Still planning on seeing it, but that's pretty close to the take most others have had who reviewed it.
I agree, Christopher Reeve and Richard Donner had a bead on that character and the spirit of that character that was uniquely great. For various reasons, I don't think Hollywood is likely to recapture that any time soon, because, frankly, some of the things that really made the character, Hollywood is just ignorant of, anymore.
Also, I'm a bit put out that the score of this new movie appears to have borrowed from John Williams' original. Like.....either use his composition or do a whole different one. Don't try to change or improve a John Williams classic. That dude literally put two notes together and made Jaws a terrifying menace to generations. You can't tweak his stuff and expect it to be as good. Or, how 'bout this.....he's still alive and working.....hire him to do another score if you want to go a different way. I've heard the electric-guitar redo of this thing and.....yeah, it's the same problem as James Gunn......it's trying to capture all the elements it knows it should, but it refuses to take them on their own terms and so just kinda.....fails. It sounds ok, but it doesn't sound hopeful, optimistic, and triumphant like the Reeve movies.
I saw it over the weekend and for the most part, I actually liked it.
I loved the original 1978 movie, and this version is the closest in theme and feel to that one, and to much of the comic book lore. It succeeded where all of the Snyder stuff failed-- making Superman more human and relatable. He's an All-American guy, he's a corny cheeseball, and that's okay. Every version in film or TV has
tried to move across this idea at least in exposition, but very few have succeeded to portray it in action and character. This movie got it right. And it was fun and campy in a way that came across to me as genuine.
I really love Cavill as an actor but I just never liked his Superman. I always wondered why Snyder agreed to make Superman movies when he so clearly hated the character and just abused it in his movies.
And Nathan Fillion really killed it as the Green Lantern, I thought that part was a lot of fun. I think there's a lot Gunn can do here with the DC universe, and I like this movie as a building block.
Regarding the score-- I thought the adapted versions of John Williams' themes were fine, and in some cases, quite good. And it's not like it hasn't been done before, John Williams scored the first 3 Harry Potter movies, and the next 5 all re-used, adapted, and riffed on his themes, but with their own changes in flavor. And I can promise you, as a band nerd and a drama geek and a choir dork and a Star Wars nutjob fanatic, there is absolutely nobody on this planet who loves a John Williams score more than I do. The adaptations here, ranged from okay, to very good. No issues at all with the score.
