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S3.E13: Superman (2025) REVIEW – Is This DC’s Make or Break Moment?
27 Plays11 days ago
We’re embracing our comic book roots and flying straight into the heart of the Superman (2025) discourse! Join Tim, @mephistomonkee, and @iamkevindavisofficial as we dive into DC’s latest cinematic reboot. Is this the movie that finally gets it right? Or just another cape in the crowd? 💬 The reviews are in — and they’re all over the place. From “disappointing” to “top-tier superhero cinema,” critics can’t seem to agree. That’s why we’re putting it to you. 🎯 Use one of our three scoring methods on Instagram (@theaveragereviewspodcast) or submit your score directly using our link in bio. We’ll tally everything LIVE and figure out where Superman (2025) really stands. This isn’t Rotten Tomatoes. We don’t get paid to praise. This is The Average — where the real review happens with your friends. 👥 Want to be part of the episode? Drop your scores in the comments or join the chat. Your voice matters. 🎙️ Powered by Zencastr 📖 Order Tim’s new novel Like, Comment, Survive: https://a.co/d/blR27Ft 🎥 Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and comment your score. Your review changes the average. #Superman2025 #DCEU #DCReboot #MovieReview #TheAverageReviews #JamesGunn #LiveScoring #FilmDiscussion #SuperheroMovies #ComicBookMovies #ManOfSteel #Zencastr #MoviePodcast #YourReviewMatters #SupermanReturns #TheAverage #DCFans
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Transcript
Introduction & Scoring System
00:00:31
Speaker
Welcome back to the average reviews where we break down movies using our unique scoring system, because it's not just about good or bad. It's about what makes a film the experience that it is and where it lands.
00:00:45
Speaker
I'm Tim. And I'm Jonathan.
Superman 2025: Revival of the Man of Steel?
00:00:47
Speaker
And today we're stepping out of the shadows of horror and 80s nostalgia and flying straight into something bigger than all of us. We're talking Superman 2025 and trying to figure out if this new DC reboot has what it takes to bring the Man of Steel back to greatness.
00:01:01
Speaker
And joining us today, we have two good friends of ours returning guest Kevin Davis. You know, I'm from the Prom Queen episode. Kevin, welcome back. Glad to be here. And then we have Adam from our Thunderbolts episode is also here. Adam. It's pleasure as always. you And they are here to help i They are back to help us truth, justice and average our way through this movie. And hopefully, if you're watching this live, you're jumping into the conversation to drop your scores in the comments using our scorecard system, the links in our bio on Instagram, because your opinion helps us build a better average.
00:01:44
Speaker
Now, before we dive into the cape and CGI of it all, let's rewind a little bit here.
Nostalgia for 90s Superhero Cartoons
00:01:50
Speaker
For us and for a lot of people our age, the superhero magic really hit in the 1990s.
00:01:56
Speaker
Saturday mornings were ruled by legends. Batman the Animated Series, Justice League, Spider-Man, X-Men, and yes, Superman the Animated Series. It wasn't just colorful cartoons. These were stories that respected their audience and their source material.
00:02:10
Speaker
Exactly, and those stories were built on decades of comic book history. Comics that led to legendary sagas like Batman's Nightfall, X-Men's Days of Future Past, and maybe one of the biggest comic book events of all time, the death of Superman.
00:02:28
Speaker
If you were a kid back then, Superman was everywhere. Comics, TV, action figures, and most of all, he meant something. The movies played a big part in that too.
00:02:41
Speaker
You had Christopher Reeve in the Donner director Superman, Burton's Batman, and it felt like superheroes were real life legends. Then in the early 2000s, the X-Men films came along and they grade everything out and lost a little bit of the optimism, but they were still wildly successful.
00:02:59
Speaker
And you can't forget Sam Raimi's Spider-Man. The second one remains one of the greatest superhero films ever made. I will die on that hill. From there, Marvel found its footing with Iron Man and turned so turn that success into a chokehold over a decade of interconnected, fun-filled storytelling that had us all on the edge of our seats.
DC vs. Marvel: The Cinematic Struggle
00:03:23
Speaker
Meanwhile, DC tried to play catch-up. They had a massive hit with the Dark Knight, sure, but it wasn't a shared universe. Then came Zack Snyder's Man of Steel, grittier and to some, just awful.
00:03:35
Speaker
Others loved it. It felt fresh, mature, and Henry Cavill was the living embodiment of the hero in the cape. But none of those films captured that Marvel popcorn magic.
00:03:47
Speaker
Without that, the DCU floundered. A passionate fan campaign forced Warner to release the Snyder Cut of Justice League, which this show covered way back before my time, but that was it. Yeah, you can find that episode way back in season one. I think the third episode we'd ever done.
00:04:03
Speaker
But then Warner Brothers hired James Gunn to rebuild it all. Only he's stepping into a battlefield. Even Marvel is now struggling at the box office with mixed reviews and dwindling returns.
00:04:15
Speaker
Some people argue it's because these movies have drifted too far from the classic comic book arcs that fans grew up loving, favoring newer characters and experimental tones over the tried and true.
00:04:29
Speaker
Others say it's because they've gone woke, whatever that means. Either way, the audience is clearly divided. But here's the thing.
James Gunn's Influence on DC Films
00:04:38
Speaker
Three of Marvel's most successful and beloved films came from James Gunn.
00:04:43
Speaker
Guardians of the Galaxy took a virtually unknown ragtag group of space misfits and turned them into household names. He brought humor, heart and style and somehow made us cry about a talking tree.
00:04:57
Speaker
Now he's been handing the keys to the DCU and while Gunn's career has been without controversy, he's been slowly, methodically rebuilding a cinematic universe that's been, let's be honest, shaky at best.
00:05:10
Speaker
And with the current state of superhero cinema, it is an uphill battle. Marvel isn't dominating like it used to, and DC hasn't had a true win in years. Audiences are skeptical. They are tired and they are way less forgiving.
Superhero Fatigue or Poor Writing?
00:05:27
Speaker
So that leads to the real question. Are we dealing with superhero fatigue or are we just sick of badly written movies? Because maybe it's not that we don't want superheroes anymore.
00:05:38
Speaker
It's just that we want them to be good. And this summer, this movie might be a make or break moment for whether this genre gets to fly again or crashes for good. So let's talk about it. Let's score it and let's figure it out together.
00:05:53
Speaker
See where it really lands. Because this is the average where the real review happens with your friends. All right, gentlemen, and we're in.
00:06:04
Speaker
Boosh. Who is there a person who wants to go first in this dive into this?
Casting and Performance Reviews
00:06:11
Speaker
i or she like to start I would like to start with the marketing campaign and if if we can start before the movie.
00:06:18
Speaker
Let's get the marketing will be the cultural significance. We can really hammer that home later because I know you have thoughts on that. I do too. Yes. Let's kick it off with the story.
00:06:30
Speaker
I'd be glad to jump in then. So Man, after what I was seeing media-wise before this, I was very apprehensive about what we were going to get. I saw the guy in yeah David Coren Sweat, play Superman.
00:06:46
Speaker
I looked at was like, I don't know. but just like i Just visually, I wasn't sure if that was really a Superman fit for me. But after all the different iterations we've seen, especially some of the TV versions... It's kind of whatever, whatever, but dude filled the role.
00:06:59
Speaker
And with what we got, I was due way, way impressed with what was delivered. on this film as far as story goes. I like the fact that you don't have to go through all of the early parts of you know Clark Kent and Superman and how it all comes to be.
00:07:16
Speaker
They kind of just establish, hey, here's what's going on. This is already set in stone. We already know this. Here's details. Now here's what's really going on right now. um And I like the fact that they they really dug in with the the whole thing between Lex Luthor and Superman and the contention between the two of them.
00:07:35
Speaker
like they did in the comic books. you know They really, really hammered into the story with this one. so with everything already kind of being pre-established at the start and then getting to dive into what's going on for the time, man, I thought it rocked. This was a great story.
00:07:51
Speaker
The mannerisms, the, I don't wanna get into any other details before we get to the rest of the categories, but yeah, I was really happy with this story. I was just, I couldn't believe it. By the time the film was done, I was like, man, this was so much better than I ever thought it was gonna be. And it was incredible.
Spoiler Alert: Deep Dive into Superman 2025
00:08:06
Speaker
So yeah i we should probably warn, I think we're probably going to go spoilers. i I don't know how we can necessarily avoid spoilers with this one. There's just so much to talk about. i was trying to avoid like really saying too much, but if we're going to go for it, then okay.
00:08:22
Speaker
Yeah, I think let's preface that early. We normally do not like to do spoilers if the movie is in theaters when we record, but There's so much of the like the trailers that we saw for this movie were done in the first hour, basically. Like most of what we saw was gone in the first hour.
00:08:40
Speaker
So ah there. Yes, I know there are some clips here and there, but majority what we saw is the beginning of the movie. So it's really hard to talk about everything that happens and avoid any kind of spoiler. So it's going to happen.
00:08:55
Speaker
If you're wondering at the end of this, if we're going to tell you to go see it or not, the answer yes. And then come and listen. So if you're worried about that, go watch it and then come back. Otherwise stick around, but there will be spoilers.
00:09:09
Speaker
Yeah. All right. Adam. go Yeah. to to To kind of jump off of what Jonathan was saying there, I'm really happy that this isn't an origin story. I love the character of Superman, but I hate his origin.
00:09:22
Speaker
I think Krypton is so lame and boring, and I know people are going to be so mad in the comments, but I hate Krypton so much. I hate that planet. I hate everything to do with it. I want nothing to do with that garbage.
00:09:35
Speaker
Superman is man of Kansas and Metropolis. That's all I want, and I'm so happy that this movie shows us Superman. and not not really Kal-El but it doesn't it doesn't ignore the Kal-El history of it and I think the gun found a really good balance in doing that and and giving us here's your hero here's everything that you want we're not gonna bug it down with crystals and and space godfather and all that yeah job yep Kevin go for it first
00:10:14
Speaker
Um, I don't consider myself as a big Superman fan because my time of Superman was Smallville. That's how I started. Great show. Great. Still never seen it.
00:10:26
Speaker
oh how I haven't, I haven't like read any of the comics. Like I researched haven't fully read at them. So my start was in Smallville and, um, Superman and Lois, uh, era. yeah Um, and of course I love the Cavell version.
00:10:43
Speaker
Um, So when this came out about, um, I didn't know who the hell David was, be I was like, who the hell is David? Okay. My corn syrup, of course. course he's He's the guy that Pearl got obsessed with in the X prequel.
00:10:59
Speaker
That's, that's the only thing I knew him from. there two I've seen him in the movie Pearl and twisters. oh i do So good in twisters. He was, I haven't seen that one. So I have no idea for either. of Yeah. I saw twisters. I didn't even recognize that was David, by the way.
00:11:15
Speaker
Yeah. yeah ah but um But I legit just started this movie yesterday.
Superman & Lois: Casting Impressions
00:11:20
Speaker
And I must say, I was very impressed with with this a performance as Superman. And well really it really got me when when they talked about the glasses. I'm like, always wonder...
00:11:32
Speaker
how the hell does that night recognize him with the glasses without the glasses? It's nice that they finally gave an on-screen explanation. Yeah. I was i was not expecting that. That cracked me up. i was like, they actually explained that in the freaking movie. Like, what the hell?
00:11:46
Speaker
So that's actually really funny because that is a deep reference to some Silver Age comic jokes. Oh, wow. that in the silver age they they had him wearing those glasses and they've kind of they don't acknowledge it anymore it's kind of wreck retconned if you will too i like that his hairstyle was very different when he was clark that was a nice i know it was a nice change that was a nice change when they brought up the glasses james does this a lot in his script and i was gonna bring it up uh
00:12:21
Speaker
He plugs those in and he doesn't tell you for sure if that is actually fact or speculation. And this happens couple times. For all we know, that could just be Guy Gardner being a conspiracy nut or something.
00:12:35
Speaker
Yes, it's Guy Gardner being a Guy Gardner. And Lois didn't. She was just like, okay, and moved on. So you brought that up. But yeah, I love that he put that in there because that is a deep comic book reference.
00:12:49
Speaker
But go ahead. Go ahead. And um ah ah ah i love the the lowest performance. I think she was like the strongest performance I've seen in film. That's lowest lane we've ever had. I loved Rachel Brosnan. Yeah, she was spot on.
00:13:07
Speaker
And I absolutely love her, her performance. like I'm a dog person, so I love crypto. very oh I got it. I was like, some people hate them. I'm a dog person, so I enjoy crypto.
00:13:19
Speaker
um I have thoughts on crypto.
00:13:24
Speaker
nicholasas Nicholas, Nicholas whole as Lex do that. Dude is bad-ass. He does not miss. He actually, he takes stop serious. He was pretty. He was fantastic. like Yeah. Yeah.
00:13:36
Speaker
but One thing that I really loved about this story, Adam kind of chimed in. I don't need the origin story. And I've seen, um I've seen a lot of people say, i've Since I've seen it, I've been reading more of the complaints online.
00:13:50
Speaker
ae Most of the haters that I've seen haven't watched the movie. or Or they're hating on it because they're Snyder Bros. And I love all of the Snyder movies. I'm going to tell you that right now. I
James Gunn's Creative Approach
00:14:06
Speaker
love Man of Steel.
00:14:07
Speaker
ah Batman versus Superman. The director's cut is a fantastic film. And Snyder's Justice League is epic. It is insanely good.
00:14:19
Speaker
I love all of those. And Cavill is my Superman. i' so He's still my Superman. But That doesn't mean I can't enjoy this movie. The fact that you think that you cannot coexist is insane to me.
00:14:34
Speaker
So I, one of the things that I like is that we don't get another origin. We're not rehashing that. We have the Reeves movies. We have the Cavill movies. We have so much Superman lore from Smallville, which was a 10 season origin story.
00:14:53
Speaker
That's why I never watched it. For better or better. It's a lot. Yeah, it's a lot. is to It's a great nostalgic watch. My wife and I went back to watch the first episode, and the CGI looks like a PS1 video game. but ah No joke. He's not he's not lying. Everybody does.
00:15:11
Speaker
yeah Back in the day, back when Netflix still did like DVDs through the mail, i had planned on getting Smallville, and I was going to get disc week. one disc a week And I yeah broke down the math to see how long it would take me to watch it.
