I am not a technophobe.  I love new gadgets and gizmos.  Even though I’m far from being a first adopter, I generally get on board pretty quickly and enjoy the ride.  Like lots of people, my life revolves around my smartphone, Google is my best info friend and I never for a second thought the internet was a bunch of tubes.

All that said I’m tired of having my pocket picked by Hollywood for new technology that makes little or no difference in my viewing experience.

man-of-steel-supermanA few weeks ago I wrote about the sheer pointlessness of seeing (or shooting) The Great Gatsby in 3D.  Now I need to take a moment to say the same of Man of Steel – the IMAX Experience.

Again, I was with a group, all of whom were charged to see the flick in IMAX.  So I forked over the $15.25 for the ticket plus the $1.25 “convenience fee” Fandango charges so I could buy the ticket and reserve a seat.  Yes indeed, I spent $16.50 on just the ticket to see a movie.  Excuse me while I wipe the egg off my face.

Bitter?  Yes, a little bit.  Turns out the IMAX Experience is very much the same as any other movie experience.  Gone are the huge domed screens like the one I watched the eruption of Mt. St. Helens on years ago.  The theater is a regular theater.  The screen looked like a regular screen to me.  In short, I could have seen the non-IMAX version, saved five bucks and used that as a down payment on popcorn and a soda.

And again, the movie wasn’t that great.  The story wasn’t bad and there were some genuinely good “people” moments scattered through it, but there was way too much technological noise.  From almost the first frame, there were distracting and unnecessary effects dragging me out of the plot.  I kept envisioning a room full of teenaged computer geeks sitting around a table planning to throw every CGI trick they had into this picture whether it belonged or not.

“Dude!  What if everything on Krypton is like liquid and just like turns into stuff because it can like read peoples’ minds?”

“Oh dude!  That would be awesome!  And what if Jor-El is like this total badass and rides a – a – a giant mosquito!”

“Du-u-u-u-u-ude, that would be so cool!  And we gotta have the dudes from Krypton throwing like cars and trains and – and – and like buildings at each other.”

“Oh, and they’ve gotta blow stuff up, too, dude.  Big stuff.”

“Sweet!”

Now besides not being a technophobe, I’m also not one of those gay guys who only watches romantic comedies and period dramas.  I love a good action flick.  I repeat:  a GOOD action flick.  What makes an action flick good?  Lots of elements go into the mix, but one of the most fundamental is that the action has to advance the story.  It can’t stop everything so the producers can show these awesome effects just because they can.  Otherwise why not just string together raw footage of explosions and fist fights and have done with it?

About a third of the way through the final 45-minute battle sequence I was done.  Got it.  Let’s move on.  Maybe even let the actors do a little acting rather than just running around with frightened or concerned expressions on their faces.

My recommendation:  Wait for Man of Steel to come out on video or go to a discount, non-IMAX, non-3D (oh yes, it’s in 3D, too) showing.  I’m sure Henry Cavill looks every bit as good shirtless without the CGI.  And really, that’s the main draw for this pic anyway, isn’t it?

4 thoughts on “Man of Steel is Not a Person of Interest”

  1. Ah, what you saw was Lie-MAX. They license the name, and the screen may be slightly bigger than a regular one, I don’t know. You can still see real IMAX, and for all I know, you can even see a big budget Hollywood movie on a REAL IMAX screen. Then again, I saw Matrix II that way, and by the time they had the big shocking revelation or whatever at the end, I was too sensory overloaded to take it in, and I refuse to watch it again. Anyway, real IMAX is out there, but you have to look. Accept no substitutions!

  2. This one stank from the first moment I learned about it. No intentions of seeing it. Does the world need ANOTHER Superman reboot, just seven years after the last reboot? Do we need yet another super-hero movie, in which the hero battles an outrageous villain amidst mind-numbing CGI? We already have Iron Man, The Avengers, the Hulk, Thor, Batman, Spider Man. I’m like you, Chris. I’m a gay guy who likes a good action movie. But when a movie only offers action, how good can it be?

  3. Yep, you are correct. I can admit. But I did love the “people moments” and finally getting a strong Supes onscreen. Regular though next time!

Comments are closed.