The 20 Worst Movies of 2013 Part 1

Good Golly, miss Molly, this was not a good year.

It's usually a tradition that every year, I make a list of 10 of the best and 10 of the worst movies of that year.

But this year, I can't even really pull together 10 movies that really left that big an impact on me and even the ones that I wanted to see, I missed that boat and now have to wait for next year if I'm going to see them (e.g. "12 Years a Slave," Philomena").

But do you really want me to list this year's best films? Easy: "Mud," "Gravity," "Star Trek: Into Darkness," "Spring Breakers," "The Conjuring," "The Way, Way Back," "Captain Phillips," "The Heat," "Frozen" and "The Lone Ranger" (no, I'm being serious about that choice.)

But this has also been a rather bad year financially as I made mention before, over 20 movies failed to make it's box office returns domestically, leaving the foreign market to pick up the pieces to at least pay back for advertising and the  people who were just trying to make an honest paycheck by setting up lights, making costumes, carrying the cameras and making the special effects. Some of them, at best, are just okay, others, which will appear on this list, either annoyed me or I felt they could have been so much better.

And that pretty much sums up my thoughts on the movies we got this year.

They could have been better.

Last year, we got a lot of really interesting movies, a lot of very entertaining movies and a lot of movies that truly pushed the boundaries of cinema. Sure, we had some of them this year, but we had so few of them this year that I couldn't really pull together a collective Top 10. 

So to make up for it, here's a Top 20 Worst Movies of 2013 so i can finally put behind all the movies I saw and want my money back.

Before starting, I want to get a few things straight:

#1: Movie 43 will not be on this list.

Why? Because it's not a "movie," it's just a collage of unfunny sketches that should have been seen on television, not on the big screen with this huge cast of big-name actors who wish they could have said no. The movies on this list have to have what can be described as a narrative with actual characters you see all the way through.

#2: Direct to video will not be included.

I'm excluding the likes of "Sharknado" and "A Christmas Story 2" because they were not intended to theatrical distribution.

20. Scary Movie V

Seven years between the last Scary Movie (which, let's be honest, they were slightly better when the Wayans were not involved with them…slightly…better…), the market had been overfilled with "things" from the schlock masters Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg that can't even be described as comedies in the slightest since they make no legitimate effort to say anything about the genre they're mocking, further contradicting the concept of a parody movie if the movies make no effort to actually mock the genre they claim to spoof. Meaning, even when this film came around, nobody wanted to touch it, but it still made it's money back, well, someone has to pay for the cheap costumes and cameras, hey that stuff ain't cheap kids! Movies are a business and this year, a lot of people didn't get their money because the movies these people worked on flopped hard.

But if Scary Movie V has shown anything, it's that the series has no more air to pump in it's tires. The movies they reference date the movie considerably (ex. Black Swan, Inception, Rise of the Planet of the Apes) and even the movies they do reference, they don't say much on it rather than "here's something silly happening with the kids who act like animals." What does "Fifty Shades of Grey" have to do with scary movies in general? Nothing at all, it's here because it's popular, but it never makes any comment or satirically says anything about it.

But if you strapped me to a chair and tortured me, I would confess that I did have moments that made me chuckle, but those moments were solely based on physical comedy of character beating each other up, like a fight with the spanish maid, yeah, it's pointless, but damn it, I grew up with Tom and Jerry, physical comedy in the form of violence is hard not to chuckle at.

But the other one bit of prize I can give the movie is a moment where it does legitimately spoof the horror genre.

It's this bit where Snoop Dog and Mac Miller, who should have been the real stars of the movie, find Charlie Sheen's cabin and Mac Miller reminisces that it reminds him of a movie with a cabin in the woods and Snoop Dog starts naming off films that have characters in a cabin in the woods. This may seem trivial, but this the closest the movie gets to actually being self-aware of the genre it's spoofing and openly acknowledging that the genre of kids in a cabin in the woods isn't new.