00:15:24
Speaker
And then I was like, is this worth it? So I Googled, when does he put on the suit? And I saw when he puts it on for the first time. And I said, I'm not going to do this. I'm good. Season 10, final episode. and Yeah, no, I'm good. I'm good.
00:15:39
Speaker
And it's 20 some episodes an hour long too. 22 episodes. It's 220 episodes roughly. But we have of this origin already. We don't need know exactly what this origin but We have
00:15:52
Speaker
we don't need to know exactly what this origin is we have the idea And so I've seen a lot of complaints about you're just thrown into the middle of like, yeah, we know who Superman is. It doesn't really bother me.
00:16:07
Speaker
Like we're good. He's been around for almost a hundred years.
Comic Book Structure in Film
00:16:11
Speaker
We get it. Let me see him do something now. Exactly. I don't need the origin story to set up. I like that superheroes are established in this world.
00:16:19
Speaker
And the thing that I'm going to brack about on this story that I love is it is set up like a comic book. Yeah, we have. Yeah, well we have too much. So for some people, it seems some people. I agree. It's a detriment to some. But i as a comic book fan love. So comic books are typically set up in your single issue that make up a larger arc.
00:16:44
Speaker
So it's usually it could be anywhere from four to 12 that are telling a consistent story. And even those are interconnected from one set to another. but um as a comic writer he's not lying so but as yeah in those stories you get one chapter at a time and they always have some kind of big moment in them so you start this movie with the hook of superman being broken and then you have that fight with the hammer of baravia which didn't bother me once we find out what's actually going on um it was a very lex luther plan
00:17:24
Speaker
yeah it felt really true to him so we're imagine we're getting this comic book and you're opening it with a beaten and bloody superman for the first time and you're kind of like okay what got him in this position and and then that chapter closes with a hint of what's going on. Hey, Lex is behind it.
00:17:43
Speaker
And then we go to the next chapter and it's more personal with him and Lois. And we get, and then that giant Kaiju that you're wondering how the hell are we going to get this giant Kaiju in this movie to make sense?
00:17:55
Speaker
And then in a very comic book fashion, say issue three, you have on the cover, Superman fighting a giant Kaiju. And you're wondering, how does that fit with the hammer of Baravia? And if you read issue one, two, and three,
00:18:09
Speaker
Oh, at the end of issue two, Lex brought out this little alien guy. And by issue three, he's grown. And so it all fits even to the way that we have Green Lantern appearing.
00:18:21
Speaker
It is a very natural comic book setup. They exist. They're going to cross paths. I don't need to know that much about Guy Gardner to know how he affects this story.
00:18:34
Speaker
I don't need to know that about Mr. Terrific, which I was trying to figure out. I was nervous about Mr. Terrific because he is a tank in the books.
00:18:45
Speaker
He's massive. And I was like, this guy's kind of scrawny. let's Let's see how he let's see how it goes. I loved him by the end of it. It didn't bother me whatsoever. I was like, he is awesome. He's surprised in the movie for me was Mr. Terrific.
00:19:00
Speaker
Because yeah my thing so playing off of what you were saying about the comic books for me, my experience reading comics, I've never like picked up a comic book line and read through because i didn't grow up with like a proper comic book store in my town. A lot of the places where i got comic books were school libraries or the public library.
00:19:19
Speaker
And when you walk in there, it's not it is not a high probability that you're going to find a complete series. but You're going to find issue number four. and issue number seven and issue number 13.
00:19:33
Speaker
And you can pick them up and read them and and you have to start getting context clues to go through. And that's just been my experience with comics. So diving into this movie, yeah, this feels like the third movie in a trilogy, but I get it.
00:19:46
Speaker
i can I can discern yeah the rest of it. My fears going into it were, is this going to be too comic
Integrating New Characters
00:19:53
Speaker
book-y? Is it going to be too lighthearted? Gunn cutting too deep?
00:19:58
Speaker
Mr. Terrific is a great example of that. I don't know what the hell Mr. Terrific is. I had never heard of this guy. I've never seen him in any of the cartoons. I've never seen him in any other show.
00:20:08
Speaker
Never a movie. A name like Mr. Terrific. Look, I may be the biggest Mr. Fantastic fan in the world, but Mr. Terrific just sounds silly. But man, amazing.
00:20:20
Speaker
Amazing character. Great performance. Yeah, the only time I've actually seen Mr. Terrific was in the Arrow CW show. Yeah, I quit on Arrow before. I didn't even finish season one.
00:20:34
Speaker
I hated it so much. Damn. I saw everything. I so i made final season. um But in the Arrow, the Mr. Terrific, I wasn't really that impressed. He was like, you're just a nerdy like tech guy.
00:20:50
Speaker
was like, I didn't really. But seeing him in this Superman movie, was like, so that's the real Mr. Terrific because this dude was not Like this in the Arrow show. I'm like, what the fuck did they do in CW? I'm like, because this fool was boring as fuck.
00:21:04
Speaker
I'll excuse my language, but Jesus. ah be The Superman movie, I was like, can we give him a solo movie? Because Jesus Christ.
00:21:16
Speaker
Yeah, I would like love to see more from him. Yeah. like hunt is four like This was awesome. So he's kind of a super intelligent being who...
00:21:28
Speaker
like there's nothing alien about him. He's kind of a tech bro, but super intelligent. He runs a tech company. He builds those little spheres you saw. That's all his technology. We kind of saw him using his brain.
00:21:42
Speaker
Yeah. His terrific balls. His circles. Circles. Circles are flat. i i like about that in the movie I'm like, he's a, he's a tech owner, but in the show he was like a tech. i don't remember what the hell he was. That's how forgettable he was in Arrow show.
00:22:00
Speaker
That's why, that's why I never watched the shows. The shows always just felt like people in cosplay. This feels like the real guy. It really was. Cause I've watched every single show, unfortunately.
00:22:13
Speaker
Um, so yeah, it really felt like cosplay in the Arrow show. Like with their costumes, uh, Sorry going off topic, but it did. ah Yeah, it felt like a cosplay in the Arrow show at times. so Yeah.
00:22:27
Speaker
But one of the things, even if we were to go back to comics and the death of Superman story i took took place predominantly in the Superman books. But there is an entire issue there where Doomsday demolishes the Justice League before Superman even arrives.
00:22:44
Speaker
And that takes place in a Superman book. And that is kind of how I feel about this film. It is a Superman film, but these other characters impact the story and the plot in a way that you don't need to know.
00:22:59
Speaker
who hawk girl is to appreciate her role in this film and and you're not gonna know who she is by the end of the movie either no no and it's like hey she's kind of cool it didn't bother me at all the whole idea of this like paid justice gang is kind of an interesting idea that I'm sure we're going to see played out more possibly in the Green Lanterns TV series, possibly in the Peacemaker series, which is next. so
00:23:33
Speaker
oh yeah there's all of that and none of it feels I mean, it's assuming you know a lot, but if you don't, you can still enjoy it. You don't have to know all of it. You just got to sit back and be like, I'm focused on these two hours and that's it.
00:23:51
Speaker
And I think that's a difficult thing to do. i think kind of Batman versus Superman, Dawn of Justice tried to do that, assuming the audience knew more than it
Superman's Internal & External Struggles
00:24:02
Speaker
did. But at that time, they really didn't and they weren't ready for that.
00:24:06
Speaker
uh the the irony of that tim is i think this movie requires you to know even more yeah but it's more accessible than it is dawn of justice yes i i would absolutely agree with that absolutely and but oh sorry yeah is as far as the story goes for this iteration though um just the layers of conspiracy and like everyone coming down and just like Brent being such a good guy and so viewed so positively for so long.
00:24:37
Speaker
And then this conspiracy to tear him down and make him seem like the bad guy. And like his own idea that he had this thought that his parents set them there for good and only come to find out, no, you're supposed to be there to dominate them.
00:24:49
Speaker
You know, it's got kind of like the invincible Omni-Man kind of thing going there. bit ah You know, and so like having to see him having to struggle with that mentality of like, oh, this is what I was really supposed to be here for.
00:25:00
Speaker
But then deciding, no, this is what I want to be for is that. And then defeating all these underlying sense of conspiracies against him. And then also Lex Luthor's, his own plans that he has for other stuff outside of his hate of Superman and all of, you know, the other metahumans that are involved in this universe.
00:25:18
Speaker
you know it's Oh man, it's just crazy, dude. so um How do you feel about the the message from his parents basically sending him there to dominate the planet?
00:25:29
Speaker
Because that's something that when I saw that in the movie, I kind of took a step back like, wait a minute. Are we are we villainizing his Kryptonian parents? That's something I've never seen before. right But i I learned in the last couple of days that it that has been in the comics before. So it's oh not a James Gunn creation, but it's still kind of took me and I was wondering how do you guys feel yeah so that is something it doesn't bother me because like you said it has happened in the comics John Burns run in the late 80s really downplayed the Kryptonian heritage it wasn't villainous so much as it wasn't important because he was raised by ah Martha and why am I
00:26:17
Speaker
draw on yeah Jonathan Kent. He was raised by Jonathan Kent and Martha. And those were his parents. And it kind of like, yeah, he's from Krypton, Krypton, but he was raised on earth as a human, you know? So i in John Burns run, he was even born on earth.
00:26:35
Speaker
I remember ah hearing in John Byrne for, for whatever reason, decided he wanted to change the history to, to get rid of the immigrant thing. Which and it's ironic that that's that seems to be a talking point with this movie is the whole immigration thing, which neither here nor there on real world politics. i think it's I think it's kind of unnecessary to talk about that with this movie. But bringing up John Byrne, he apparently did want to make ah Superman a natural born citizen.
00:27:05
Speaker
So I remember in that run, when the pod landed, Clark wasn't physically born until it touched Superman. like Kansas soil. yeah Yeah. and so I haven't even gone back that far to read that, but that's it things have got have happened.
00:27:22
Speaker
There's a Superman Red Son where he was raised in Russia and becomes, you know, there's all kinds of villainous takes on Superman. It doesn't bother me.
00:27:32
Speaker
And this goes back to what I was saying when Kevin brought up.
00:27:38
Speaker
They never clarify if that was doctored by the engineer or not. All we have to believe it was ah then we have to take is Lex's word for it.
00:27:51
Speaker
Yeah, they leave it open. All we have to take is Lex's word for it. But at that point, Lex has also been shown to be dishonest. Well, Mr. Terrific also commented, though, that the people who verify this subject could permit it.
00:28:03
Speaker
so He does. There's not been established legitimacy in the story. Yeah, they technically did confirm it was real. so Nope, you're right. I totally forgot
Themes of Politics and Hope
00:28:14
Speaker
about that. But it doesn't bother me because you know why?
00:28:18
Speaker
That final scene where the robot, where number four is like, want to show the video of his parents, and then we get video of him growing up. That hit.
00:28:29
Speaker
That hit. There's a lot of good feel. There's a lot of good feel points in this movie, man. Yep. it And Superman just laying there smiling. That was fantastic. That was beautiful.
00:28:42
Speaker
There's a lot in this story. i do think we mentioned a little bit about... the there's a lot being made of the politics and so i do kind of want to touch on that for a moment because superman being an alien has always been part of the story that was one of the things that uh was huge in man of steel that i've seen a lot of flack for it but man of steel kind of addressed how would humanity address this all-powerful alien existing on earth ah we would not take it well
00:29:19
Speaker
we We would not take it well. Batman's kind of approach of if we have this all powerful being who can destroy us, we need to have countermeasures in place.
00:29:30
Speaker
that That was that approach. But this one approaches it much more like the comic books. Oh, here, but he's being good. You know, he's being good. That's fine. But to make this a political movie about the immigration is one of those things where I'm like,
00:29:49
Speaker
I think we're seeing it through the lens of what's going on in our own world and not just the story. And the same goes for well is being orchestrated with the two feuding countries.
00:30:01
Speaker
I, yeah that's happened in comic books before. It didn't bother me in this movie, but they're making it a big deal. in articles and stuff online like yeah the media is focusing on it and that's something i was nervous going into the movie because i thought the movie was going to be very political you know you heard sean gunn talking about the importance of accepting immigrants and you saw a lot of different articles talking about the conflict of baravia and whatever the other one was called ja yeah jarhan poor and it's like oh that's russia ukraine or it's it's israel and iran
00:30:34
Speaker
and then i sit down and i watch the movie and i'm like well i don't know what you guys are seeing here i'm just seeing superman and like none of that the movie opens the idea of like is superman here to be good but at no point in this movie is superman an alien and i think that's a big thing that separates this from from man of steel is man of steel is a movie about an alien on earth yeah superman is about a man who happens to be an alien but that's not important i that's why they This movie handles it much, much better.
00:31:07
Speaker
And I like Man of Steel. I love 50% of Man of Steel and have mixed feelings on the other half of it. But it's a different take. And I think I like this one more.
00:31:20
Speaker
Yeah. And I have to. So I bring that up to say, like, if you catch this and your hesitations of seeing this are because you've seen that it's super political and you don't want to go see a political preachy superhero movie, it's not.
00:31:36
Speaker
It's not. It's not a world where. Yeah, it exists in a world where things are happening. Conflicts are happening in other countries, but it's not preaching at you about what's right or wrong.
00:31:48
Speaker
It is. Well, in political stance. It is telling you to be a good person. And that is a great message always. So that's all I want to touch on that a little bit because I did not think this movie was ever preaching at me.
Dismissal of Political Concerns
00:32:03
Speaker
I've heard I'm pretty good friends with the comic book store owners in my old town. And we were texting about the movie and she said people won't are saying they won't go see it because it has an agenda. And I'm like, there's no the agenda here. No agenda.
00:32:16
Speaker
There's a lot of old relative commentary of the Israel-Gaza thing going on between Borabia and Jihad and Bor, but it's not quite same thing, and that's not the focus of the story.
00:32:28
Speaker
That's not the focus, and I think maybe two people are focused on that too much. And see, that's another thing where I'm like, we're saying that now, but if this same story came out in the 90s, would it have been about Berlin? you know Would it have been about... it's I think it's such a good...
00:32:46
Speaker
ah it's such a good story element because 10 years from now, it could be about a different conflict and people will see that aff reflected in it. so there's only a message here. If you want there to be a message.
00:32:57
Speaker
Yes. Like it has to be in you. I think it works really well. you to see Exactly. You have to be in for it and it's there. So don't let that dissuade you from seeing the movie is where I'm getting at with this.
