Man of Steel (Snyder, 2013)

"You will give the people an ideal to strive towards... But in time, they will join you in the sun. In time, you will help them accomplish wonders." 

Apparently, Jor-El was not referring to his son's latest film debacle. 

Zack Snyder's Man of Steel is a hollow, lackluster, and no-fun adaptation of Superman's origin story. The visual effects are second rate at best, with CGI fight scenes looking more like a video game than an actual movie. Snyder sacrifices story and character development for excruciatingly long fight sequences, and seems not to care about the poor editing as well. 

Man of Steel starts with the planet Krypton's final hours, when General Zod (Michael Shannon) launches a coup against the elitist Kryptonian government. After a massive battle, Zod and his associates are placed in a black hole to suffer for all eternity for their crimes. Jor-El (Russell Crowe) and his wife send their recently born son to Earth to spare him from the destruction of their home world, and preserve the memory of their culture. 

After Krypton is destroyed, the baby lands on Earth, possessing superhuman strength and abilities due to some mumbo jumbo alien science. His childhood is told in a series of flashbacks, while the adult Clark Kent/Superman (Henry Cavill) tries to learn about his true nature from clues left by his father. Meanwhile, reporter Lois Lane (Amy Adams) investigates mysterious alien appearances across the globe, while General Zod comes to Earth to conquer the planet. Superman must now choose whether or not join the only surviving members of his race, or save the planet he has come to call home. 

The casting, on paper, seems excellent. Henry Cavill plays a decent Superman, but the Clark Kent parts are extremely uninteresting and poorly executed. Michael Shannon just yells a lot as Zod, with no character depth and pointless angry speeches. Amy Adams would be a good Lois Lane if she was actually playing Lois Lane; the character in Man of Steel is so far fetched and separated from the heroine that it's hard to tell what the writers were even thinking. Lawrence Fishburne's limited screen time as editor Perry White is wasted on pointless action and hammy dialogue. Russell Crowe's Jor-El is the only truly good performance in the film, making the corny screenplay have some girth and meaning. He gets the best lines and the best scenes (if there is such a thing in Man of Steel). 

Man of Steel takes everything one step farther than it should be. While the flashback idea is nice, the audience stops caring about them by the fourth or fifth depressing childhood memory. Each battle is at least 5-10 minutes too long, and there are several fight sequences that are just completely unnecessary. Most of it is just wanton destruction. Audiences will spend the majority of the action with their face in their palms, with buildings blowing up for seemingly no apparent reason. 

With Christopher Nolan producing and Zack Snyder directing, Man of Steel should have been a sure thing. Instead, audiences get an awkwardly humorless and overly long film that takes itself way too seriously. The Man of Steel deserves so much more than this. 

One and a half out of five stars. 

The Purge (DeMonaco, 2013)

The United States of America, thanks to her New Founding Fathers, is at a time of utopian bliss. Unemployment is down to 1%, and there is virtually no crime. All of this happiness exists because of The Purge, an annual event in which all crime, including murder, is legal for a 12-hour period.

This creative premise and original idea for a film, unfortunately, is wasted on a standard horror film.

James DeMonaco directs The Purge like a routine home invasion thriller- and it deserves so much more than that. With today's standards of horror releases being one gorefest after another, The Purge had the potential to become a unique and refreshing scary movie. Instead, it's a predictable shoot-out with no meaningful depth added to the characters or story.

The Purge is told from the perspective of a wealthy family, able to afford protection because the husband (Ethan Hawke) sells the armor technology to upper class households. His wife (Lena Heady) understands all the "good" The Purge does, but the children (Max Burkholder and Adelaide Kane) are more hesitant of its inherent implications. When this year's Purge rolls around, the family locks down their house and waits out another brutal evening. But only a few hours into the mayhem, the son lets in a mysterious stranger who is being stalked by a gang of ultra violent socialites. The gang demands that the family now release the stranger- or they will kill everyone inside under the protection of the United States government.

Despite an intriguing beginning, the audience completely loses interest in the characters and their fates by the second half. The characters are just too stupid to hold any sort of connection with them. The Purge almost makes fun of itself at times, throwing in hammy dialogue with mediocre twists that makes the bloodbath seem like harmless fun. The Purge never gets as scary or violent as it promises.

There remains so much that filmmakers can do with this highly original premise; it's built for a horror movie model, but not in the way it's done in The Purge. The box office success of this film could lead Universal to produce some spin offs. Hopefully they'll do more with this potentially expansive franchise than James DeMonaco.

Two out of five stars.

Now You See Me (Leterrier, 2013)

There's way too many characters, but the story of Now You See Me is almost fun enough not to notice. 

Set in the world of magicians, the film takes audiences on an amusing ride through various locations across the globe. It is not very original, but Now You See Me still manages to offer an entertaining non-action alternative for the summer movie season. It's fast-paced, energetic, and all around fun to watch.
Now You See Me tells the tale of four street magicians of varying talents, played decently by Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Isla Fisher, and Dave Franco. These small-time tricksters and con artists are given a rare opportunity when they are chosen to work together on a new act. One year later, these Four Horseman put on a big show in Las Vegas- and steal several million Euros from a bank vault in Paris during their final act.

The FBI, working with Interpol, investigates this seemingly magical robbery that pits reluctant agent Dylan Rhodes (Mark Ruffalo) against a famous magic debunker (Morgan Freeman), a rich financier of the Horseman (Michael Caine), and a mysterious Interpol agent (Melanie Laurent). Rhodes now has to figure out how four once insignificant magicians have stolen millions of dollars before they strike again.

The characters in Now You See Me are nothing more than mere plot devices; audiences know little to nothing about any of the multitude of criminals and cops that come their way. The heroes and villains (though it's never clear who the audience is supposed to root for) alike are uninteresting and pale stereotypes of unfamiliar people, leading to a disconnect from the viewer.

But, Now You See Me is indeed enjoyable to watch. The mystery is intriguing and the reveals are equally dramatic. The actors all do a fair job in their performances, though they do not have much to wrok with in the script. Director Louis Leterrier clearly emphasizes style over substance in a film that that shines when it's performing magic and falls when it's attempting melodrama.

The plot twist at the end is so strange that it transcends simple liking or disliking; it's simply too out-of-the-blue for the audience to even find value in it. While there are several pitfalls about the movie, most general audiences should fin it lighthearted mindless fun. The real magic trick however, would be making people sympathize with any of these empty characters. Look closely, because the harder you look, the more you will realize that there is nothing actually there.

Three out of five stars.