Too bad the rest of the movies isn't this clever or amusing.

All anyone can do at this point is hope the next Scary Movie will actually be more consistent and actually focus on horror films instead of trying to drag together all these different genres and movies that have no relation to one another other than they're popular. For instance, I hear there's a movie called "I, Frankenstein" coming out next year, why not make fun of Frankenstein- oh wait, that's right, we already have that movie.

Oh well, nevermind then.

19. Pacific Rim

I was actually ready to put this on my #9 spot until I had a lovely conversation with a man whom I'll just refer to him as "The Crider."

See, The Crider has been a family friend for YEARS, how long? He went to the same college my parents did and has remained friends with them after all this time.

The Crider runs a record label, Estrus Records, which he has been operating for the past 30 years and responsible for producing surf, trash, punk and garage rock music such as The Mono Men (which is The Crider's band), Coyotemen, Federation X and others you might want to check out.

But The Crider also a very passionate fan of monster movies, namely the films by the likes of Roger Corman and Toho International and we all know what Toho makes best right? Godzilla. Going through his house, you'll find posters, film strips framed on the walls and even a model of Godzilla in his office.

So naturally, movies about monsters destroying cities are his cup of tea, so he came to visit recently so I asked him what he thought about the movie and the conversation I had with him allowed me to rethink my original listing choice and move it way down the list than I originally intended.

So for everyone who threw a fit that I nominated this as one of the year's worsts, you can thank The Crider for having this go way down the list…but it still is on this list of the Worst films this year.

It seems literally everyone praises this movie is because it's the "only giant robot movies that doesn't force in the Michael Bay tropes of Patriotism, racism, misogyny, etc." That, to me, isn't really saying much, literally ANY other giant Robot movie would be better than Transformers, hell, even the animated Transformers movie from the 80's is better than Michael Bay's Transformers, so saying Pacific Rim is better than the Transformer movies, isn't really a stretch.

Say what you will about Bayformers, at least it has an identity to it that allows the audience to recognize who directed it, you wouldn't get that Guillermo del Toro directed Pacific Rim as it is so stripped clean of any sense of identity that only the visual look of the Kaiju would be the only clue to this being a Guillermo del Toro film.

The characters are blocks of wood sprouting the same dialogue we've heard a million times and doing what even a smart person would practically predict would happen. Hell, even some of the minor characters, I read fanfictions that gave them more character development than this movie actually did. For all the visual grandeur, when the movie is focusing on it's story, it feels empty, when the robots are on screen, then everything becomes fun, too bad there are only three big fights scenes between the main robots and the Kaiju.

I will give it this, the movie is, without a doubt, the best-looking film of 2013, but, I think The Crider said it best "it should have had more fighting and less story." Couldn't have said it better Crider, by the way folks, Youtube The Mono Men, their stuff is actually pretty rad.

18. The Host

Once again, Stephanie Meyer makes my Worst of list, somehow, I'm not even surprised.

But it's okay, there aren't sparkly vampires this time.

We just have to deal with alien inhabiting our bodies and some chick who had guys fawning over her because "she's special."

I take that back, this is just the same crap all over again, only far more lifeless and this time, you can't use the excuse that "it's because they're vampires so of course they're lifeless."

I never read the book for this one, but from what I hear, it's a book filled with poorly developed characters and an unfocused story, well by gum, looks like they got that part right at least. Everyone has this blank look on their face and that's not just from the people who have been infected by these "aliens" or whatever, it tries to play itself off as being "commentary on society," but when you're using a message that has been utilized by the likes of Phillip K. Dick, it really makes your message seem insignificant in comparison to the influence of a society of brainless drones.

The only enduring legacy this movie will ever have is being the last movie Roger Ebert reviewed before this death on April 4, 2013.

17. A Good Day to Die Hard

The appropriate title for this movie should be "A Lousy Day for This Franchise To Die Hard."