00:33:09
Speaker
So we've spent 33 minutes on the intro and the story. Where do we, where do our scores land up on this story? I'm a four.
00:33:19
Speaker
I'm a four. i I think I cannot... Man, I'm blank. Did I give it a four or five? I think I gave it a five. I kind of forgot what I wrote. but I forgot what I gave, but...
00:33:34
Speaker
good
00:33:37
Speaker
I think I said five. You did say five, Adam. Did I give it a three or a four? because I don't remember. You gave it a three, Kevin, but I upped to a four if that's what you want. Yeah, I want to up my 204. like i like talking Like talking through everything, I want to up the 204 now.
00:33:52
Speaker
Okay. Yeah, I had to give it five just because when on paper, I can't think of another movie that has been quite like this. like That's fair.
00:34:03
Speaker
It's unabashedly James Gunn's story. It's not like any other Superman. So as far as originality goes for that, it's high as you can get it. yeah this is why Yeah, that's a good point.
00:34:16
Speaker
ah I'll just want say this. I like talking to like-minded people. Cause it helps me. I was by myself watching the movie. So I had a yeah like separate thought on it, but actually talking to other people about it and like seeing other people for any of you. was like, okay, okay. That actually makes more sense then. That's why I'm like, that's why I'm like, listen to like the reasoning of like certain things and thinking back on people. Like I can probably guarantee you that people think it's so political because they're one line, like a split second of, um,
00:34:46
Speaker
i forgot to do his name he said liberals and conservatives can agree on something and i guess it's so political it's one a split second scene stupid yep like it's one second it's one line and the line is literally saying that it's not political yes the one thing that everyone can agree upon is liberal and conservative I'm like, no, it's not, idiot. Listen to the boy he said, stupid.
00:35:15
Speaker
I also have to say, i thought, um man, I'm back on the political side of it again. um i loved that this movie shows that, spoiler alert, the conflict between two other countries is actually organizade organized by the military-industrial complex trying to make big bucks and politicals trying to make money moves, and that's it. and i was like oh oh i i'm like that i'm i can get behind that message uh oh i want another thing want to add when you talk about the war in the movie the way i saw it i think james was saying that it's going to be okay just have hope that's literally how i saw it yeah like despite everything ah in spite of everything going on just have hope it's going to be okay that came raised the super superman flag
00:36:03
Speaker
Yeah, that's how I felt. but it was a bloodgraph Crying. Because that's that's what Superman's supposed to be. that symbol. bro That's it. Seeing that kid, I'm not going to lie. I was in my emotions. I was like, please don't kill this kid. Please don't kill this kid. I know. You know that's brutal killing. So I like, please don't kill this kid. Please don't kill this kid.
00:36:27
Speaker
Let's jump into the character. We're unanimous on story. ah Jumping into the character here. How compelling is this character arc? So we kind of touched on the story that we find out here in this version that Superman was sent to Earth to conquer it, have as many wives as possible and reproduce.
Superman's Heroic Journey
00:36:49
Speaker
And, you know, the Invincible Omni-Man story, which many say has also been borrowed from other versions of Superman. So it is it is that I think it's that um question everybody always has about Superman.
00:37:04
Speaker
So We have that and Clark dealing with kind of I thought they handled it really well. I thought they handled it really well. I can't remember the exact line, but what his dad says, it's it's about your actions and who you choose to be every day that makes you who you are, not who you were born to be, you know, not your birthright.
00:37:29
Speaker
It is what you wake up every day and choose. And I was like, day they handled it very delicately and very well. And Jonathan Kent was kind of mild in this movie.
00:37:43
Speaker
like what? Yeah, he he he because he's like he was a Kansas farmer. I'm I'm going to have some farmer friends. He's a good dude. Yeah, I really liked that scene between the two of them. But I will say as far as a character arc for Superman, I don't think he has an arc.
00:38:01
Speaker
I think he starts the movie good. he gets kind of down because he loses some confidence in himself, but it ends the movie reassured that he's good.
00:38:12
Speaker
And I didn't need some big like change for him. i did I need to know Superman. So as far as an arc, the movie doesn't really have one. But as far as nailing the character, perfect.
00:38:26
Speaker
Yeah. Perfect Superman. but see i think that i put that kind of breaking him down in the center losing that confidence as his arc where it's not necessarily he's questioning if he's good it is he's reassuring himself and he has to go on this little bit of a journey so i i understand what you're saying but i also think that works for him this is the one that i do see a lot of the other characters kind of support the story
00:38:53
Speaker
Well, it's okay. That's kind of what they're there for. But it's just for a Superman. So, yeah. Yep. yeah Yep. Exactly. Markwise though. Except Lois Lane who makes the movie a thousand times better because she was perfect.
00:39:07
Speaker
I was just going to say. that Yeah. And it's so refreshing because I hated Amy Adams, Lois Lane. Thank you. like i I like Amy Adams as and as an actor.
00:39:21
Speaker
Yeah, but her Lois Lane. Yeah. Oh, fucking hate that character. She was so annoying. Now I have a Lois Lane that not only is she a great character, she she is perfectly spunky. She had to her.
00:39:38
Speaker
She has everything that was great about Margot Kidder's reporter. Yes. But Rachel Brosnahan is bringing that that like youthful energy to it and I mean, my God, she is pleasant on the eyes.
00:39:56
Speaker
Yeah, she is. She is definitely there. I seriously, if you want to call the next movie Lois Lane featuring a cameo by this man, you got my... I'm going to still sell tickets. But that's the great thing with her in this movie, though, and way she portrays the character is like, you get that glimpse of the early parts of Superman slash Clark Kent and Lois' relationship and how they divide that in the office.
00:40:22
Speaker
with him as Clark Kent, and then when they're alone with her and with him as Superman. And yes the different aspects, the way she grills him with that interview, you know the way he gets all frustrated, and that's all being part of that relationship process of being questioned by the other person that shows us to help you make you it better.
00:40:40
Speaker
You know, and then finally coming to terms with like, OK, I'm this isn't something where maybe it might work, maybe it won't. It's like, no, I love this person. You know, they love each other and they they really solid solidify the roots in that by the end of the film. It's like, OK, that's an awesome part of an arc there.
00:40:56
Speaker
Yeah. When when we were talking in the kitchen and she doesn't even look at him and says, i knew this wouldn't work. And Clark, just what do you mean?
00:41:09
Speaker
What do you mean? yeah And then he just leads. There's no yelling. There's no fighting. That is the most human moment between both of them. And I think that is so important because obviously Superman exists on this this pedestal.
00:41:23
Speaker
We do have to constantly remind ourselves that he's he's human like the rest of us. But Lois Lane... also has the potential to be such a cold, emotionless reporter character that I think a lot of times writers struggle to remember she's a woman.
00:41:43
Speaker
She's a human being. She has a emotion. She has a personality. And in this scene, they perfectly captured not only the character of Clark, not only the character of Superman, not only the character of Lois, but all of that together plus their relationships.
00:42:00
Speaker
Yep. Amazing. Yeah. Amazing. It's so well done because you feel in his Clark-ness, the humanity side of it, that Lois is...
00:42:16
Speaker
I want say bullying him, but being aggressive and putting him on the spot. And he it's one of the moments that also really appreciate the script for showing he's a young Superman.
00:42:29
Speaker
So he's not experienced. He even the whole conflict that he's kind of under ah getting flack for being involved in is because he acted instinctually to do what he believed was the right thing without realizing the geopolitical ramifications of doing that and it's one of those things that i'm like that is a action of a young superman and i kind of loved that story he hasn't realized that he has this world-like status already
00:43:08
Speaker
He's doing what all of us would do if we woke up with that power. yeah We would do what we think is right without taking a step back. Because even when I'm sitting there in the theater and I'm listening to them go back and forth during that interview scene, I agree 100% with both of them.
00:43:24
Speaker
yeah And I'm torn right down the middle. I'm like, yeah, stop the war. But also, you didn't belong there. yeah You can't force yourself in. But people were dying. It's like, doesn't matter. It does, but it doesn't.
00:43:37
Speaker
Handled it so well. When it comes to character,
00:43:44
Speaker
ah I got change. No, my score is good. My score is where I thought it was. Oh, you're talking about character? Because I got more to say. Go for it. Go for it. Ark, man. The bad guy Ark.
Lex Luthor's Hubris and Downfall
00:43:56
Speaker
Bad guy Ark. You've got Lex Luthor who thinks he is un-fucking-touchable, that he is the smartest person in the world. And he gets his ass handed to him by good investigative reporting, good connections. Yes. Jimmy and Lois getting that shit worked out, getting the info and those details.
00:44:14
Speaker
And props to Jimmy for taking it for the team for a crazy hot girl and how that would play out well for them. Oh, I feel so bad. He's in her hair, her rebuting toes. but Oh, my God. The way they worked that out, though, and way they bust – him down in like, it's, I would hate to be one of those people working in that office with, with Lex Luthor and his bullshit. Cause there's a, get that one guy who's like, this isn't a good idea. We need to stop this. We need to do this.
00:44:41
Speaker
And Lex and all of his hubris and his bullshit and his hate man gets just totally effed in the a and totally brought down 10, 15, 20 pegs. Once he finally gets busted and realize his shit is done.
00:44:55
Speaker
That is one of the wow most wonderful parts of any kind of arc in this movie is seeing him get in just totally F. Oh, man. And were you guys surprised at all to see Lex defeated by the end of the movie?
00:45:08
Speaker
I wasn't I was almost expecting him to kind of get away. to get away with it. ah So where do get away and not get caught. Yeah, so that he could be a threat in more movies. But I feel like now that the public knows Lex is an asshole, I kind of feel like we we we blew our load with Lex Luthor.
00:45:27
Speaker
What are we going to do? Like, this Lex is never going to be president now. not Not after this. i don't know The president was controversial to begin with. I don't know how well that went. He's even a member of the Justice League temporarily later on.
00:45:42
Speaker
It's just... you know And that could be... You could make that work as part of his reform. you know He went through this and he's come out better. I don't know. it didn't bother me because comic books always defeat the villain and he comes back a year later with a new scheme and everybody's there for it so i'm just well we'll see what happens with the next one i don't i just think maybe maybe if they want to do something more with him they shouldn't have had him publicly defamed still defeat him of course but who maybe
00:46:17
Speaker
I don't know. This was one that I'm watching Lex and I'm going, he is the villain Tony Stark. Yeah. Yeah. yeah Yeah. yeah They were talking about his weapons. He provides the weapons. He's making money off of this and he's using it for his own gain.
00:46:35
Speaker
when Yep. And he's calling it a calling. It is his calling to take out Superman. And I'm sitting there watching Nicholas Holt, who was fantastic.
00:46:46
Speaker
I'm not going to say he's better than Kevin Spacey, but the dude was chewing it up. He was enjoying his time. And yeah i also like I do see a little bit of the like he tried out for the role of Superman and lost it.
00:47:03
Speaker
And what? Yeah. And Batman. He auditioned Batman, too. Really? I did not know that. I was i don't i don't think I could handle him. oh i knew about I knew about Batman, I didn't know about Superman. yeah he auditioned for the role of superman lost it to corn sweat and was cast as luther and i think there's a little bit i'm not saying he's envious or jealous of the role but i think there's a little he can put a little bit of that in there because the character is very envious of superman and that came through very well i was actually watching a video uh just last night where it was um
00:47:39
Speaker
Nicholas Holt and David Cornswed, they were doing like a lie detector. They were interviewing each other. It's a really funny video. I can't remember like who published it, but I mean, you just find it on YouTube. um But in that, when Holt is connected to the polygraph, Cornswed asks him, it's like, since you auditioned for the role, but didn't get it, were there any moments when we were acting opposite each other where you thought you could do my role better than me?
00:48:06
Speaker
And Holt, like, You know, it's ah it's a fun video. But Holt was like, yeah, like absolutely. And Korsler was like, good. I would hope you would say that, honestly. But yeah, no, it's there is absolutely a resentment. And I'll tell you this.
Superman's Resilience Over Invincibility
00:48:20
Speaker
I've never seen another Lex Luthor in live action that I believe is going to end up in that mechanical suit to physically fight Superman more than Holt. This guy, yeah I guarantee it I don't know when. I don't know how many movies he's got to wait.
00:48:36
Speaker
but I guarantee you we're going to see Nicholas Holt put on some Iron Man armor with some kryptonite brass knuckles and beat shit out of the Superman. And I can't wait for that.
00:48:46
Speaker
It is almost like the hammer of Baravia armor was a trial run of his own suit for the future see if it could. I would love to see that for them to establish that that was kind of like an early yeah whatever for him that was a teaser the other okay the other thing the hammer baravia there was a much ado made about nothing about this hammer baravia defeating superman early and the other thing i see everybody talk about is superman being weak in this film i don't think that's i don't think he's the godlike power of cavill
00:49:22
Speaker
hang old Superman never was. If you read this triangle era omnibus right here, he gets beat up all the time. It's not about Superman being able to just like be a solid rock and people break their hands on him.
00:49:38
Speaker
he gets the better of him taken. Occasionally it's about him standing back up and finding a better way to handle the situation. Yeah.
00:49:48
Speaker
And that's what this movie does. I thought some of the things they did to fight Superman were things we have never seen. The nanites in his lungs, Dude, that was so crazy.
00:50:00
Speaker
I thought that was super clever. And what does Superman have to do? Use his brain to get out of the situation. And I thought that was really clever. It didn't bother me.
00:50:11
Speaker
We ah saw a lot about Superman bleeding in that opening scene. ah Big spoiler here, you find and out that he's bleeding because he fought himself, basically.
00:50:24
Speaker
It was his own power level dishing it back to him. More brutish. That's going to leave him a little bit damaged. i Yeah. yeah Yes. well So we'll definitely touch on on didn't love the weakness of Superman when we start talking about like the marketing of it. Because I got something to say on that. But in execution in the movie, I don't think Superman is weak.
00:50:50
Speaker
I think there was some misconception about with some of the comments made by the production that this is a Superman that can lose. And people took that as, oh, so he's a weak, you know, bitch Superman.
00:51:00
Speaker
He's not. I mean, anytime he gets defeated in this movie, it is effective. It's done well. And it only makes me like him more. yeah Because like you said, Tim, it's about him getting back up.
00:51:15
Speaker
It's not about, I mean, what what did ah yeah Bruce Wayne's father said it? It's not how hard you fall, it's it's how tell you how many times you get back up or how you get back up.
