When I reviewed Man of Steel my closing thought was that the true measure of the film would be its sequel.
Well, here we are. The first movie has had time to be digested in the intestines of my mind and the sequel has flown in coming with 3 types of early reactions:
1. People absolutely hate it, and feel it is the worst superhero movie ever made
2. People love it (but come across as WB plants)
3. People who say it’s okay – but sound like they truly hate it but are afraid to say as much, dreading the ire of fan boys.
Let’s just say I was not optimistic that my loyalty to Man of Steel would be warrented. But I will say this: I don’t give a clean Kryptonian shit what anyone else thinks, these are my honest opinions like it or not.
So my overall opinion… it was okay. It could’ve been a LOT better and I think I know how too.
Rather than tell you where it went wrong and tell you all the spoilers I will give you the plot of what I think they SHOULD’VE done.
First of all, I thing this should’ve been TWO movies.
Movie 1: Clark Kent struggles with his challenge to maintain a secret identity and have a fulfilling relationship with Lois, who is always off on dangerous assignments. Meanwhile Bruce Wayne is upset with Superman (as is half of the free world) because they wrongly blame him for the casualties of the Zod fight.
Lex Luthor has been collecting information on metahumans because of an obsession which has cost him a good deal of his fortune. During his obsession, Luthor has gotten ahold of Zod’s corpse as well as the Kryptonian ship and Kryptonite. His team has begun genetic experiments on the corpse while Lex pits Batman against Superman and even provides the dark knight with Kryptonite for his sadistic pleasure.
Batman, enraged, lures Superman into battle but the Man of Steel overcomes his Kryptonite-armed foe and mercifully leaves him intact.
Batman, uses his detective skills to uncover what Lex has been up to, including spying on the other metahumans and wages war on Lex, who had planned for such an attack and would destroy the dark knight except that Superman comes to his aid. But Lex has Kryptonite of his own, so the two heroes must combine their efforts to take Lex and his goons down.
In the wake of this, Bruce Wayne uses his public image to help make Superman a public icon of hope.
MOVIE 2: Lex’s genetic tampering with Zod becomes the monster Doomsday, which has Batman calling on the assistance of the other metahumans and essentially creating the Justice League. Bruce Wayne’s PTSD comes full force as he finally learns that his demons go much deeper than even he knew. The battle concludes with the death of the world’s beloved symbol of hope, Superman.
And one more thing… IF and only IF we have to see Bruce Wayne’s parents death – it will finally be done with no damn pearl necklace!
Doing this would not only have made two awesome movies but had all the elements of BOTH superheoes that I loved since childhood! Mic drop.
Keith Dumbuck 