Here's an honest question to ask, when anyone was watching this movie, was the thought going through your head "This is still a Die Hard movie, right?"

The answer to your question is no.

No it is not.

This is not a Die Hard movie.

Sure, it has Bruce Willis playing…pretty much the same Bruce Willis character he has played over the past 10 or 15 years, but he is not sneaking around foiling robbers poised as terrorists, he is just a cartoon character that runs around, shoots guys without any major injuries and not gives a flying chocolate bar about what's going on around him. Basically Jason Statham only older.

The story is a bore, the other major characters leave no impact whatsoever that you soon forget them and the movie's attempts at "character development," you'd sooner put your finger down your throat than have to listen to that crap.

Even the action isn't that spectacular, it's the case of "let's just fast editing to nobody can actually see that we didn't have anything planned out for a fight scene because who needs to see those details?"

You want to really know the moment the franchise dies? The moment when the movie shoehorns in John McClane's "Yippie-Kay-yay Motherf**ker" quote right after one bad one-liner and then drives a truck out the back of a helicopter.

At that point, there's no need to keep making more, the series has run it's course, the next one, I guarantee, won't even have Bruce Willis, it'll probably just star some nobody to play one of his kids and it'll become another dime-a-dozen shoot-em-up movies. Ugh, it drives me crazy.

But hey, only John McClane could drive someone that crazy and it's clearly not this John McClane.

16. Metallica Through the Never

After having to suffer from seeing advertisements for 3D concert movies for Hannah Montana, The Jonas Brothers, Justin Bieber and One Direction, somebody FINALLY turns the radio to the Hard Rock station and hears Metallica, realizing "This could be a gold mine of potential!"

What I won't deny is that this is probably one of the best soundtracks of the year and also one of the best uses of 3D to create the feel of being at a Metallica concert, if your ears aren't ringing as you leave the theater, the sound system sucks.

But why this makes me Worst list is the movie's confusing narrative and the choice of songs and their overall relation to the movie's story that plays during the concert footage.

Certain songs that play alongside the visuals such as "Fuel" while the Roadie drives down the streets of Los Angeles and the same Roadie seeing these victims being hung from their necks, leading into "…And Justice For All" make sense to me in both visually and, in a sense, thematically if you can see the subtext of the songs.

But why does this kid floating in water lead to "Ride the Lightning?" Why does a bit where the police fighting the rioters start off with "Wherever I May Roam" before suddenly cutting away to "Cyanide?" Is there a meaning for it? Why does "Enter Sandman" play when the Roadie faces off against the Rioter leader? Shouldn't "King Nothing" be playing?

Then there are things that only raises more questions in the movie's narrative.

How did the Roadie appear in an alleyway on fire getting his ass kicked and then suddenly appear on the rooftop of a parking garage with his small doll trying to wake him up? Did that doll drag him all the way up to this roof and for that matter, how did the Rioter Leader get up there? Did he pick up up, put out the fire, take him to the parking garage and leave him there to wake up so he could kick his ass? Why can this kid use a sledgehammer to make the entire city shatter when it established way back in the beginning that the kid was on drugs? 

See, I was willing to accept the idea that all the visuals the roadie sees are a product of his imagination brought on by drugs, but how does that explain this movie's ending? How does it explain the Metallica arena shattering, forcing them to play "Hit the Lights" with smaller amps even though the sound quality doesn't even sound like they are using smaller amplifiers. 

And all the weirdness this kid goes through is for what? A duffel bag that "Metallica needs for their show tonight?" Well gee, would you like to tell the class what you have that's so important that this kid has to set himself on fire for?

You never get to see it.

The kid just leaves the bag on the stage and it's never opened.

Even the lack of explanation as to what was in the glowing suitcase in "Pulp Fiction" was more satisfactory than this movie's climax.

