2013 Midterms, Part 3: Ex-Governors, Witchbusters, and (Lots Of) Collateral Damage.

The Last Stand: What a strange movie.  Forrest Whitaker does his best Forrest Whitaker impression.  Harry Dean Stanton, fresh off of his out-of-left-field cameo in The Avengers, does an out-of-left-field cameo.  Luis Guzman does his comic relief thing.  Johnny Knoxville does his comic relief thing.  Peter Stormare does HIS awkward comic relief villain thing.  And Arnold Schwarzenegger does some of the best acting of his career.  That is to say, he actually acts.  Well.  Too well for this flick.  Which is really weird, but it’s the main reason I stuck around until the end.  There were guns, cars, explosions, guns, and some guns, and it was all very efficiently executed, albeit on a smaller scale than one would expect from Arnold’s return to Hollywood… and that’s appreciated.  We can ill afford another Eraser.  It’s an oddly more intimate experience than we’re used to from Austria’s favorite son, which was completely charming.  But, ultimately, forgettable.  Like, all I remember are guns and cars.  And something about a bridge to Mexico.

Still worth a viewing, though.

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Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters: The latest in an ever-lengthening line of weird fairy tale/children’s book big screen adaptations.  I didn’t see Jack The Giant Killer (some tell me I dodged a bullet on that one, but to be honest, I didn’t want to be anywhere near that gunfight anyway, so…), but I have seen a few others over the past decade, like Oz The Great And Powerful, Red Riding Hood, Alice In Wonderland, Brothers Grimm… and they’re usually pretty forgettable, or downright awful (Brothers Grimm was both, actually- so awful I forgot most of it), but I enjoyed H&G: Witch Hunters.  Now, that’s not to say it was high art, or anything, but the Ghostbusters/Men In Black vibe worked for me.  And it almost felt like a third try in the whole, weird, “fictional characters become badasses and hunt down other fictional characters” sub-genre, after Van Helsing and the aforementioned Brothers Grimm.  Oh, uh… I guess The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen really kicked it off… but the less said about that movie, the better.

Anyway, Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton were fun together (even if, more often than not, their brother/sister dynamic got a little… creepy…), and Famke Janssen had some fun chewing the scenery.  The violence was surprisingly over-the-top, which is a good thing for something comic-booky like this, even if it seemed to come out of left field.  There were some annoying choices, like the witch henchwoman credited simply as “Horned Witch,” who looked and sounded like a bad Hot Topic devotee, a half-assed subplot surrounding pseudo-love-interest, “Mina” the “good witch,” and, once again, Peter Stormare as “Awkward Mushmouthed Villain,” but, ultimately, even though it felt long (not even 90 minutes, but felt like 2 hours.  Glad I didn’t watch the unrated extended cut), I found H&G  to be dumb, bloody fun, perfect for the hangover Sunday I was having.

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Man Of Steel:  There’s a really good movie coming out in a couple of years.  Its working title is Man Of Steel 2.  It’s the sequel to this summer’s big, loud, explosiony, messy-assed movie, Man Of Steel, and the reason it’s going to be great is that Zach Snyder won’t be shackled by the heavy “origin story” chains that kept him from making a truly amazing Superman movie this year.

That’s not to say he made a dud.  Far from it.  Man Of Steel is a pretty awesome spectacle, complete with alien technology, supervillains, a hero’s journey, childhood angst, and an insane helping of destruction.  And the origin story stuff, most especially the opening Krypton scenes and recurring Kryptonian imagery (including Russell Crowe as “Ghost Dad”), is really nicely designed and very well done.  But there’s just a bit much of it.  It seems to me that Zach Snyder realized all of the other stuff, namely the main plot of the thing, was a little lacking, so he leaned heavily on the cooler sci-fi aspects of his story to wow us into forgetting that the movie is essentially one degree removed from a mustache-twirling bad guy (Michael Shannon as Zod) tying a helpless damsel (the human race) to the train tracks (big alien destruction machines).  But don’t worry- our hero (Henry Cavill as Supes) punches mustache-man in the jaw, saves the day, and gets a big kiss from humanity.