00:51:27
Speaker
Yeah. yeah Yep. Yep. And so I will go on record. I was one of those smart amount of people that thought he would be a bitch Superman. I really like that.
00:51:38
Speaker
Well, saw the movie, but after seeing the movie and actually seeing that, was like, oh, he's fighting his evil twin, who is is his power. So this man ain't reek, he's there fighting himself. I was like, shit. Okay, James, keep on working. I'm good.
00:51:51
Speaker
yeah Exactly. Exactly. there's There's a lot of clues that James did in that that some people could take issue with. clone diversion of Superman is actually bizarro.
00:52:03
Speaker
and oh is typically funny because he is the total opposite other than in strength. He's not as handsome. He is. He's kind of got all the same powers, but he he can barely speak to. He's just kind of clunky, goofy character.
00:52:19
Speaker
ah But what we saw was a lot of Ultraman, which I thought they were going to set up. Ultraman is a Superman, an evil Superman from another dimension that basically did what Clark's parents sent him to do in this film. He conquered his world with Wonder Woman at his side, that his version of Wonder Woman.
00:52:44
Speaker
ah And there there's an arc. Forever Evil is part of that. but he's an evil Superman. So when we're getting the pocket universe early on, I was like, did he go to this other universe and get Ultraman?
00:53:00
Speaker
And then we find out it's bizarro. And I was a little bit, i was a little bit disappointed because it's kind of ah combination of both of those characters that James pulled off. And I'm not sure it's really either of them.
00:53:13
Speaker
So I'll tell you the only disappointment I had was when the mask came off you know, the hair is in his face for a brief moment.
00:53:25
Speaker
I thought it was Hayden Christiansen. He looked so, and I was like, no fucking way. And then when I realized it was corn, but, and I'm looking back and forth and I'm like going, you know, people talked about how dumb the Clark Kent hair was.
00:53:41
Speaker
Look, you apparently,
The Clone Character Debate
00:53:43
Speaker
you put a different haircut on David courts, right. You transform that man. because he doesn't look the same in Twisters. He doesn't look the same in Pearl. He doesn't look the same as Clark Kent.
00:53:52
Speaker
And that motherfucker was straight up Hayden Christensen when that Ultraman mask came off. that That's funny because when when he pulled a mask off from me, I thought that was Huey Cavill for a second.
00:54:04
Speaker
was like, wait a minute. it We all thought it was going to be. Did you guys notice? ah you guys notice ah They released an image a few weeks ago or a couple months ago of the unmasked Ultraman, but he's like off in the distance. It's shrouded in like darkness.
00:54:24
Speaker
But if you zoom in, did my camera just spin? Yeah, it just went sideways on itself, bro. i usually open up wide i tilted What is happening?
00:54:37
Speaker
The screen did an auto-click for some reason. and There we go. you go okay I don't know what that was. The distant Ultraman. I thought you could turn to Ultraman for a second. but um No, but ah I feel like they did some digital trickery in that photo and made him look more like Lobo to intentionally like kind of throw people off.
00:55:00
Speaker
Because I was looking at that photo and I'm like, clearly the face is CGI. Are they hiding somebody? Is that Lobo? Why would that be? So when the mask comes off in this, I'm happy that it it it wasn't like some crazy twist.
00:55:15
Speaker
We all knew it was going to be a clone of Superman. The question was just what version of it. Which version? Yep. Yeah. Jonathan, did you say everything you wanted to about character?
00:55:26
Speaker
That was all i had to add on that. So yeah, let's go ahead and get some scores in so we can get rolling here. Weird. I'm a four on character. I don't kind of say what I want to say, so i don't have to repeat what I said.
00:55:39
Speaker
yeah I'm four. i think I think I landed at three. What did I put? I don't remember. adam Adam, you were three. And great Kevin, you were three.
00:55:50
Speaker
ah Bump that up to a four for me. The more I think about it. Because I was judging that purely based on character arc. I wasn't taking everything else into consideration. yeah same all right up to a four well then we are unanimous in fours we do have one other person score added in here that i'll tell us their results at the end okay uh okay the music and sound design this is one this is one that i can't give it a full five for even though it got me the music hit right here many times but the music was not original to this movie
00:56:28
Speaker
Yes, I agree
Music and Sound Design Critique
00:56:30
Speaker
with you. The only music that is memorable to me is when they brought in the John Williams score or the, the John Murphy theme, which I'm very familiar with because of all the marketing.
00:56:42
Speaker
yeah Other than that, I can't think of a single other moment of music in this movie. I did notice early on because I thought it was a unique choice and I really liked it.
00:56:54
Speaker
Lex had a jazz theme. See, even notice. Yeah, it was kind of jazzy, little snare drum, some cymbal. It almost felt like a 60s spy jazz riff that I was like, I do like that. It's very subtle. Oh, excuse me.
00:57:14
Speaker
It is very, very subtle. But... That was the only part of new music that stood out. What really stood out was the theme.
00:57:26
Speaker
Everybody knows from the Reeves films, just gut punching you at the right moments. It's one of the um moments of the film that I thought felt a little cheap. like i really and it John Murphy did an amazing new theme, but nothing else popped.
00:57:45
Speaker
And I mean, I'll happily listen to the soundtrack. i always like to listen to these soundtracks isolated and see like what does come out, but I haven't done that yet. And right now, it worked while I was watching it, but here we are two, three days later, and I don't remember anything.
00:58:02
Speaker
I should listen to part of the soundtrack. Yeah. yeah And not even I didn't even know ah any of those songs in the movie. Yeah. that's No, what go when I read the question we you tell my music is they thought about the thing like I like how he put the Superman a certain parts I didn't I didn't even realize that was other music except the actual Superman theme that's it's surprising same yeah Yeah, it's surprising that the music wasn't more of a pop because I feel like at least in the last ten years James Gunn has really garnered a reputation as being a man with a great ear
00:58:41
Speaker
I mean, you look at the Guardians movies, there's not one bad track in there. You look at the Guardians theme, you look at Guardians Inferno, which was written for the second film with David Hasselhoff.
00:58:51
Speaker
These are all standouts. Yeah. But... Hell, even with Peacemaker. yeah Peacemaker, incredible music. With this one, I mean, I really like the... don't even know the name of the group, but the punk rock song that plays at the end.
00:59:10
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, a great song, but that's one. That's one song. Mad Crab Joys. But I think it was Iggy Pop, wasn't it? Iggy Pop is featured on it, but it's, yeah. well Yeah, i second a second night, so I don't know.
00:59:24
Speaker
Yeah, that's an interesting point that James Gunn's kind of known for selecting music, and I wondered if that was an intentional choice for him to not make that part of the this movie.
00:59:37
Speaker
You know, he didn't want to see that. I saw in an interview that he was mainly focusing on the score for this one. think he said he wanted to do something different that he hasn't done.
00:59:50
Speaker
So like ah someone many interviews out about the music, is how he's known for the music. yeah so He said he wanted to do a different take, and this was like more score-heavy for him ah because he wanted to do a different take um definite because it's Superman.
01:00:04
Speaker
He didn't want to do like the Guardians with like the random... With all the needle drops and everything. yeah yeah Thank you. yeah You wouldn't drop so much attention away from the story and what's going with too memorable of a music.
01:00:16
Speaker
Yeah, that's exactly what he was saying. he's And I can respect that. Yeah, he wanted to be more score heavy and not just random music popping everywhere. In that case... I think he he did a really good, like a smart job at hiring John Murphy to do it. I just don't think... over but John Murphy's no Hans Zimmer.
01:00:37
Speaker
I mean, I still listen to the Man of Steel score on its own. You can put that soundtrack on and the hair on my arm stands up. yeah I didn't i get that with John Murphy's work. That's what I was going to bring back. People love the original Superman theme because it's a great theme. I get that. But Man of Steel avoided it and still had...
01:01:02
Speaker
effective and some think that that flight is one of the best superman tracks ever so yeah man i think that track is called first flight first flight yeah okay it's an it is an incredible like goosebump inducing track there is nothing original on this movie that does that For me, the music just did what it was supposed to. It all blended very well and seamlessly as kind of an accent note to everything that I'm seeing.
01:01:33
Speaker
and So I can't really say much about It's great hearing those those kind of like like those classic themes that we're aware of, that we love. But the rest of it, man, I'm just like, I'm hyped up for what's going on and all the rest of the sound effects and everything that's going on. That's just hands' an enhancer.
01:01:48
Speaker
it's It was a wallpaper score. Yeah. yeah the The sound production on the rest of the movie was excellent. Everything sounded really cool. That little river of whatever they were in, in the pocket universe. Proto-rigger was like anti-matter or something.
01:02:04
Speaker
Yeah. But it was like little cubes and it even sounded like something out of the Lego movie a little bit. Yeah. So I what brought to it.
01:02:19
Speaker
I think the sound design itself for the film was good. i even like some of the really aggressive wind sounds of his flight. Those were flying with fantastic. too Yeah, that was awesome. Even the cross-eyed scene lasted 0.2 seconds. It wasn't.
01:02:35
Speaker
two seconds and so wasn't I never had a problem with that. It would be very hypocritical of me to criticize somebody who's a cross-eyed. When I was a kid, this eye was always looking over there.
01:02:47
Speaker
I love Columbo. across cry and It's okay. Yeah. So when it comes to music and sound design, I actually had to dock this one because the best moments of it weren't original so that they were redone versions of another theme.
Special Effects and Visuals
01:03:07
Speaker
So music and sound design, I give it a four. I'm at a three. I think I said three as well. You did. I think I said, I think I said a five on mine. Cause I was, cause I, cause I was thinking about the score. i wasn't even thinking about music music, music wise. So put, put, put mine into like a three.
01:03:23
Speaker
Now talk about it. Yeah. do If you really want to, I mean, if you like feel how you feel and you feel it's five, there's nothing wrong with it. Yeah. No, it's a five score wise. That's what I'm saying. It's a five score wise for me, but the music. kind Yeah. So that's like, yeah. So I put my, it's a three.
01:03:38
Speaker
um I'll put you at a four. I'm going to average you out. Okay. That works too. That works. Yeah. Put me a four. Put me a four then. Okay. So then we have, Hey, he's on crypto. I'm sorry.
01:03:52
Speaker
He's very, he's a cat. That was a dog. he's already so close. Editing in special effects. This is one that I don't need to spend a whole lot of time on. I thought was some of the better special effects that we've seen recently, man.
01:04:07
Speaker
There were one or two scenes where i was like, there's the green screen. Uh, but other than that i thought it was done really well it wasn't bad as flash so yeah dude not many things are as bad yeah that's one of the worst movies i've ever seen that was a horrible movie we covered that one ah while ago too i was really looking forward to that movie and i hated it because loved the flash and i hated that film
01:04:39
Speaker
dude the way they edited that scene for mr terrific's fight on the beach there where they're at at the portal the way they edit that all around while lois is in like the protection or like ah shield yeah and he's out there doing his thing dude man the way they edited that and the special effects with his eye circles and i actually saw t-bikes i saw some how they did that scene too yeah all right you but he was there on a wire swinging around her while fighting the guys with his balls the perspectives and the way they shot and edited that whole oh my god that was a ba and break out of the mistake
01:05:25
Speaker
i had to go to the restroom And when they landed on the beach, I thought, I thought, okay, it's just going to be a quick scene. They're just going to be talking. Nothing's going to happen. I'm going run real quick. And when I came back, they were walking through the portal. So I'm like, I didn't miss anything.
01:05:41
Speaker
I'm like, you should have stayed for a good five minutes. You you would have had blast at that scene, dude. There were a couple. So I've noticed James has kind of stepped up his camera work in his scenes. It seems like that where it doesn't cut and it just rotates around.
01:05:56
Speaker
This didn't have ah lot was made about his Guardians three hallway fight. Yeah. Some people love it. Some people hate it. It was stylish. Did he change cinematographers between Guardians movies?
01:06:11
Speaker
Because Guardians 3 looked noticeably different than the first two. ah yeah do he It had a similar color palette to The Suicide Squad. And then I think he carried the same cinematographer into this. So I think when once he hit DC, he met somebody new.
01:06:28
Speaker
Well, and that would make sense because the Suicide Squad also had that great Harley Quinn hallway fight scene. Yeah. yeah Another great. This one had a couple fight scenes that were longer takes like that, but none of them are quite as memorable. And I'm actually okay with that.
01:06:49
Speaker
I'm actually fine with it. I mean, they worked. I think doing those long takes works better with Superman. because of his flight and his speed ability. I think you can really, really sell the speed when you have solid VFX and you bring out like a long take. Like when he was fighting the Kaiju and we got to see him like moving around and we went over to Hawk Girl flying.
01:07:13
Speaker
The aerial effects with those long takes I think really excelled even more than the hallway fighting Guardians or or the Harley Quinn, which I think they worked really well in there. but Yeah. Better here.
01:07:27
Speaker
I noticed there was some, I think it was clever editing. I don't think it was a single take, but when Lex is interrogating the guy with the gun to his head, which that whole storyline,
01:07:39
Speaker
that character's storyline is great in this film. So short, so effective. Yes. From helping Superman like you helped me. Let me help you. Blah, blah, blah, blah to Lex interrogating him.
01:07:53
Speaker
But in that scene, the camera appears to not cut. It's cleverly edited where it goes to Bravian guy and then back to Lex, back to Superman, back to Lex. And it appears to not cut. And that was another one of the clever edited scenes of this.
01:08:13
Speaker
But I think he's tight. James Gunn is tight when it comes to this kind of production. He's kind of music video-ish in his production. It is timed almost musically to a beat of the story.
01:08:28
Speaker
Which ironic because that was a big complaint people had with Zack Snyder is that Snyder's very music video, very visual-esque. It's funny when you put them on paper, Gunn and Snyder are the same kind of filmmaker.
01:08:42
Speaker
One of them just prefers the gritty and the other prefers the lighthearted fun. But when you compare their style, their structure and their interests, they're the same. They are so similar.
01:08:55
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, I would agree. There were even some of the fight, the climactic fight in this. I was like, this is pretty dark and gritty, but the rest of the movie was so bright. sun without So it's OK. Yes, it wasn't clouded by dust But okay, I'm telling it was but then the dust went away.
01:09:16
Speaker
The editing and special effects. I was a where was I was a four? Where was I? I hit a five on it. Five. Yeah, I really liked the way this was edited along with the special effects.