I originally was going to blame Metallica for that ending, as they are credited co-writers, but as wrote this, I came across an interview with Lars Ulrich who, when asked about that ending, quoted: "I have no f*cking idea, the only person who knows what's in the bag is Dane Dehaan, I've got a feeling he may not tell."

And I'm strongly suspecting even Dane Dehaan may have forgotten what it was or why he wrote that.

But for all my criticisms, I still had a blast watching Metallica shred on the big screen with my 3D glasses with the sets around them forming as they go on, but the parts of the narrative, it left me wanting more than that, proving that you should put the story in more capable hands to write a screenplay that isn't as incoherent.

Man of Steel

Released in 2013 under the direction of Zach Snyder ("300," "Watchmen," "Sucker Punch") on a budget of $225 million with distribution through Warner Bros.; "Man of Steel" is the 6th theatrical film adaptation (I'm not counting "Supergirl") based off of the 1938 release of Action Comics #1, Superman has since his first publication become a cultural American icon for his tagline of "fighting for truth, justice and the American Way." The first feature film to star this comic book hero was the 1978 Richard Donner film, "Superman: The Movie." By today, it's considerably dated, but it still remains a ground-breaking spark in cinema for these of special effects to create the illusion of Superman flying and grabbing things with his strength as well as kick-starting interest of the Superhero film genre. But the 80's wasn't very kind to Superman, giving forth to some rather lousy movies and only continuing on from then, giving some embarrassingly bad Superman video games. Eventually, Zach Snyder announced he was going to reboot Superman along with "Dark Knight" trilogy director Christopher Nolan. I…did not see it when it came out, but perhaps that was the best thing to have done as there was no safe place from this movie as a war seemed to break out from people who either loved the movie and called it a masterpiece or from people who hated the movie and called it "a betrayal of the Superman name." So I waited until it was available for OnDemand, so what did I think then? 

Um….I've used disappointed too much in the past, so the only other term that comes to mind is "underwhelmed."

Plot: In a far off galaxy, the planet Krypton, which looks more like a dustier version of Vulcan from J.J. Abrams' "Star Trek," Scientist Jor-El (Russell Crowe) tries to warn the council that the planet is doomed to explode due to the depletion of their natural resources. Yet this doesn't seem to stop General Zod (Michael Shannon) from staging a coup d'état against the council. Despite this, Jor-El manages to steal a Kryptonian Codex that contains the genetic code of artificial children, graft the code to the cells of his newborn son, Kal-El, and send him off before the planet explodes, though not before Zod and his flunkies are banished to the Phantom Zone.

Then, in a series of flashbacks interwoven throughout the movie, we see Kal-El try to control his powers as he attempts to find his place in the world while keeping his powers a secret as Clark Kent (Henry Cavill), only to occasionally reveal them to people when he comes to save them. Eventually he finds his way to the Arctic where he locates a spaceship that contains a hologram consciousness of his father explain his origins. Now wearing a blue costume with a red cape, Clark runs into Daily Planet Journalist Lois Lane (Amy Adams) who figures out he has superpowers cause, well, he's really lousy at covering his tracks apparently. But things take turn for the worse when General Zod finds his way to Earth and wants to terraform the planet so they can have a new Krypton. Deciding he's the only one who can save the planet, he suits up and goes on a colossal fight that causes immense collateral damage.

Storywise, the movie has no surprises. It's the traditional Superman origin lifted straight from the Richard Donner movies; but the major problem with the movie is that is doesn't really say anything new about Superman himself. It just plays up the paranoia of people not trusting him because, ooh, he has super powers! Really, it's nothing new that we haven't seen in that other movie Christopher Nolan did, I forget the name, but it had a guy with a superhero suit and nobody fully trusted him then. Honestly, the movie just feels like another summer blockbuster and all the visuals are the only thing that keeps it from falling into the same issues I had with "Elyisum" and "Pacific Rim."