I guess my issues are really based on the fact that the more interesting bits of this new take on Supes  get a little short changed.  I’m talking about the “human side” of Clark Kent, as told through flashbacks to his Kansas childhood, being raised by Kevin Costner and Diane Lane.  Sure, it flashes to that stuff with relative frequency, but the Costner stuff is just so goddamned GOOD that a little more would have been appreciated.  And that’s not to say that I wanted less Russell Crowe (I know I’m in the minority for still loving that guy.  I don’t care), but the scales felt a little tipped in his direction.  Probably because that’s where their costume and FX budget went, and this IS a big summer blockbuster…

…and speaking of busting blocks… collateral damage.  A LOT has been said about this movie’s almost flippant approach to the destruction of huge chunks of Metropolis (and smaller huge chunks of Smallville).  I don’t want to dwell on it too much here, but yeah- whole buildings topple over in the wake of Superman’s fisticuffs with General Zod & Company, and it’s actually a little uncomfortable.  But in the end I figured it was mostly (and completely justifiably) due to the fact that since he’s secretly superstrong and therefore has had to make the nonviolent choice in conflict situations for his entire life, this is the first time Clark Kent has EVER been in a fight.  It’s bound to be sloppy, and on an epic scale.  Also, it should be noted that if Supes didn’t get into these fights the whole friggin’ human race would be wiped out.  Something about breaking eggs to make omelets comes to mind…

…as does the fact that they clearly felt they needed to do an Avengers-sized battle to even the comic book movie scales…

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…but I digress…

Anyway, Henry Cavill.  Dude killed it.  Besides looking like he was born to play the role, he finds the character sweet spot nestled in between the angst of knowing he’s different than everybody else on the planet and the confidence of knowing he can do literally anything he wants.  I remember when The Social Network came out my friend John said something to the effect of, “this Armie Hammer guy HAS to play Superman,” and I agreed, wholeheartedly.  Now I’m all like, “Armie WHO?  Cavill’s the man!”  Now that we’re done with angsty-Kent, I can’t wait to see more Superman-as-Superman dialogue in the years to come.

Michael Shannon’s Zod was cool.  I like that there was a point to why he turned into this seemingly megalomaniacal baddie, and that he played it perfectly.  Terrence Stamp was great 30 years ago for playing it like an operatic, holier-than-thou, spoiled Roman-emperor type, but here it’s the military vs. the scientists thing that made Shannon menacing.  Sort of like a much huger scale version of Day Of The Dead, I suppose, just with a (slightly) better performance (no offense, Joey Pilato, my boy.  You rock.) (Look it up, kids).

Amy Adams?  Not so much.  I like her.  And, actually, I think the issues with her in this movie are the movie’s fault.  She felt a bit shoehorned in (as did the rest of the Daily Planet peeps).  I think we were supposed to be more interested in her discoveries relating to this mystery man travelling the world and doing impossible feats, but since we’re shown said feats, Lois Lane’s arc becomes a bit redundant.  Let’s see what happens in the next go-around, I guess.

…and speaking, again, of the next go-around… Lex Luthor?  We saw a couple of LexCorp trucks as “easter eggs” here, so, maybe he’ll show up, and maybe he’ll be really pissed off because this so-called hero had a hand in destroying half of the city.  And, more importantly, maybe half of Lex’s expensive real estate.  I dunno how to translate that into film-worthy conflict, but that’s because I’m no screenwriter.  I’ll leave it to Snyder & Co. to figure that one out over the next few years.  With a little less shaky-cam, if we’re lucky.

Um… after rereading everything above I realize I’m sounding more negative than intended about Man Of Steel.  I, like most, grew up loving Christopher Reeves’ Superman movies, and felt kinda burned by 2006′s Superman Returns (wait… is that “burned,” or “bored“?  Latter).  So, really, there was no choice but to scrutinize this year’s reimagining as if through a microscope.  This is why pointing out the questionable bits sort of took over here.  Now that it’s off my chest, I have little doubt that my next viewing, likely at home in a few months, will be more laid-back and positive, focusing on all of the things that are right about Man Of Steel.  Because there are a lot of them.  It’s a really good flick, and you should see it.  There.  Fixed.