Superman Born! June 19th-2012

In the year 2013, movie-goers will be seeing a lot of Superhero films. We will be seeing the release of Iron Man 3, Thor 2, The Wolverine, and G.I. Joe 2. The Avengers set a massive bar for other movies to try and beat, and even 'The Dark Knight Rises' is not expected to reach the level The Avengers did. In 2013, there could be one or two movies that may reach that epic superhero bar that The Avengers set. One could be Iron Man 3, which has been highly anticipated, yet, the film everyone will be talking about is Man of Steel. Zack Snyder's take on Superman, and after the lackluster Superman Returns, Man of Steel could be the definitive new Superman film after the wonderful Christopher Reeves' films from 1978 to 1980 (including the very superior Richard Donner Cut). In 2018, the original Donner film from 1978 will be FORTY years old. Since then, we have had some great minor incarnations of Superman, with Lois and Clark and Superman: The Animated Series on TV. Yet, the only film since 1987 that the public waited patiently for was given to us by Bryan Singer, a competent director who brought the x-Men to life and set a new trend for Superhero films. Superman Returns paid homage to the Donner films, while trying to infuse something new (what that new was, is still being discussed), but the movie failed, it was not action packed, it didn't give us anything new, and a lot of fans were wondering why old plots were being hashed when there was a perfect excuse to make a rocking new Superman film, even if it were based on Donner's original saga. Then, the success of the overrated Batman Begins changed everything.

After the abysmal Batman and Robin, Superhero films seemed to go the way of the sitcom, it was way more cheesy than fun. Tim Burton's Batman and Batman Returns were great films, sure, there were liberties taken, but they were dark, they were fun and they felt like Batman. Batman Forever and Batman and Robin started a trend that was thought to be irreversible. Batman Begins is basically a reboot and origin story of Batman. Christopher Nolan was tapped to recreate Batman for a new generation and eager fans. Although, Batman Begins became a minor hit, other films such as Spider-Man, X-Men and Fantastic Four were paving the way for the modern Superhero films. Batman Begins was bit darker in tone, and this dark tone was infused in the massive hit Iron Man film which also opened in 2008. The Dark Knight became an even bigger hit than Iron Man which opened first in 2008 making 558 Million worldwide, while The dark Knight made over 1 Billion worldwide. While there is a debate whether The Dark Knight would have been such the hit it was without the untimely death of Heath Ledger (playing the Joker), the movie itself is massively overrated. As with Batman Begins, the plot is thin, and only the dark settings and great performance by Aaron Eckhart as Two-face making the movie tolerable, there is no cohesion in the film. DC has not really made a really fun and dark film, nothing like Iron Man, or The Avengers. Nothing even remotely close. Although Zack Snyder has never made a film without the overly used Slow-Motion shot, Snyder does know action, and he may be able to infuse a good story and great action sequences to make an epic Superman film that we have so desperately need (desperately needed like we need to desperately eat 20 pizza pies, but still) or want. Donner and Reeves Superman films are wonderful and of course classics, but Superman Returns really put a bad taste in our mouths and ever sense we have wanted Superman to really kick ASS. Perhaps Superman will be reborn on film in 2013 and we can look forward to a new Superman saga that generations new and old will love.