01:09:31
Speaker
I think I think I said four just because they're for the most parts for 85% of the movie that the effects were really, really good. But there were the occasional like rubbery green screen things.
01:09:45
Speaker
I was surprised at how like tangible the kaiju was. like you could really It looked like you could touch him. But then there were some other like city effects. Some of the flying effects were like, ah you don't look real.
01:10:00
Speaker
You look stylized. yeah And that that just drops it from 5 to a 4. But it was really, really well done. I will. I thought about it. The thing I did like was his interpretation of the Green Lantern ring, where typically it's been shown as a light and this looks almost solid.
01:10:19
Speaker
Almost like candy glass. Yes. Did anybody else see that? Well, that's what it's. That's how they usually look at most iterations where you see a Green Lantern ring. It's like a physical actual object that is. Oh, I'm meaning the the whatever they conjure is constructs.
01:10:35
Speaker
Yeah, constructs. Oh, okay. The constructs I like better than this than I did like the hal jordan or the the Ryan Reynolds Green Lancer. I like this i think version of it, in in the The Ryan Reynolds one, I like the way it looked, but that really focused a lot on these are light constructs, whereas this one, it looked almost like the constructs were affected by the light around them. You could see shimmer, you could see shadows, you could see texture to it, almost like yeah These constructs are being physically constructed out of matter being pulled from thin air versus the Ryan Reynolds interpretation, which is it comes straight from the ring every single time. It's an energy and a light emission.
01:11:18
Speaker
I think they're both excellent, but this one looked to me more comic book-y. Yeah, exactly. It looked like I could touch it, and it looked like it tasted really good.
01:11:30
Speaker
Green apple candy, baby. It's a Jolly Rancher. Although, man, I say with Guy Gardner, though, like um on the battlefield in Barabia and Jihad and Por and those spinning fingers that come up out of the ground. I love this. That was definitely Guy Gardner shit right there.
01:11:49
Speaker
Guy Gardner is such an asshole, dude. He was so perfect. yes no When I first saw Gardner. I remember they talked about the haircut, too. that's that's awesome that good when i was first saw a guy gone was like please seven that's not his extra that's all the comic was oh god there's a lot of haircuts that guy gardner's haircut have been and they went with the worst fucking version like jesus it's the thing that i love about guy gardner's look in this movie and i think nathan phillian played it so well is guy gardner is the lamest guy
01:12:22
Speaker
on the playground but he truly doesn't believe that good see anybody who shits on him is just like more fuel to be like you're only hating because you you know you hate me because you hate me kind of i was like no guy you're dick you look like a dork no one likes you he's like ah fuck you so it's okay but it's perfect Nathan Fillion and his awesome acting i cannot wait for this lantern show now I don't know if Nathan Fillion's confirmed for the show, but we're getting Jon Stewart, perfect casting.
01:12:56
Speaker
Hal Jordan, perfect casting. You throw a Guy Gardner in there, give me those three. Dude, I can't wait for them to just make fun of Guy to his face every episode, and Guy never believes it. Are going to include like Kyle and Jessica as Green Lanterns?
01:13:12
Speaker
I don't know. I wonder that. i't i'm The only ones I think are confirmed are Hal and Stuart. I want Kyle Rayner. I was a Kyle. I like Kyle. I was a Kyle fan. Also, he has a tragic story. So I really, i would really love to see a Kyle where his girlfriend is murdered and shoved in his refrigerator because that's his origin story.
01:13:35
Speaker
That would be good. snyder Have Zack Snyder direct that one episode. Have him do that one episode that's up his alley. So editing special effects. we're pretty much fours uh jonathan was a five so you were four okay the script then touching on the script not just the story itself but how the story was told uh i didn't have any major complaints with the script so i i guess you could argue
01:14:08
Speaker
there I didn't think it was as funny as James's normal movies, which I'm fine
Script's Humor and Subtlety
01:14:13
Speaker
with. He wasn't going for overly comedic. I appreciated some of the humor, but most of it I didn didn't really laugh at.
01:14:21
Speaker
Like I have a weird sense of humor. I thought the garage door taking forever to open was kind of funny. That wasn't that was awesome. That was really good. I love it. You have a flying saucer, but you can't make the door open.
01:14:32
Speaker
And just as serious as Mr. Terrific could just says, haven't gotten to that yet. yeah that one kind of thought was funny the one lighter was just dude that was hilarious was like was it um i thought it was more like was this a blooper they just kept in the movie and just added that look i believe it i thought it was more situational comedy like jimmy olsen my favorite jimmy olsen on screen Fantastic. Oh, yeah.
01:15:04
Speaker
So good. He was excellent in Santa Clarita Diet. He plays the same character, but he was hilarious in that. um
01:15:13
Speaker
So I thought it was situationally hilarious. It's not like laugh out loud jokes, but the fact that Jimmy, these gorgeous women are throwing themselves at Jimmy and he's just like, I don't want any of this. She's like, we can spend the weekend together. And he's like, the whole weekend?
01:15:30
Speaker
Yeah. It's so crazy to me when I see like, because I thought Jimmy Olsen was going to be a dork in this. I mean, he normally is. And then, I mean, you, you cast, I can't remember the actor's name, but I mean, he's, I saw him back on what Disney as a kid. Like I thought he was going to be like the dorky, funny Jimmy Olsen.
01:15:51
Speaker
This dude is a dog. He's got all these women throwing themselves at him and he couldn't care less. Man, when when Eve jumps on him at the end of the movie, I just sat back and I'm like, you motherfucker.
01:16:05
Speaker
If you don't lock this woman down, I'm going to beat you. yeah i mean, she's an idiot, but you know. She's hot lady. She's sweet, too. she's on a high crazy oh she's sweet too I look sometimes, you know, she's nice.
01:16:22
Speaker
I also wish like really hot. You think she's dumb? Like just a self-intest person? She was so, that was, um'm I'll be honest with you. I didn't see that coming. And that is one of my favorite, not only story reveals, but character reveals.
01:16:41
Speaker
throughout whole movie she's taking these pictures of selfies and everything and at the end you realize this woman's been getting dirt on lex for this entire yeah oh my yeah god how does james gun do this every single time yeah i thought that was so good oh my god james what is so fucking talented dude that was an excellent character moment because you're just thinking she's social media obsessed girlfriend she's there for the fame she's like she's just eye candy for the audience yes but nope she's filming everything needed to blackmail lex while dating him because he's an abusive turd and also and also the other thing when lex got her from the room he said you seen sexy pictures he didn't even pay attention himself but but to be the smartest person yo dumb ass to look at the pictures then realize he got the wrong yeah
01:17:35
Speaker
Yo, yo, stupid. Because he didn't care. it's Because he didn't think she was smart enough to do that. It never crossed his mind that she would be clever enough to do this because to him, is just a piece of ass.
01:17:47
Speaker
He didn't give her like in any regard. Screwed by his own ego. but Oh, my God. That is there's as much character written in that exchange about Lex as there is about her.
01:18:02
Speaker
how Lex views other people yeah and how intelligent she actually was. Even she's throwing herself at Jimmy and it's still kind of comical, but she was smarter than she came across.
01:18:15
Speaker
She don't underestimate. She don't underestimate. I should not have doubted James Gunn, the man who made an opening title sequence so addictive as Peacemaker. I should have put my faith in him that he was going to do something.
01:18:30
Speaker
yeah i it's i can't i can't believe how much doubt i had in this movie and how amazing it turned out to be i was doubting it hard because each trailer and we'll argue this later i'm sure um
01:18:47
Speaker
superman is supposed to inspire hope and each new trailer like i felt optimistic just viewing it you I, it concerned me. I was still concerned about things that I saw in there, but I was like, this movie looks hopeful.
01:19:02
Speaker
That guy gives me hope. I'm, and i because of that, I was very worried that
Script Structure: Messy Yet Functional
01:19:10
Speaker
the movie was going to suck. I was like, I'm, it's going to drop the ball, but on, we're on the script, getting sidetracked on the script. Oh, um for for script, I can sum it up in in three words, messy, but functional.
01:19:26
Speaker
It's a very messy story, but messy doesn't always mean bad. We typically hear that and we're like, oh, it's going to be unfocused. It's going to be jumbled. And it's not unfocused.
01:19:38
Speaker
It is one of those and then scripts. It's this happens and then this happens and then this happens and then this happens. And throughout, there are little nuggets of therefore and because.
01:19:50
Speaker
But for the most part, this is a and then story. which I think to to a professional script writer is probably going to be, you know, absolutely nightmarish, but to a general audience, I don't think that's going to be a problem.
01:20:04
Speaker
And for me, as somebody who is typically extra critical of movies, it worked. It was messy, but functional. Yeah. Yeah. so Same with me. I said, I said bloated, but this was the type of bloated that it actually worked.
01:20:21
Speaker
Basically, basically Well, I'm saying. Yeah. Yeah. The concern about juggling all of the things that we saw in trailers was valid.
01:20:32
Speaker
I can still see why some people are going to say it is too bloated with too much going on. and But it's like we said back in the story, it's the script is focused on what you need to enjoy this two hours of film.
01:20:46
Speaker
You don't need. you don't need to watch three other superman movies to get to where we are to appreciate this everybody knows who superman is here's a new adventure with them done exactly and i'm i'm cool with that even the things that you don't know i think that like a really great way to look at this is this is not a movie that requires a whole bunch of setups And i mean, look at like Metamorpho, for example. I don't know what Metamorpho is.
01:21:13
Speaker
I'm not familiar with that character. I don't think 99% of the people are. I've never cared for him in the comic books either. it doesn't matter because yeah James Gunn didn't build Metamorpho up. This isn't a story about, well, let me introduce everybody. No, no, no.
01:21:27
Speaker
He introduces things when they're relevant. yeah Yeah. We need this here. Oh, where did that come from? Doesn't matter because it's working here right now.
01:21:37
Speaker
And if you like it, You get more later. It is, it's a, here's a taste. Do you like it? Yep. Good. I didn't need to build up the souffle for three hours.
01:21:48
Speaker
for you to enjoy that it tastes really good. Yes. It's one of those comic book things that I was bringing a bringing up in the story where it's kind of structured like you said, and then script where it's we would have gotten an issue that was Superman versus metamorpho, and it would have been about Superman going into that cage and the kryptonite hand.
01:22:11
Speaker
And then the next issue would have been about, hey, we should work together and defeat this situation. And it's part of that ongoing moment of this character is relevant to this part of the story.
01:22:26
Speaker
They're going to get through it. He might be back later, but you don't need to know much more than what you're given. And to his credit, I've never cared for metamorphosis in the comics.
01:22:38
Speaker
I cared about metamorphosis in this movie. I was worried. Wow, really? a big part of that. I think it's something that people are going to overlook is the voice.
01:22:49
Speaker
He sounded like a normal person. He wasn't, he looks like a monster. He could easily be a monster, but James Gunn was very clever. Again, I can't remember the actor's name, but I've seen him in several other things.
01:23:01
Speaker
the i'll I'll get it. Yeah. Well, James Gunn has worked with him before. He's a really great actor, but you know, I think Gunn knew that when, when you're going to cover somebody in this much makeup,
01:23:13
Speaker
and you're going to give them these crazy, you know, visually unappealing powers, it's important to maintain, what is it? Anthony what? Anthony Kerrigan. Anthony Kerrigan, that's it, yeah.
01:23:25
Speaker
It's important to maintain a sense of humanity, and you can do that with the eyes and with the voice. I was actually just watching the 2015 Fantastic Four movie the other day, and Jamie Bell, you know, he's a fantastic actor, but there's so much lost in that performance,
01:23:42
Speaker
because of the voice they they changed it. Gunn knew Kerrigan has a really good voice. He's got really good eyes. Let's make sure we see his eyes. Let's make sure we hear his voice.
01:23:52
Speaker
And instantly I get that he's a loving father. I get that he's a victim. I get that he has been abused and used against his will. All of that, just from him simply saying the lines, don't talk to me.
01:24:07
Speaker
Don't talk to me. uh what uh and it was great it cracked me up it was one of the moments that i thought was hilarious was when metamorpho has basically dissolved his entire body and is a little tentacle dude next to superman and he calls superman like a freaky weird alien or whatever an octopus with a human head right now and i thought that was one of the moments that really was a little his little troll doll baby who again
01:24:38
Speaker
in the marketing and i i'm we're gonna be we're gonna get to the cultural thing in the marketing in just a moment but i mean just to touch on that real quick again the marketing made this look so much worse i don't want to see superman with some dumb little baby who by the way i thought that was a young metamorpho i thought metamorpho was going to be the main villain of the movie so color me surprised when he wasn't me too i thought i thought that little baby was like clark was like gonna go through a wormhole and and see metamorpho as a baby i didn't realize it was metamorphosis son I thought that baby was going to be a young Brainiac and then I was very concerned. i thought Metamorpho was Brainiac.
01:25:16
Speaker
I thought they were the same guy. I did too. Brainiac is another alien with 11th century. what it's It's insane. ah But... He balances the script.
01:25:28
Speaker
Like we've said, he makes us care about small characters in their moments without telling us a heck of a lot about who they are. We don't need to know so much, but he tells us just enough to care about this situation.
Crypto's Role in the Film
01:25:42
Speaker
ah One of the things I was concerned about going into the film was crypto. because crypto was a major part of marketing. I have never cared about crypto in the comic books. even I love the idea of Superman having a dog.
01:25:57
Speaker
I don't find dog storylines all that compelling. Okay, it doesn't, it's not a super compelling story. so you can However- can't really do too much with a dog storyline. Well, i love dogs. I'm a dog person. I've got my two dogs.
01:26:09
Speaker
And so when they took Crypto and Superman bus in the office and is where's my dog? I was like, I feel that. I feel that. john wicks yes I was worried Crypto would become too much of the focus of the film.
01:26:24
Speaker
And I thought James walked that line very well. The crypto was actually how I got my wife to see this movie. She doesn't like, she doesn't like superhero movies. She hasn't, she really didn't like the Snyder films.
01:26:39
Speaker
Uh, but she loves dogs. And so i was like, this is go see it for crypto. And she walked out and this is she said this is her favorite superhero movie that she's ever seen.
01:26:50
Speaker
Well, I do think part of that is because it was smart on the marketing for people like my wife to give them crypto to latch on to and care about for Superman superheroes, not always, but tend to be a pretty male dominated field.
