Bat & Switch

Went to see "Rises" again at midnight. Liked it a little less the second time - more and more "wait a second..." annoyances - but still not "bad" by any stretch of the imagination.

My real reason for heading out was, of course, because I wanted to finally see the "Man of Steel" trailer in a form other than grainy Comic-Con snippets or shot-by-shot descriptions; only to discover too late that what SDCC saw isn't the same teaser that's been attached to "Rises." Phooey.

I'll say this: If I DIDN'T have the sliver of context for how much "cooler" the footage you lucky SDCC attendees out there saw was; this teaser would've left with me a serious sinking feeling...


It's not a BAD teaser, certainly - the "when did Zack Snyder become Terrence Mallick?" feel that people at SDCC were describing is absolutely there; and it's intended effect on an unsuspecting audience ("what the heck is th... HOLY SHIT! SUPERMAN!?") went over big with everyone else at my screening. It'll have people talking, definitely.

But without the big, epic "you will believe a man can KICK ASS!" stuff I know was on the Comic-Con reel; what's presented makes it look VERY much like a "Nolanized" Superman... and that's the last thing the property needs. If anything, seeing TDKR a second time through left me more convinced than ever that, while "his" Batman has yielded an interesting trilogy with two excellent entries and one "okay" one, it's in everyone's best interest that Christopher Nolan be kept as far away from comic-book movies as possible for the forseeable future. He's had his fun with this little "deconstruction" project, now let's be done with all that limitation and timidity... there are universes to be explored.

I don't wanna undersell it - it's a good clip, and it'll probably get mainstream audiences psyched about at least the "prospect" of Superman again, so that's all well and good. But speaking for myself, if I didn't know that there's bigger, braver, more authentically-Superman "stuff" being held back this would've left me pretty deflated about a project I'm still holding out a great deal of hope for.