00:29 So to give you an idea of why, I think that here are the scores.
00:32 On IMDb, it gets 7.1 out of 10.
00:35 The audience on Rotten Tomatoes give it 75%,
00:39 and the critics are obviously a little bit harsher,
00:41 and they give it 56%.
00:43 I just think that's too harsh.
00:45 In terms of what I like about it, I do love the aesthetic.
00:48 I love the fact that some of the camera movement
00:50 is a little bit more handheld.
00:52 There's bits of this film, don't get me wrong,
00:54 it's a big-budget Superman film, but there are bits of this film
00:56 where parts of it feel a little bit like
00:58 almost like an indie film or something like that.
01:01 Similarly, I love the production design,
01:03 so I love the look of Krypton, I love how Zod and the soldiers look,
01:06 I even like Superman's costume, which I know for some people
01:09 is a little bit controversial.
01:11 I think it's really well cast as well.
01:13 I do think Henry Cavill is a great Superman.
01:16 What do you think?
01:19 So I have a bit of a complex relationship with this film
01:23 where I can really, I can see all the flaws with it,
01:26 and there are many of them,
01:27 but for some reason I just absolutely love it.
01:29 And I don't know if that's because I loved the original Superman films
01:32 and that sort of carries it through, or why this could be.
01:35 But the main things that I do like about it are,
01:37 similar to you with the aesthetic, I think it looks very dramatic
01:40 and very immersive.
01:41 The other thing is that there are some excellent moments
01:43 throughout this where you really understand the strength of Superman,
01:47 and some of those can be quite menacing
01:49 because this version of Superman is a little bit different
01:52 to what we've seen before.
01:53 He's not necessarily the Boy Scout, he's a little bit mean,
01:56 he has a bit of a temper, and I love this.
01:59 I love this version of him,
02:01 and I think the darker the Superman, the better.
02:03 There are a lot of issues with this film,
02:05 and I won't go into all of them,
02:07 but I think the main one for me is some of the writing.
02:10 So some of the script feels very amateur,
02:13 and like the filmmakers did not trust the audience whatsoever,
02:16 and like we have to be handheld throughout the whole thing.
02:19 There is very limited show-don't-tell,
02:22 and it's just really disappointing.
02:24 The last half an hour becomes a little bit repetitive for me.
02:27 Obviously you've got the big comic book fight climax,
02:30 and it's just a bit-- they're just smashing a city up,
02:32 and it just becomes a bit of a CGI mess in places.
02:36 So a little bit of an issue there,
02:38 a little bit of an issue with the pacing towards the end as well,
02:41 but still averaging out then at 67% or 56%,
02:45 if you're considering the critics just on their own,
02:47 do you think this is underrated?
02:50 Listen, I know a lot of people don't like this film,
02:53 and like I said, I can see the flaws.
02:55 I'm not blind to them, but there's just something about it
02:58 that I thoroughly enjoy.
02:59 So yeah, I agree with you.
03:00 I do think that Man of Steel is underrated.
03:03 [BLANK_AUDIO]
Comments