TheRetroCritic

I look back at good old Man Of Steel .

Jamie and I talk about Man Of Steel back when it was first released on the 6th episode of podcast The Big Rewind . Jamie liked it, I didn't: who do you agree with? You can find The Big Rewind on iTunes, Stitcher, Soundcloud and Player FM.

The SPOILERS are coming... The SPOILERS are coming! Finally, DC comics and director Zack Snyder deliver their big, expensive, world-building clash of titans as the son of Krypton and the bat of Gotham face-off for the very first time on the big screen. Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice not only promised one heck of a one-on-one battle but also the start of even bigger things. This should have been a no-brainer: Batman and Superman, the two biggest superheroes out there, in a movie together fighting it out. The words "screw you, take my money!" come to mind. And yet from the casting of Ben Affleck as the Dark Knight to the mixed response Man Of Steel received upon its release, Snyder's patchy track-record, the confusion around whether this would be a Justice League movie or not, the casting of Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, the much too generous (and spoilery) marketing and, ultimately, the many unkind early reviews, this increasingly looked set to be much less

So the internet exploded yesterday when director Zack Snyder posted pictures showing off not only the brilliant-looking new Batmobile but also Mr Ben Affleck himself in the bat-suit on Twitter. The day before we got but a glimpse of the car I already really want a toy version of: Then we got the car's driver as well: Zack Snyder may not be the best, deepest filmmaker around but his stuff looks damn good. Can't deny that.

SPOILER WARNING F***. That'll teach me to get really excited about a blockbuster. Alright, how do I put this without pissing you guys off... Superman Returns was better. Woops... Sorry. I can't think of a film I was more looking forward to than Man Of Steel this year. On paper: there's no way it could have gone wrong. You had a brilliant cast, kick-ass trailers, some great writers behind it, Christopher Nolan as producer, Zack Snyder: a director known for making great-looking movies... But it all led to this: quite possibly the most charmless Superman movie to date. The film opens on the most Avatar -like Krypton you'll ever see (with touches of Dune thrown in for camp value) as we follow Jor-El (Russell Crowe) who is busy worrying about the fact that the entire planet is about to explode, though he doesn't seem too bothered about leaving the dying world himself, or getting his wife to safety somehow. Jor-El also happens to be at the heart of a