But I know what you're all thinking, what do I think about the whole Superman killing Zod thing? Yeah, sorry for the spoiler alert, but I had to tolerate this annoying internet war that started because of this one moment where Superman is forced to kill General Zod while he fires lasers at innocent people. While I could be that "one guy" and say this contradicts Superman's ideology of not killing this foes, honestly, there are many other things Superman could have done to avoid that.

-Superman could have poked Zod's eyes out while holding him in a headlock

-Subsequently, Superman could have tilted Zod's eyes upward to keep them from moving to the side.

-Superman could have just just flown Zod away from the city and from civilians.

-Superman could have kept fighting Zod in outer space.

-Superman could have just lobotomized Zod, sure he'd be a vegetable, but he'd still be alive.

-Superman could have used a Kryptonite bullet (oh, I'm sorry, Kryptonite was lame? Well I'm sorry you fail to comprehend the concept of weakness for this god-like being that could stop a supervillain)

-Superman could have flung Zod onto the other side of the planet, where there is no sunlight, and keeping fighting Zod until he runs out of juice from the sun's yellow rays and Superman could beat him into submission.

-Subsequently, Superman could have tunneled Zod to the center of the Earth, away from the Sun's yellow rays and let him burn up.

-Superman could have used his freeze breath to freeze Zod in place and then fly him to the Arctic and leave him to be frozen until Global Warming frees him.

-Or, instead of fighting General Zod, do what HowItShouldHaveEnded.com suggested: Instead of talking to a priest for advice, talk to the hologram consciousness of your father for advice then take the ship you came to earth on, set it do that dimensional thingy and throw it at Zod's space ship and force him and his cronies to avoid this huge battle that cost billions of dollars in collateral and untold lives to be lost in the fighting.

All these options and more, Superman could have done to have prevented killing him, but do I call this moment offensive? Oh no, that's not the most offensive moment.

It's the moment where Superman let's his adoptive father, Jonathan Kent, die.

In one of Superman's flashbacks, Clark is having an argument with his adoptive father, Jonathan Kent (Kevin Costner) when they suddenly get out of the car and witness a tornado approaching all these other cars. Clark and his adoptive mother run away to shelter when Jonathan runs back to save a dog, yes a dog, left int he car, at the cost of spraining his ankle, Clark wants to run out and go save him, but Mr. Kent just holds up his hand and Superman lets his father get sucked up into a tornado. 

Now you might say that he didn't save him was because his dad didn't want him to reveal himself in front of all these people, but this is offensive to Superman. How is it he decides not to save his adoptive father JUST BECAUSE his dad didn't want him to do so? How many times has Superman flown up to people attempting to jump off of rooftops and talked them down from killing themselves? How many times has Superman ever let anyone kill themselves just because they told him not to save them? When has Superman ever stood around and let someone die when he had it in his power to stop them?

This is why I love Glenn Ford's Pa Kent in the original Superman movie, right after Clark has shown off to his jerk classmates, he has a very touching conversation with Clark about being on this planet. Clark playfully races with Pa Kent to the barn as Pa slows down, breathing heavily. He checks his pulse and then collapses on the ground, Clark runs up to check on Pa, but the next scene shows that Pa has died. This is brilliant because it shows that even with all the powers Superman has, he is powerless to stop his adoptive father from dying from a heart attack.

But here? Clark had the power to save him father. He could have used his super breath to blow the tornado away. He could have used his super speed to zoom in and save his father while the tornado sucked him in and fly away while everyone didn't notice. He could have just taken his father's place to save the dog, since he is younger and he could have been smarter to get the lousy dog out.

What is frustrating is how this movie seems to take from other movies: 

-The Matrix: Artificial babies in orbs that are collected? Can they be used to power the machines of Krypton as well? Do you think it's coincidence Laurence Fishburne is in the movie?

-The Matrix Revolutions: A huge fight of two super powered being flying around causing destruction to a city while being knocked back and forth? I'm convinced the reason Zach Snyder didn't use his slow-motion technique he's known for this movie was because people would then figure out he was stealing from the Wachowski Siblings.

