[siberian khatru]

Originally Posted by JD10367

I don't know why everyone is ragging on Supes for "not caring"

Spoiler!

while battling Zod in Metropolis. I think you're supposed to assume most people were running for their lives and the buildings were mostly empty. Snyder didn't show crowds of people getting toasted like "Independence Day" or "War Of The Worlds". Besides, Supes was kinda busy trying to save the Earth from being terraformed and then from having Zod kick his ass. And in Smallville he had THREE Kryptonians on one side and the Army on the other; he wasn't exactly available to say, "Gee, fellas, hold on while I escort some humans to safety, okay?" It just seems like a weird nitpick.

Ditto for the "lack of joy" comments by so many critics. We've already discussed how a movie in 2013 is going to be less joyful than one in the 1980s due to the current world situation and the current trend in superhero films. And, frankly, what would Clark Kent have to be joyous about? Especially BEFORE becoming Supes? A loner misfit outcast, last of his kind, no friends, trying to figure out who he is, dealing with weird shit... pretty much everything "Smallville" was, and previous Supes incarnations weren't. I haven't read the old comics in a while, but was Supes ever even portrayed as anything other than a Boy Scout? IIRC he landed in Smallville, the Kents found him, and next thing you know he was at the Daily Planet in a pair of glasses. The Supes mythology had no realism, no growing pains, no nuances of personality or conflict. Now that he has BECOME the Man Of Steel, maybe in the second film he'll find a little joy... but if he doesn't, so what? Even though he's all-powerful, he's still the only one of his kind, he still (maybe) can't have a relationship with Lois Lane, he's still got to deal with the pressures of saving the world... I rewatched "Superman Returns" last night (which IMO gets a bit of a bad rap), and there's one scene which could've been in this current film, where Brandon Routh lifts that film's Lois Lane high above the city and says, "Do you hear anything?" and she says, "No," and he says, "I hear everything" (the implication being he HAS to play the savior, because he has the power and knows he can, and hears everyone crying for help). (In a way, it's akin to a totally different film, "Groundhog Day": Bill Murray moves from the joy of being able to do what he wants, to the pathos of wanting it all to end, to finally realizing he can use his repeating day to help everyone around him.) That kind of pressure would make a guy pretty joyless, I think.

This is EXACTLY right, and something I'm astounded so many critics and online commenters have missed, especially those who compare this to the Donner films.

HE'S NOT SUPES YET.

In fact, near the end, when he shows up with the crashed drone, at that point he seems much more relaxed and confident, and even makes a joke about being from Kansas. There, he seemed a lot more like Christopher Reeve's Supes. But it took a lot of shit to get him there.