01:27:11
Speaker
so that gives her access to this and now she understands a little bit of that relationship especially because they didn't make crypto a well-behaved dog and so that gives you more like there were times in this week i'm like yeah that's our dog but the moment when the dog was laying on his chest when he's healing i'm like that that was sweet I was like our yeah our dog does that when my wife doesn't feel good it'll lay right next to her and that's just little moments of crypto that work without him overpowering the story and so I thought he balanced that really well like from that scene when I was in the theater from that scene like I think I'm going to have a dog best friend
01:27:59
Speaker
someday. I also appreciated that it was Supergirl's. i I did. I'm happy that it's Supergirl's dog because that means he won't be in the next movie. I did not hate Crypto at all, but I don't need him in this movie. I'm not a Crypto fan. i My only true experience with Crypto is when I was a kid, I I don't remember what channel it was on, but there was a Crypto the Superdog cartoon.
01:28:32
Speaker
And I watched that, but I was really young at the time. And even then, didn't love it because I think, and comic book people can say whatever they want, giving an animal superpowers is the dumbest fucking thing you can do.
01:28:48
Speaker
I don't give a shit. Is the dog cute? He looked like CGI. So I was, I didn't think he was cute because he looked fake throughout the whole movie. His personality was, I mean, yeah, yeah but he looked CGI. on Right. Like you can make him not look like it.
01:29:06
Speaker
I, I, I like dogs over there. i like your dog. over there and i'll pet them and then i want you to take them home and get them away from me um i've had dogs and i loved them when they were sitting down and they were quiet um this crypto pissed me off because i knew there wasn't a damn thing i could do to shut him up because he could kill me and i didn't i didn't like that When he destroyed the Fortress of Solitude, I just, all I could think about is all my stuff and how fucking you angry I would be.
01:29:43
Speaker
And that little cape, it's cute, but it would fall off. I can't keep anything on my pets. I just, Crypto, he was fine for one movie.
01:29:54
Speaker
I'm good. Unfortunately, it sounds like he's to be very important in the Supergirl movie, who I have comments on and we'll get to her later. but I just gotta ask you one question. correct yeah Did you least like the part where people tell the hell out of Lex Luthor?
01:30:12
Speaker
I did. It was cute. oh Yeah. Well, see, that's the thing with with Crypto. There was nothing in this movie. but our He worked. Yeah, like he worked in the movie. I'm not saying that he should have been removed from the story, but I'm good. I've gotten my fill.
01:30:26
Speaker
I don't need more. Gotcha. Gotcha. Yeah. I do think... I saw some people being like, oh I love crypto. Now bring in ace for Batman. I'm like, I don't need ace to be in the Batman movie.
01:30:38
Speaker
I don't because Batman doesn't have superpowers. He doesn't have a dog from his planet that would have similar superpowers. This doesn't serve anything. You can have a dog in the cave. Sure. That's not gonna bother me, but it shouldn't be part of the story.
01:30:51
Speaker
The, uh, the only way that I would want to see ace is in, if you want to put in the Batman to have a scene where someone's like trying to break in, to Wayne Manor and there's a guard dog and on the dog house it says Ace.
01:31:03
Speaker
Give me an Easter egg, sure. Don't you fucking dare dress a dog up like Batman. Don't do it. Do it to Batman Beyond. That Ace was better. ah The...
01:31:15
Speaker
I don't need Ace in that. I mean, we watched my I got my wife to watch the Super Pets movie. That's fun, but that's a kid thing. i don't you couldn't pay me to watch that. I don't need don't need it. in him though Don't need it in mainline continuity.
01:31:29
Speaker
But I thought he balanced really well. It didn't overpower the story at all. The focus was on Superman. I never felt like the movie was preachy. I did think a little bit of the delivery of Superman at the end was It was good.
01:31:48
Speaker
It wasn't quite, i don't know. ah got me, but I still think there could have been a little bit more. e
01:31:58
Speaker
i don't know. I feel like I'm nitpicking, but it just didn't hit me as like, wow, that was amazing. I was like, that was good. so speech to Lex at the end yes okay and I think it's also a reflection of the character himself is like dude I'm just human i wake up every day like you put one foot in front of the other and try to do the best that I can you know innocent innocent naive and and his speech sounded like a dude why are you hating me like what did I do to deserve this yeah there's not a lot of meat to it but in all fairness there's not a lot of meat to why Lex hates
01:32:30
Speaker
It's so simple.
Critique of Superman's Speech to Luthor
01:32:32
Speaker
I hate you. I laid out the envy Because I think I'm better and you're constantly proving to me that you're better and fuck you for that. Yeah. Stop showing me how weak I am.
01:32:42
Speaker
Yeah. And I think that's where some of my... i don't want to necessarily say it's an issue. It's an early film. It's early in Superman's career. But it's definitely something that I felt watching the movie was that it seemed...
01:32:58
Speaker
underbaked just a little bit just a little bit but it also the story if we would have suddenly gotten a very vocal and poetic superman speech about his humanity it wouldn't have fit with what we saw about superman leading into it yeah but it wouldn't it wouldn't have been deserved with this particular story in this story right now superman is underbaked because like you said he's young right now yeah So it made sense for this right now that it was underpicked. I noticed something at the beginning. and I was wondering, did did you guys notice this or do you have any opinions on it But did you notice that almost every time frame in this film is a three?
01:33:44
Speaker
Three centuries ago, MetaHumans yeah started. 300 years ago, three months ago, three days ago, three hours ago. The only time frame that wasn't a three was...
01:33:55
Speaker
Clark and Lois dating, which was a four. Other than that, everything was a three. I yeah thought that was interesting. Huh. I don't know if that means anything.
01:34:07
Speaker
I think that really leads to the direction part of it and like kind of hearkening back to what you get in a comic book story. when you open that first page you get those lines of lead-in of what's going on currently in the story and i think that's what they were kind of going for with you know three centuries ago three decades ago three years ago three months ago three hours ago three minutes ago he just got his ass handed to him and here's where we are and yeah i don't know ah like you're saying i don't know what the significance of choosing the three is i know
01:34:42
Speaker
I know in, um, it's interesting because I know in man of steel, it was more of Zach leaning into the Christlike elements of Superman. Yeah. the Like hands spread out on the cross type stuff that Zach used to did.
01:34:57
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. It didn't really do that. So that's why I was curious about the three. and I noticed that in the opening, cause the, the opening like text that we get, I thought was excellent. It immediately set the tone.
01:35:11
Speaker
yeah And I went from, you know, the movie starting and i'm like, i don't know if I'm going to like this. And then by the time the text is done, I'm like, okay, I get what you're doing. um'm I'm on board. But when I noticed all the threes, I'm like, I know three, you know, biblically is is a significant number. Yeah.
01:35:30
Speaker
But Zack did the Jesus movie. And as I did a little bit more research on on like Superman's actual history and and the two guys who created him, Superman was never meant to be a Jesus allegory. he He was kind of meant to be more of a Moses allegory.
01:35:45
Speaker
And I don't think Moses has anything to do with like the threes. maybe Maybe it was just purely he just wanted to use the same number over and over. And Superman's roughly 30 years old, therefore three, and then he filled in the rest.
01:35:59
Speaker
that That's kind of how I took it. That's kind of how I took it on this one. It just worked conveniently. It was a nice little, instead of like two centuries ago, 30 minutes ago. he stuck with the movies. Yeah, just to make it more memorable, I guess. Because I was waiting throughout the rest of the movie for more religious symbolism to show up.
01:36:19
Speaker
And it just wasn't there. Which I was happy about because I got plenty of that. I don't mind making you know Superman like a Jesus allegory if the story calls for it And I think Zack did it.
01:36:30
Speaker
as well as it could be done yeah so i didn't need more of it but i i was constantly waiting and and it wasn't there yeah i don't know so more thoughts on the script we ready for score to score it score it oh yeah was a four you're gonna have to remind me what my number is i cannot remember this one just bored on it sorry you were okay you're saying it's a four kevin no i was asking what uh oh you guys you both scored at threes okay oh
01:37:01
Speaker
yeah Yeah, I guess. okay Like I said, messy but functional, so I would put it you know right there towards the middle. That works. So the acting on this, the he's already online.
01:37:14
Speaker
We have to compare Superman actors for some reason. We can't just be happy with Superman actors. I don't see people like I don't see this kind of comparison for James Bond. i don't. I see people have their favorite James Bond, but I don't see like Daniel Craig was definitely better than ah why can't I think of his name right now?
01:37:37
Speaker
Sean like I don't see people doing that but there's the best just saying but there's the uh Snyder Bros who think I'm naturally a fan James Bond but there's a side work you think nobody will ever top Cavill and the the people who are like Christopher Reeve is my Superman I'm like cool he can be you can still enjoy this movie I don't know why that's gonna stop you from yeah I thought he did do very so one of the things in comic book is Superman is teased about being the boy scout he is the boy scout and I thought this movie nailed the superman boy scout it's the best version of it it's ah so I keep wanting to jump the gun to to talk about like the marketing and all that but it's
01:38:32
Speaker
This shouldn't work.
Superman's Hopeful Nature
01:38:34
Speaker
This shouldn't work. Superman shouldn't be good. should When you have a Superman, this Boy Scout, this good, this kind, this hopeful, this optimistic, he should be ah boring little bitch.
01:38:48
Speaker
But he wasn't. And I think a lot of that comes down to Gunn's expert directing. It comes down to David Cornswit really understanding the assignment. yes I still think, I mean,
01:39:01
Speaker
I think it's appropriate to compare performances in in a healthy discussion. But if it's one of those things where it's like, no one will ever be better, therefore you should never do it again, get the fuck out here with that. yeah I think Cavill is, in my opinion, as perfect casting as Robert Downey Jr. is to Iron Man or Hugh Jackman is to Wolverine.
01:39:20
Speaker
Nobody, I think, is going to be more born for the role. But when you're talking about somebody who is donning the costume and giving a performance, I was...
01:39:31
Speaker
absolutely blown away with what corn sweat did in this yeah I was skeptical about it because when when they started out like I thought it was at first I thought it was kind of corny how he's got that that really innocent but like boyish talk like the G Golis and things like that so that kind put me off at the end but then I had to take into consideration that was kind of how like the original Superman was. That was kind of the part of the talk of being that good boy scout, that good person and how that kind of harkens back to the original comics when it comes to that dialogue.
01:40:07
Speaker
So I kind of gave us a little bit of forgiveness on that. And I was like, okay. And then it grew on me throughout the film. Especially after you meet his parents. Yeah. This, this is the most different,
01:40:18
Speaker
jonathan and martha that i've ever seen and i was taken back a little bit because so i'm like i don't know if i like them but then i realized it's because it's they're not hot you know we were coming off of you know zach snyder's jonathan of martha and it's like kevin costner is like okay i get it i mean he's kevin costner and then you know you have uh uh was it diane lane yep yeah yeah I think is as attractive today as she has ever been. That woman is aging better. i think we should start saying the wine ages like Diane Lane. Uh,
01:40:53
Speaker
And I'm looking at these guys and I'm like, two they're not hot. And then I listened to them and I'm like, oh, it's because it's because your mom and dad. Yes. That is one of the things I appreciated about it is they felt like normal people in Yeah.
01:41:09
Speaker
As his parents. And like Jonathan was saying that talk. i instantly was go was like that's what a boy scout from kansas would say yeah yeah i instantly that's how a boy scout from kansas talks and that this guy would say what the hey dude and he would say oh geez and and he would talk to mr terrific and he would he would he would talk about was like oh the crack in the wall not perfect and terrific will get mad and this is the guy that would be like man, I can be such a jerk sometimes. I laughed so hard at that damn, dude. It's like, I just want to give you hug. You're just a sweet man.
01:41:43
Speaker
Yes, and I saw people online about Superman being lame ah for saving the squirrel, and I was like... that is no that was amazing yeah with but it was what i could have done without it i thought that was kind of needless for the story no no no but don't don't you cut it when i buy this movie on 4k i'm watching him save that squirrel on repeat okay i've done i've done my edits of of reed richard stretching i'm going to do my edits of of superman just being just being a pal i went to order the steelbook 4k and it's already sold out so i'm waiting for it to come back lock oh god i'm so happy i'm locked in both that and the standard edition it inevitably inevitably will be back available before the release so i'm i told my wife i'm like i'm hitting that button as soon as it's available because i missed it the first time so as soon as it's available but the uh i had to see the movie before i knew i wanted to buy it but the uh
01:42:41
Speaker
those little things that they do are we we're in the acting okay um got lost and there's but got we're just talking about everything okay so much flack and reasonably so for the end of man of steel where thousands just died because it was power unchecked and that was part of his story about a young superman who doesn't realize his strength yet that was part of zack snorri that's fine and this movie kind of learned from that james took that under his wing while riding it for sure and made the superman worried about everybody around him when he was when that reviathan thing when that kaiju is in there and he's like i'm trying to figure out how to get it out of here so we can learn about it that was such
01:43:36
Speaker
a like Saturday morning Superman to me he wants to understand this thing how did it get here it's scared you know it's it's not trying to hurt anybody it doesn't look malicious and then watching Mr Terrific and Green Lantern kill it it became heartbreaking all of a sudden I was like oh I don't like that and but his desire to save everything was zach's biggest weakness zach showed zach showed moments of superman saving people from a fire whatever but it was not that boy scout who is here to protect it's because zach is interested in showing gods among men and james wanted to show us a man who could touch god right he gave us that power yeah and and i think that's
01:44:31
Speaker
again it just goes to show that zach and james are cut from the same cloth they're just two different sides yeah and i thought thought it was i thought it was refreshing i thought it was a nice take on superman that makes david's a little different and that's as much to james writing and direction as it is to david but david also delivered in the performance of being that kind and gentle superman who could also switch on the strength with or the scene that i laughed like out loud it like that was awesome was when they're fighting in the baseball field and he's kind of getting thrown around at first but then he just grabs ultraman and like triple spins him into the ground was that ultra man or
01:45:21
Speaker
yeah he has the engineer like like it was the engineer that it beats a motherfucker with a motherfucker yes it reminded me of kong using little baby kong as a weapon if you're like look gonna get in my way using you that's it that's it reminded me of when hulk was using loki oh yeah yes yes i was like james wants to moment to this movie we remember avengers when he did that to loki well he did that on purpose so on i i think david is the clark kent that henry cavill couldn't be because cavill was cavill was never a dorky nerdy
01:46:04
Speaker
He was intense. He was intense. Still Boy Scout. Henry Cavill was Superman. He took off the costume and he was still Superman. There was no convincing anybody.