-Avatar: Jor-El flies around on a winged creature, how could Avatar not come to mind?

-Tree of Life: the editing focuses on an wheelbarrow turned on it's side and a bucket filled with water with clothespins left inside. You're not Terrance Malick, Snyder, stop pretending you're deep by using these images when they have no poetry to them.

-J.J. Abrams Star Trek: this, more than any of my previous comparisons, it seems that Zach Snyder not only rips off this movie's visual look, but also the lens flare and the computer technique Abrams does where the camera zooms in on a particular action during a fight.

But thinking back to all of Zach Snyder's other movies and how many of them have scenes that directly rip off other movies (ex. "Apocalypse Now," "Spartacus," "Enter the Dragon") it really should come as no surprise to me the lack of originality Snyder has that he is willing to rip off of better movies to make his movies. Now you might call me out on this and say Nolan did the same thing with "Inception," but there's a major difference between directly stealing scenes and ideas from better movies and paying homage to these movies and using them for inspiration to create a movie that feels fresh. But looking back on Snyder's career, he seems to have quite a track record of stealing other people's work and passing it off as is his own (e.g. "Dawn of the Dead" stole the fast-moving zombies from "28 Days Later" and "300" just did what Robert Rodriguez had done two years prior with "Sin City" and yet Snyder gets the title "visionary director" for it)

Characters:

Henry Cavill: Well, I'll give him this, he really looks like Superman, look at that jaw of his! It looks like he personally chiseled his jaw but as Clark Kent, I'm sorry, but he looks like the cover of a GQ magazine model. Take anther look at Christopher Reeve, the guy did a great job balancing both the stoic and humble Superman with the nervous and stuttering honesty of Clark Kent, if you looked at Reeve's Clark Kent, you'd never even make the connection that he'd be Superman. But just like Christian Bale, you can't really buy that this guy can have an alter ego, he just looks like he's hiding something. But I admit, the parts of the movie that show a young Clark Kent trying to control his powers, are really the more fascinating elements that the movie covers to show how scary it is for the young Clark Kent to discover all these powers and not understand what is going on.

Amy Adams: She's…just there. I'm sorry, but she ultimately leave no impact to me as Lois Lane. Amy Adams just feels like she's playing the same kind of character Maggie Gyllenhaal and Gwyneth Paltrow have played in superhero movies. Amy Adams is a fine actress, don't get me wrong, but she lacks character development as a romantic interest, hell, when she and Superman kiss, it's one of the most out of place moments I've ever seen a kiss to happen since they never even spent pivotal time to develop the tools necessary to develop characters, especially romantic interests.

Michael Shannon: Hey, surprise, surprise, I prefer Terrence Stamp's General Zod than Michael Shannon's General Zod. Terrence Stamp was a guy who had regality to him, he was boisterous and full of pride, he had a charm to him that couldn't be matched. Michael Shannon was just a guy who shouted a lot and a beard. The movie tries to make him looks sympathetic with trying to bring back the Kryptonian race, but he never seems to explain this plan and just seems to yell a lot.

Laurence Fishburne: He's………..there………..he doesn't make his infamous "Great Caesar's Ghost" but he does threaten to fire Lois Lane…honestly, this role could have been played by anyone, he was picked so his name could put more butts in the seat.

Kevin Costner: I already went on a tangent about how offensive it was that Superman doesn't save him, Costner is just doing his same shtick he's done for years. Monotone and uninterested. Now that I think about it, maybe Superman did us a favor in letting the tornado suck him up, no more box office bombs from you.

Diane Lane: The only memorable moment she has is a moment where she an intimate moment with Clark about holding him close to her when he was but a baby years ago, she would listen to him breathe. It shows the intimacy of Clark and his adoptive mother.