01:46:15
Speaker
But yeah I do think Corn Sweat was an excellent character. ah he he delivered i'm not disappointed at all this was one that like so my mom raised me on these christopher reeves the batman in the animated series she raised me on lord of the rings and star wars and like that was my mom my my dad was colombo and detective stories my mom was the sci-fi stuff uh and she asked after this she was like super is this a superman movie i can see because man of steel wasn't my mom's superman yeah it was too dark it was too intense too heavy and i walked out of this one and i was like mom this is not a superman movie you can see it's a superman movie you should see like you should go back if you love the reeves movies go give this one just definitely falls in line with that yes a big word oh yeah
01:47:09
Speaker
This is more akin to the Reeves movie than Superman Returns, which was literally a sequel to the Reeves movies. Yes, it was. Wait, really? Yeah, it was. yeah Superman Returns is technically Superman 3. Oh.
01:47:24
Speaker
Oh, okay. Yep. it It erases the canon of 3 and Quest for Peace. Yeah, which we can erase Quest for Peace. That's fine.
01:47:35
Speaker
That's okay.
01:47:40
Speaker
so scoring acting comments on the acting we've already said rachel bosnahan might be our favorite lois lane oh yeah yeah i can't hear can't hear can't you hear now we can hear you that call interrupted his earbuds or something if he yeah yeah yeah i lost i lost audio guys let me i'll message him real quick tell him reset his earbud Blue Tricks connection.
01:48:09
Speaker
Do you need to go out and come back in? Nah, probably take him a second. he's He's fixed it before while we've been... Yeah. Go ahead. Chime in on your thoughts about the acting.
01:48:22
Speaker
oh Rachel's my favorite of all time. We are. not um i ah David was freaking phenomenal. and i don't even know him as actor like that, but He killed it.
01:48:34
Speaker
I also Jimmy Olsen was Jimmy. Yes, dude. Do cute it out the park. Like he he better freaking date. Skyler. gian Oh, I'm saying that right. Skyler, Sando played Jimmy. That dude did a great job. He did. skylar was good jimmy um The engineer. She was badass.
01:48:54
Speaker
She was. I love how how she formed her weapons and how she I'm like, dude, that was freaking friends and learning that that was most of that was practical. Most of that was actually practical.
01:49:06
Speaker
um Of course, like the former was CGI a bit, obviously. Yeah. But her suit and everything was like practical. Yeah. I saw it. That is crazy. That was another thing that Superman suit was getting a lot of flack online.
01:49:20
Speaker
liked that it was a practical suit the whole time. it wasn't super form fitted. i would rather have that than the CGI suits constantly. It looks like something like that's meant but to be like to be durable and something that's supposed to get beat up as a protective suit yeah versus some shimmery, shiny, thin thing that kind of like conforms to everything.
01:49:43
Speaker
you know With him, he's like this is a person wearing a suit like it's supposed to be. Yeah. I also... Even the forces of the Sato was practical, too. They literally went to the Arctic on...
01:49:57
Speaker
yeah and they found some of that in Norway too and so I know about Norway good lord yeah yeah that was awesome yeah new and I have a friend can you hear us now can you hear me yeah yeah are you good okay okay okay yeah I'm sorry I got a phone call and it just turned everything off yeah that's what that's we thought uh I thought so Brosnan Jimmy was fantastic uh some of the characters were a little bit too very much enough i
01:50:28
Speaker
Guy Gardner. Fantastic. Mr. Terrific. that i have nathanville i have no complaints in the acting department, honestly, but I think this movie is mostly going to get the corn sweat comparisons to every other Superman that's ever existed. as And that's...
01:50:46
Speaker
just be fair about it. I mean, he he did a great job. I have no complaints about his performance in this film. He did a great job. So acting for me,
01:50:59
Speaker
i whoa, I'm surprised by that, but I don't think i five is, I said they were fantastic. I have no complaints about any the acting in this movie.
01:51:11
Speaker
Oh my gosh. We can see, we can hear you. You okay? yeah five ah
01:51:18
Speaker
Everything okay, Adam? Yeah, I just keep... Okay. Um... We'll move it. Moving right along. You're okay. You guys keep going. I'm going mute myself. I need to text this guy and tell him to stop calling me because it's the same guy over and over. I'll be right back.
01:51:35
Speaker
Nicholas Holt, though, is Lex Luthor, dude. like Like, he really delivered on the the dark, obsessive, envious, hateful nature of Lex Luthor. And I think, man, I want to say to me, I think he's the best Lex Luthor so far.
01:51:51
Speaker
I agree. i think he was so good he was i would need to go back and watch the old supermans to know because i don't remember them that well to be honest i saw him when i was getting it yeah i haven't seen the christopher's race superman seen like bits and pieces i ain't seen fully yeah but on my list jesse from b versus uh bad man for superman he's like the lowest because i hated him he's the ever what are you talking about just the eyes of Love him as an actor, but as Lex, it was just, it wasn't for me.
01:52:24
Speaker
Nicholas is definitely top of my list. The Smallville guy, man, top my list. Oh yeah. Michael, Michael Rosenbaum from Smallville.
01:52:35
Speaker
Thank you. I i suck at names. I can't make it so good. um i I felt like Perry Wright was just there, but even his scenes was freaking hilarious. i like, that dude was like the chi of the chill balls that you deed.
01:52:48
Speaker
He was he still but he was structuring you. like who are are dr shagarner now Yeah. the So I thought it was you respective boss ever that you need i had to pick up a cigar after the movie so i know but but I don't even smoke, but he makes me want to get a cigar just to feel like I'm Perry White for what's this. Yeah, I went and picked one up. I've been watching Columbo. I got the Kino Lorber Columbo set, and I've been re-watching Columbo. He's always chomping on cigars, and then Perry White was, and I'm like, I'm going to stop at the... I was like, and I'm like, was that cigar a paid actor? Because the way he used that cigar was just freaking hilarious. Yep.
01:53:25
Speaker
So acting for me, I said I was a five. Where were we? I'd say a five for me. I'm a four on the acting. I say... I believe I said five. I think I said five. but i'm sure You did, Adam.
01:53:37
Speaker
And Kevin, you said four. I'm going to put a five. Okay. So the direction then. we've We've said a lot about James Gunn's direction already.
01:53:50
Speaker
How do we want to... ah We're getting close to the two-hour mark. How do we want to concisely sum up James's direction? Let's go one at a time. So for me, oh john I'll just be brief because I'm never really good at this one.
01:54:04
Speaker
I will say direction wise, the way he shot those scenes where Superman's flying and the way the camera is like all over the place while yeah he's flying, the the sense of urgency and stress that it kind of puts into that scene or any of those scenes where he's flying and he's just trying to get somewhere real quick just to to try to save somebody whatever.
01:54:25
Speaker
really liked how that worked out. The way he did that opening sequence with the 3-3-3-3-3 to kind of establish the storyline yeah was a great way to really open up. um I also really like the part where when Superman comes over to the apartment and he's in his suit, Lois, he's just sitting there and she brings him the cocoa and you've got the Justice gang fighting this ethereal thing in the background of the city while they're having this serious discussion where he's just like, oh yeah, is this is kind of whatever.
01:54:56
Speaker
But then using like the brightness of the colors of that ethereal creature that they're fighting the background, to kind of give them the silhouette and kind of help enhance that scene and the tenderness and the connection that they're having, I thought was a really great way to go with that.
01:55:11
Speaker
um So, yeah, those are just a couple of things I wanted to say about direction. but
01:55:19
Speaker
Kevin. Same thing with me. out That beginning with with the threes, that was awesome. James was like, this is the universe.
01:55:30
Speaker
This is where we're at. Let's get to the point. i'm not feeling him I'm not going to bore you and say his parents died, yada, yada, yada. We all didn't know that. He's young and he's very naive. That's basically what you're saying.
01:55:43
Speaker
um I love that. Same thing what Jonathan was saying about the flights. as I love how he... ah I'm a big fan of cinematography because the way he motion captured... He so even shows Superman's emotion in his flying.
01:55:58
Speaker
That's the other thing I really loved. um especially flying like the fire and um whatever those robot things that he was shooting with his lasers with yeah like and that scene by so so how the hell did you do that in the circle so good oh yeah flying attack i would yeah yeah yeah i'm like one part of the company he punched the guy in his teeth showed i'm like oh my god yeah thought that was hilarious he had kind of that slow motion for like a second like less than a second yeah i was like he's like james like one second look comedy
01:56:30
Speaker
Okay, let's get my seriousness. I was like, that was freaking hilarious. um ah You know, I love crypto in his scenes, when especially when Superman told Krypt to get the toy and how it pissed off Lex and how Lex was getting like frustrated trying to defeat Superman in that dimensional portal thing. Yeah, the pocket.
01:56:56
Speaker
Thank you. by you in The pocket universe. But also like how he calls it the pocket universe and not a multiverse, but you know, that's like how he's ah eventually, but you knew, so that was a nice Easter egg that I think, I think strategically is not setting up a multiverse right now.
01:57:14
Speaker
I hope not. I loved how you said this is a dimensional pocket. There are yeah other universes, but this is ours. You're not going to do a multiversal story. yeah We are letting you know there are other universes in this dimensional pocket.
01:57:29
Speaker
um and just the the visual effects of everything was so was beautiful to me uh so i think direction was very beautiful with uh how he shot and that the heat he did he shoot imax cameras because it felt like and you feel like he was he used i'ma scam i i think a lot of it was with imax yeah yeah so but yeah it was i think it was top tier for me because i had a blast i felt like i was on a roller coaster watching that movie be in soia and And oh, the other I really love how in certain parts he he zoomed on on's own the symbol when Superman's in the air, like represent hope.
01:58:05
Speaker
Cause I'm like, I really, even at the beginning when Superman was first flying, he put the symbol and showed the title. I've never seen that before. That was beautiful. How he he ah transformed the symbol into the the title sequence of the movie.
01:58:20
Speaker
Yeah, that was nice. oh yeah So yeah. Adam, your thoughts on the direction? I mean, you guys have really said most of it already. I mean, I thought it was really well done.
01:58:31
Speaker
Gunn knows how to structure a scene. He knows where to put the camera. He knows how to convey emotion through whatever imagery he's he's putting there. He really knew how to utilize the special effects.
01:58:45
Speaker
When it comes to direction, I mean, just it's as simple as Gunn knew what he was doing. Fortunately, he also wrote the movie and is the one ushering this entire universe and only had to answer to himself financially speaking, being the studio head.
01:59:02
Speaker
So gun understood the assignment that was given to him by himself. Uh, my concern is uh, Andy Muschietti is returning to do the Batman movie after he did the, no, he's not right. You think he'll get it back out?
01:59:18
Speaker
100 he's already backed out they just haven't told us yet okay zero aht i don't see don't yeah find the arab yeah um yeah no the flash was terrible uh i he's too busy on it uh welcome to dairy right now so yeah i do think yeah yeah and yeahp i do think uh my biggest issue with james gunn is that he just needs to keep his mouth shut and make movies i i saw as much about james gunn i probably saw more about james gunn going into the super mo superman movie than i did about superman
01:59:59
Speaker
It was almost more about James and his celebrity. And that's my biggest issue with James because he's made good movies. He made this is one of two movies that have come out that I would say are true comic book movies that embrace the kind of weird, wild sci fi stuff of comics.
02:00:23
Speaker
The one that truly embraced its comic book origins and put sharks with body armor and lasers on their head was the original Aquaman, the first Aquaman movie.
02:00:37
Speaker
And I think that one really embraced the wild
02:00:42
Speaker
Aquaman storylines we had I love that movie I love the first Aquaman uh and I think this one is very much in that same vein of we're gonna have a giant Kaiju in the middle of New York that is in a news broadcast at one point was in a Dunkin Donuts you know it's just this wild weirdness of comic books brought to screen and that is mostly missing from the marvel Marvel Universe.
Marvel vs DC: Storytelling Styles
02:01:11
Speaker
The Marvel Universe is a little bit more grounded compared to what we just saw, which is weird because it was less grounded than Zack Snyder's. And then now it is more there's just missing this kind of goofy nature to it. And I think James balanced that with
02:01:32
Speaker
a storyline that all ages can really enjoy this is a movie you can show to kids and this is a movie that that will walk away i saw somebody post and to me that's this is what it's all about somebody posted that they were at the superman theater and there was like a six ish to ten that's a big range you're old there And every time Superman did something heroic, the kid like stood up and got excited and was pretending to fly as he left the theater.
02:02:04
Speaker
And to me, that's what it's about because we were all that kid one time. That's when we fell in love with Superman. And so the fact that James is able to do that in this film, balance it, set up a universe without being overly convoluted and clunky.
02:02:23
Speaker
he succeeded i i'm amazed that i gave him a five but i gave him a five where were you guys i was uh i forgot what i put i'm gonna four i'm gonna four on direction on this one i think i said five you did what did i say you said three kevin this is actually one of the few times i give something other than a three
02:02:47
Speaker
See what happened was when I was thinking of direction, I was thinking script-wise. I wasn't thinking of. Are you a four? Yeah, four. Okay. All right So the it factor. So here we go, Adam. You have thoughts on the cultural significance, the marketing, all of that impact on the world.
02:03:05
Speaker
We'll let you go first. Yeah. All right. Let's get get the popcorn. You've been waiting for this. All right. All right. All right. He's like, finally, I can unleash the beast. going all the way back to the very first image of Superman that we got with him, you know, putting on the boot with the big, whatever purple thing going on in the background.
02:03:23
Speaker
ah From the moment we got that photo, I have been worried about this movie. I thought the costume looked bad. I thought the image was a very lackluster first look, uh, going all the way to the teaser trailer, which focused heavily on the opening segment of this movie with an injured Superman. I thought,
02:03:44
Speaker
This is a terrible way to introduce us to Superman because it doesn't have the context of all of the other appearances. Yes, we can discern that Superman is strong. we can We can assume that this Superman is difficult to beat. But as far as meeting this guy right here on screen for the first time, you're showing them him beaten, bloodied, weak, injured, relying on a cartoon dog.
02:04:09
Speaker
When every single new trailer came out, and it showed us the Justice Gang. It showed us the the kaiju. It showed us all of these different wacky things. I thought this movie was bloated.
02:04:22
Speaker
I thought it looked like an unfocused mess. I couldn't figure out what the story was. Hell, we said it earlier, I thought the main villain of this movie was a guy who ended up being a hero. I had no idea what was happening with this movie. I thought the suit looked like shit.
02:04:38
Speaker
I hate the trunks. I didn't think the casting was great. I was all on board with Cornswed giving it a shot, but none of the images or trailers that we got made it look like he was going to really excel.
02:04:51
Speaker
I didn't know much of anything about Rachel Brosnahan, so I didn't know how well she was going to do. I didn't think anything looked good. I thought every single piece of marketing has been absolutely horrific.
02:05:05
Speaker
And then I watched the movie and see that everything I was afraid of flew right out the window.
Cultural Impact of Superman 2025
02:05:13
Speaker
And now when you're talking about the cultural significance of this movie, I remember when we were talking about Thunderbolts way back in the day and and you asked me what I thought about the cultural significance of that. And I talked about how the impact of like mental health awareness in, in our generation is going to help make that movie stand the test of time.
02:05:35
Speaker
And I don't think we live in a particularly hopeful and positive era at the moment. I would agree. But we, What I have seen online over the last 72 hours has been nothing but joy and positivity and people say, I remember I shared one earlier, ah there was the masculine urge to treat people with kindness.
02:06:01
Speaker
yes People are now making jokes about how it's good to be nice, but the jokes are not against the idea of being nice. There's a line in the this movie that I remember a number of months ago had leaked where Superman says, maybe being kind is the new punk rock.
02:06:18
Speaker
Yeah. People made fun of it. Yeah. Now I'm seeing people say that with genuine sincerity, that maybe being kind is the new punk rock. Yep. The cultural impact of this movie has blown me away.
02:06:32
Speaker
not only shifting the tides from the concern that i had going into it because genuinely if you had asked me five days ago was i excited i would have said the only thing that has me interested is james gunn's excellent track record now i'm looking and i'm saying this is my superman i feel great having a superman again and this is coming from somebody who loves bvs and justice league and henry cavill but the world didn't have a superman We had some Superman character in movies.
02:07:04
Speaker
Now we have a super man that inspires hope, that inspires justice, that inspires kids to believe that a man can fly. And it's something that we haven't seen since 1978. I, tens i yeah hence all across the board on this part.
02:07:23
Speaker
I loved it. And I love that I was wrong, that I didn't think I was going to love it. yeah you know that i don't have the only anything i would add to that because you covered it all uh the social media stuff that i'm seeing right now brings a tear to my eye yes but also the box office This movie was not expected there are ten bossol was yeah it was not expected to do much of anything, and it has already surpassed the expectations and is on track to match Man of Steel from over a decade ago. Damn.
02:08:03
Speaker
Yeah. it's on track to be the It's on track to be the biggest Superman movie ever. Yeah, because I think reallyley ah think they had like expectations like,
02:08:15
Speaker
90 100 million like the opening weekend it's already what 300 million now it's close to it it's projecting to be over 130 and they were looking at like 90 ish yeah it's already at like 220 230. yeah it's sort global one is like 200 million okay i mean i know something was 200 million something I mean, that's the only other thing that I have.
02:08:41
Speaker
I watch a guy who I don't recommend to people, but I love it just because it's mindless talk in the background. ah Basically, he's been saying July is going to be the month that decides if the superhero genre dies or lives.
02:08:56
Speaker
And he said it's going to come down to this movie right here, Superman, and Fantastic Four. And he said this will... decide the next 10 years of movie because it's been dying i know you're talking about and is it going to affect the future and didn't love superman but he it wasn't as bad as he thought it was going to be basically i know exactly you're talking about but it is uh it's proving that we're not
02:09:31
Speaker
we're not tired of superheroes we're tired of bad writing we're tired of bad writing tired of bullshit yes and so it is i i think there is something about i made a post about this about fourth of july we have gotten to a point in society where we kind of love our broken hero we love Deadpool we love Wolverine we love Batman but what we have forgotten in all of that is we also love the pure and upright faultless hero and that's kind of what Superman was supposed to always be
02:10:09
Speaker
He was supposed to be the best of us. The best of us. The best that there can be. And we have not had the best of us Honestly, since the last Captain America movie. like that Captain America is the best of us for the Marvel Universe for me. I don't like Iron Man as a character. he's Tony Stark is great, whatever. I think he's selfish.
02:10:33
Speaker
But Captain America is the Marvel Superman in my eyes. um We haven't had that... faultless like this person is too good hero because so many people have always said they're hard to relate to james made him relatable james made him relatable somebody you can root for and somebody you can aspire to so i'm actually i have to because of the box office projections do we have anything else to add to that guys for cultural significance well i just want to add my um
02:11:07
Speaker
when you're talking about relatable, that that was one line that really hit me from ah far ah from Jonathan Kent, where he said, a parent's not supposed to raise you to to tell you what to do. They're supposed to raise you to ah um was it for you to make your yeah give you the tool so you can make a fool of yourself yes it's so good you can make yourself i was like you son of a bitch this is a Jonathan Kent this is a Jonathan Kent who has no idea how to be the father of a superhero this is probably and I don't mean this in a bad way
02:11:51
Speaker
kind especially comparing it to like Kevin Costner's, this is the least intelligent Jonathan Kent and yet is the most equipped to just be a dad.
02:12:04
Speaker
He knew how to raise this boy. He doesn't know how to be the father of a superhero, but he knows how to be the father of a young boy who grew up. So this was the first time, and I don't know if it's because of personal life right now or not.
02:12:18
Speaker
This was the first time that I watched a Superman movie going like, these are two people who tried to have a kid and couldn't. And yeah this is their boy. Oh yeah.
02:12:29
Speaker
This was the first time I felt that. Like we forget that is part of their story that they were never able to have kids. And Clark was there. I like, I like how you phrase that because I don't think we've seen parents who didn't have a kid who then adopted Clark.
02:12:47
Speaker
I like how you phrased it. These two feel like someone who couldn't wanted to, and then got lucky and found him. Yes. That's how I felt like, yeah, like wasn't just their son. he, he he filled the void and gave them everything they wanted, but couldn't have otherwise.
02:13:04
Speaker
When Jonathan's choking up talking about how proud he is. I was done. I was done. I was done. All right. So I'm a five on it.
02:13:16
Speaker
Yep. Five. Trying to change my score. Five. but yeah I didn't get a chance to say anything Yep. Go for it. With it factor. well but the john It's all good.
02:13:27
Speaker
when it When it comes to it factor and how culturally significant is to when you look at the history and the breadth of Superman, since it started way back when, and how that character was portrayed and then how it has evolved over the decades versus also what we see in media and how things used to be light, more positive and how it's gotten darker and grittier through reaching each iteration that we see of all different types of superhero films and characters and how they just get twisted and changed to fit whatever, however, anytime.
02:14:02
Speaker
The fact that this movie really makes a huge nod to the original tone of Superman and that positivity and that sense of hope. I love it with the new Fast-Tastic 4 movie that's coming out. I'm still kind of on the fence about that one, but it feels like from what I've seen, it's taken that same kind of stance and direction of returning to that sense of wholesomeness, togetherness and teamwork, some sense of tradition of trying to hold onto to something positive.
02:14:29
Speaker
I really feel like this movie as a reboot is really going to kick it up a notch and hopefully inspire other filmmakers with other franchises, and other characters to to to bring back some more light.
02:14:40
Speaker
into the superhero genre. And I think that's going to be super impactful. So because that, but give it a four. Okay. All right. I'm so glad to be in a theater for Fantastic Four with a head by saying, it's corporate! can't wait for the Fantastic Four, man. all walking Walking out of Superman just made me even more hopeful for that because I know people are having a good time with this. They're going show up to the box office for that. Yes.
02:15:12
Speaker
i I am not going to watch it until I see Adam's review. i am I am as excited for Fantastic Four as you were for Superman. So we will see.
02:15:28
Speaker
I'll text you my review, Dan, too. okay Okay, let's close this out with our how entertained were you? i have your final scores here that I will... I'll read out.
02:15:40
Speaker
ah How entertained were you out of 10?
02:15:49
Speaker
i said a 7, but i want to change it to a 9. Okay. Yeah. I put it an 8. um talking about other time my the I'm changing to yeah yeah i put it ah at an a because i think eight is an excellent score for that. I don't i don't like be too hyperbolic. I wasn't as as excited as I was. was this It's not my number one movie of the year, i sorry but it's pretty damn high up there.
02:16:19
Speaker
i think I think eight
Entertainment Value and Rewatchability
02:16:20
Speaker
is is an excellent number without going too high, ah because i i get more excited watching the Fantastic Four trailers than I've been watching this movie.
02:16:33
Speaker
uh i so i was determined was determined nine or ten is based on if i would turn around and watch it again and i walked out looking at buying the next showings tickets i was ready to turn around and watch it again and relive that experience so for me i'm going tomorrow night so it's it's a 10 for me i want to see this again and that takes us from final scores your final thoughts uh i will give you your final score and then you can say any last things you want about it since we had some changes and i did the math over here so let's have kevin your final score is 42 so it'd be four stars out of five yep final thoughts
02:17:22
Speaker
Yeah. well Okay. Yeah. yeah keep it You can keep it there. Yeah. All right. Let's pick it back up. It's not my oh like over a year top movie, um but I still enjoy So you have to put four out five.
02:17:39
Speaker
Perfect. Okay. Adam, your final score was also 42. So it round four out of five. four out of five. That's an eight out of 10. That's exactly what I gave it was an eight out of 10.
02:17:53
Speaker
My math works out every time. Every time. You had have a great system. I've become best friends now since you have the same four.
02:18:04
Speaker
So I'm at a 41. I love this movie. If could get some people together to go watch it right now, I would totally do so. I'd be down to buy a ticket right now to go again with a group of people who I think would appreciate this because hell yes, this movie was so much more than I thought it was going to be. it surprised me so much.
02:18:24
Speaker
And I really, i I super enjoyed the hell out of this movie, man.
02:18:29
Speaker
so for me i was a 45 out of 50 so i was four and a half stars uh and i i do admit i'm probably should have started the episode with this i am a dc fan i love dc i have comic books and i have comic books in my basement and they are there's 10 shelves total and the of the 10 shelves six of them are dc comics two of them are marvel and one star wars and one independent like that i am a dc fanboy i love dc and i love all forms of dc i love zach snyder's dc i love christopher reeves dc i love tim burton's dc i love dc and i love the that these heroes exist with so many different interpretations of them that we can enjoy all of those different interpretations of them i love that but i think what i loved most about this movie and jonathan and i will read us out here in a second was like ah jonathan was saying we've kind of had movies that reflect the society we live in for a long time and superman was meant to point ah to where society could be
02:19:48
Speaker
And that's what this movie felt like. it's not a it It did kind of reflect what's going on, but it pointed us at something better. And that's what I loved about it.
02:20:01
Speaker
So thank you both for being here. The average... Oh, I need to do that math, don't I? Oh, yeah. We need to... yeah. We need Oh, yeah. We need to score a third point of the show. We do score a third point of show. Oh, yeah, but...
02:20:17
Speaker
Chris, i don't per louis I don't know that last name. Sorry, Chris. Submitted his score as well. It was a 22 out of 50.
02:20:28
Speaker
i will I will add that in there. he said it was an average film. So i will add that in. We'll get it in the average and see where we end up.
02:20:38
Speaker
So divided by 5. five We are still at a 38.6, which is a four out of five for the film, which I think is pretty accurate of the film. Pretty accurate of the film.
02:20:53
Speaker
So Jonathan, you ready read us out? Let's get at it, hot dog. All right. Before we wrap up, just want to give a huge thanks to our guests, Kevin and Adam.
02:21:04
Speaker
Thank you so much for being here. Of course. and Thanks for having me. All right, Kevin, tell the people where they can find your work, your content, and everything else you've got going on.
02:21:14
Speaker
Kevin's got so much going on, it's insane. Literally, find me on Instagram, I am Kevin Davis Official. Go to link in my bio, you'll find me everywhere. Facebook, I am Kevin Davis CEO. from you Same thing, go to link in my bio, you'll see everything. so but Kevin's got a blue checkmark.
02:21:34
Speaker
He's the real deal. Oh, wow. You just have your magazine that came. Is that out? Coming out? as firstty It's officially out. It's on my website at canvassinternational.com. Again, on Instagram, I am Kevin's official.
02:21:47
Speaker
Go to my bio. ah Everything's there. Explore. Have fun. ah Send me a hey or something. Adam, how about you? Want to lay down some stuff?
02:21:59
Speaker
lay down some stuff Uh, well, uh, I'm not really working on anything too big at the moment, but I do have big plans, uh, but no promises anywhere. Uh, but you you can always find me over on Instagram at Adam TJ gall or YouTube the same.
02:22:16
Speaker
Uh, I mostly live on Instagram at the moment, uh, and stay tuned because at 2 PM, Thursday, January or July 24th, I'm seeing fantastic for, i already got my ticket. Uh,
02:22:30
Speaker
I I'm going big on that one. I'm going big on that one. Well, that's it. Yeah. Follow me on Instagram and and hang out and listen to me ramble about nothing really.
02:22:43
Speaker
right. And now as we close this out, let's talk about what makes Superman Superman super. We live in a time that's pretty cynical. Superhero movies have become punchlines for some and eye rules for others.
02:22:57
Speaker
There's burnout, there's fatigue, and yeah, some of that's earned. But when you strip all of that away beneath the box office drama, the online discourse, and the endless arguments about what went wrong, you find something simple and something timeless.
02:23:17
Speaker
We all still want a hero. and Superman has always been that hero not because he's stronger than the others not because he can fly faster punch harder or shoot lasers from his eyes it's because he cares he values life he wakes up every day and chooses to use his powers not for himself but to help the world become something better that's his real strength He's been the example for nearly 100 years. He is our modern myth, our Hercules, our Gilgamesh.
02:23:51
Speaker
The story we keep coming back to because deep down we still believe in good. Even if the film's not perfect, even if the cape gets wrinkled and the story has flaws, this Superman gave us something to aspire to.
02:24:07
Speaker
To try. To get back up when we fall, to do the right thing even when it's hard. And if you ask us, that's a superhero worth believing in. Thanks for joining us.
02:24:19
Speaker
This is the average where the real review happens with your friends.
02:24:29
Speaker
Bye-bye. See you next time. Bye-bye.