Russell Crowe: Word of the wise General Zod, don't pick a fight with the Gladiator himself. He's okay, he's no Marlon Brando, but then again, who is? Brando was an actor nobody will ever match and I highly doubt anyone of Brando's caliber will ever come again in this lifetime. Russell's main job is to dump exposition about Krypton, thankfully he doesn't sing, *shudder*

Christopher Meloni: Word of the wise to future screenwriters, if you make a character who is so forgettable and is only memorable because of the actor who plays them, you know you could do better. All through this movie, I kept calling this character Elliot Stabler cause I recognize him the best from Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. He has no actual character though and he could have been played by anyone and it wouldn't have made a difference.

This entire movie does have a long line of all-star actors, but barely any of them get any proper character development to make these characters that interesting.

Production:

Maybe this is coming from a sense of burnout from seeing all these summer blockbusters, but I am starting to get a little tired of Green screen. Even though green screen really opens up the possibilities or visual effects, they just don't impress me all that much. The visual landscapes on Krypton look unimpressive, in fact, it just makes it look like the Kryptonians just landed there in these ships and they haven't colonized the planet yet. While I admit, the visuals work in effect to show the destruction of Superman fighting with other Kryptonians, the fights go on for far too long and eventually, wear thin on my patience. Even the final fight with Superman and Zod, while, I admit, visually impressive, just left me cold and tired. In fact, I'm getting tired of seeing big budget mano-a-mano fight scenes in movies nowadays. "Pacific Rim," "Elysium," "Transformers," it's like the entire movie builds up to the protagonist and the antagonist engaging in a fist fight that runs on for 10 minutes. While I may not agree with RedLetterMedia about everything they say, I will agree with their statement that "stretching a fight scene out for so long in an over-the-top and show-off way is the equivalent of a middle-aged business man whose short, balding and has a tiny penis so he buys a red Lamborgini to compensate." 

This ending fight with Superman and Zod is the film's version of compensating for the lack of character development and ability to connect to the audience on an emotional level by using overblown visual effects.

Costuming is…not as bad as I thought of it before. The spandex looks a little silly on Russell Crowe and General Zod, but I admit, I'm not so much bothered by the Superman costume anymore. It is a little jarring to see Superman without his iconic red tidy-whities, to have that weird padding thing on this sides, it made it less awkward to me.

Music is…really forgettable, which is a shame cause Hans Zimmer can make memorable music when he's allowed to experiment: "The Lion King," "The Thin Red Line," "The Pirates of the Caribbean" and "The Dark Knight" if you need examples. Frankly, I didn't find anything that memorable. The official theme does have a dramatic sense of building bravados, but it doesn't lift a torch to John Williams' 1978 theme. Yeah, it seems unfair to compare, but if I ask you to look at the Superman logo, are you going to think of Hans Zimmer's theme from 2013 or John Williams' theme from 1978 that has become the staplemark of a Superman theme (kinda like how the 1960's Batman theme is iconic and remembered even after all these years).

John Williams - 1978 Prelude and Main Title March

Hans Zimmer - 2013 Main Theme

Bottom Line: 

There are a lot of people who are calling this movie a masterpiece and a brilliant reboot.

I say, it's a bloated run-by-the-numbers summer movie that has to take ideas from the original Superman movies and insert over-the-top anime style fighting. While the visual effects of all the destruction looks nifty, the lack of character development makes the movie seem pretentious in the parts with Clark Kent trying to adapt the the real world while the parts with Superman lack the suspension of disbelief or majesty. This movie constantly hammers in the issue that if people saw Clark Kent with superpowers, what the consequences would be, but we never see those consequences outside of fear from a Kansas mother and some concerned soldiers. If they really wanted to show consequences of Clark's actions, they could have shown on the news cults be formed proclaiming Superman as "the Messiah's return" and the arrival of Zod as "Judgement day." Missed opportunities to explore these themes are lost to showing off special effects. The parts with Clark as a kid honing his powers are neat, but we don't get a genuine sense of his abilities outside of just a vague idea of it that you have to be a Superman fan to already understand or know. The movie looks impressive visually, but, just like the Star Wars prequels and "Transformers" it favors special effects over story and character development.

Say what you will about the costumes or special effects for the 1978 Superman movie, the original had one thing this movie lacks: interesting people and the human factor. We see Clark land on Earth and we see him arrive in metropolis under his mild-mannered identity. "Man of Steel" focuses on Superman, the Kryptonian instead of Superman, the Hero of Earth.

A lot of people love this movie, I won't be one of them. I'll stick to that "old and lame" Superman movie that had interesting characters and a likable Superman that I would feel comfortable to save me from a falling helicopter, I'd probably suffer whiplash from this Man of Steel if he grabbed me from mid-air.

Final Rating: 2/5

As for the upcoming "Superman Vs. Batman" movie, how will that pan out? Well, Ben Affleck is playing Batman, a nice choice actually, considering the last three movies Affleck has directed and the fact he played Daredevil once, I think he could pull it off. But frankly, leave David S. Goyer out of the screenwriting process and get a more mature screenwriter, or in the case of the original, four seasoned screenwriters (said four are Mario Puzo of "The Godfather," David Newman and wife Leslie Newman of "Bonnie and Clyde," and Robert Benton of "Kramer Vs. Kramer.") I'll see it, sure, but after seeing this movie, my expectations are pretty low.

Saving Mr. Banks

Released in 2013 under the direction of John Lee Hancock ("The Alamo," "The Blind Side") on a budget of $35 million with distribution through Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures; "Saving Mr. Banks" is a biopic of the negotiations that occurred between animator and producer Walt Disney and author P.L. Travers over her series of books about a magical nanny named Mary Poppins to be adapted into a feature film by Walt Disney Pictures. I'd be lying if I didn't say I had been wanting to see this movie since I saw the trailer back in August and I can most humbly assure you, fine readers, it was well worth the wait.

In the summer of 1961, P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson) comes to California to oversee pre-production for the film adaptation of "Mary Poppins" by an enthusiastic Walt Disney (Tom Hanks). Travers proves to be very frustrating, not only for Disney, but also to co-screenwriter Disney Legend Don DaGradi (Bradley Whitford) and composer/lyricist duo, Richard M. Sherman (Jason Schwartzman) and Robert B. Sherman (B.J. Novak), who are forced to put up with her needy demands to ensure she is pleased so she can sign over the film rights to Disney. During the negotiation process, P.L. Travers finds herself slipping back and forth between her rough childhood in Australia with her drunk yet loving father Travers Robert Goff (Colin Farrell) who would mark the inspiration for the Mr. Banks character, struggling to come to terms with her loss and to trust in Walt Disney to make her happy.

RottenTomatoes.com I think said it best "Aggressively likable and sentimental to a fault" and they're not wrong in saying so. This is a touching yet surprisingly dark movie that looks at the the struggling process of appealing to the author and the author's reflection on her early childhood with the relationship with her father and the guilt of not being to change the outcome of your past. The theme of wanting control of your property is a theme that I, as someone who knows how it feels to be told to make changes, truly understand why Travers would be concerned.

Acting is fabulous, Emma Thompson truly inhabits the stiff-upper-lip personality of an English author, she pulled it off admirably, to the point where I forgot she was an actress. The same could not be said of Tom Hanks, not to say he's terrible, heavens no, he embodies Walt's kind and warm personality, but unlike Thompson, I look at Hanks and I just see Tom Hanks just being himself; a gleeful, jolly uncle that you wish you'd had. The supporting cast does it's part, while nobody gives a particularly striking performance, nobody turns in a bad performance either.

"Saving Mr. Banks" is a utterly charming feel-good movie that is almost impossible to hate. Believe me, I'm trying to find something to nitpick, but none of them really effect the movie on a narrative whole. Highly recommended you see this one.

Final Rating: 4/5