Hey guys, i'm making this post about my 5 best movies from 2013 and i will put a link so you can download them in HD 1080p !

#5 The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

Review: Peter Jackson’s ‘The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug’ Starring Martin Freeman, Ian McKellen & More

If the “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” was a bloated 2 hour and 49 minute slog, replete with dull merriment, songs and a distended prologue that threatened to put you to sleep, then in contrast, “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug” is a brisk, engagingly paced 2 hours and 41 minutes which goes to show that length never matters—it’s how well your narrative engine runs.

And yet, conversely (and ironically), pace isn't always the salve either. To wit: the Peter Jackson-directed ‘Hobbit’ sequel might be the more vigorous, action-packed, darker and more (superficially) engaging version of the series thus far, but that doesn’t actually mean it’s a keeper of any sort. In fact, rather than calling it a sequel, 'The Desolation of Smaug' is better served described as an episode. And the episodic, middle chapter-itis that is currently hurting the modern-day tentpole sequel is fully evinced.

As facile and conventional as these ideas may be, ‘An Unexpected Journey’ was actually about something; a quest that touched upon friendship and fellowship (yep, all that stuff again) with Bilbo Baggins’ (Martin Freeman) main character arc involving earning the trust, respect and admiration of the initially disdainful, ornery and skeptical pack of thirteen dwarves he was traveling with (none of this is particularly revelatory, but occasionally it was touching in the same way these themes were in the ‘LOTR’ films). In contrast, ‘Smaug’ is about almost absolutely nothing. “The Further Adventures Of Chasing Gemstones That Mean Something Or Other To The Dwarves” might be a better suited subtitle as it is simply designed to keep this behemoth franchise moving forward and nothing more.

So while ‘Smaug’ has forward-momentum, and is chockablock with battles and evil conflicts (Orcs, giant spiders, a Necromancer, a pointless digression with a shape shifter that hates dwarves, suspicious and selfish elves), it’s actually the lesser and emptier of the two films (though I concede most audiences are probably not in need of much more and are likely going to enjoy this episode better).

But for those who desire more than just dynamic roller coasters, they might feel incredibly stymied. The strain of what was originally conceived as one story running the course of two movies, now stretched to its limits with a third picture, is deeply felt. The character arcs are negligible, and what exists instead are moods—mostly “dark” and “irritable” as ‘Smaug’ is certainly the most angsty of all the ‘LOTR/Hobbit’ films to date. Bilbo Baggins is beginning to get hooked in the throngs of early “precious” ring addiction, which makes him a bit of a dick, but that’s all about his story amounts to. Bilbo is hiding his ring smack compulsion from Gandalf The Grey (Ian McKellen), but like far too many of the film's story elements, it's just a set up which will pay off in another episode and therefore holds no weight.

Dwarf leader Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage) is also being quite the dick, becoming power hungry and falling prey to the madness of greed that also destroyed his ancestors. As the quest progresses, Oakenshield becomes more ruthless and merciless, putting the importance of the gemstone above all other individuals in his company going so far as leaving injured dwarves behind (leave no dwarf left behind!). This is less of an arc and more of a thing that happens to Oakenshield, and again, something that will likely pay off or become resolved in episode three. None of it is remotely moving or even barely interesting on a character, story or thematic level.

However, if you want sizzle and action that’s even more violent than what we’ve seen in previous films, you’ve come to the right place, as ‘Smaug’ is more aggressive with its fight sequences and battles. One involved set-piece with dwarves in wine barrels spilling down a river while Orcs and elves chase them is positively thrilling, matching and surpassing the visually dazzling sequences in Steven Spielberg’s panoramic “The Adventures of Tintin.” Those who want “bad-ass” will be satisfied, but like the animated Spielberg picture, it all feels ultimately like a video game that’s neat to look at, but not especially meaningful in any way.

Smaug the dragon (voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch) serves much of the same function. He’s a visual effects spectacle to behold (a CGI marvel, really)—nasty, mean and a massive threat, but the character doesn’t add up to more than an infuriated bad guy who chases people around and burns their bums with fire because they’ve woken him up.

Elsewhere in the various tangents of this overlong story, nothing of merit is really taking place, other than the building blocks for 'There And Back Again.' The always unreliable Gandalf takes off from his friends for the umpteenth time to go investigate something or other (which is basically Gandalf’s modus operandi in every film; side quests! What a total flake). If you think some of the dwarves had fuck all to do in 'An Unexpected Journey,' you probably can’t even imagine the sheer boredom that must have set in for actors playing anyone not named Thorin, Balin (Ken Stott), Dwalin (Graham McTavish) and to a lesser degree Bofur (James Nesbitt). Sure, the handsome Kili (Aidan Turner) gets his own subplot centering on a deathly injury and a coquettish flirtation with Evangeline Lilly’s Tauriel, but again (sigh) it’s all narrative teases that amounts to TUNE INTO THE NEXT EPISODE TO FIND OUT WHAT REALLY HAPPENS.

Assholes are in plentiful number in ‘Smaug,’ apart from the aforementioned cantankerous characters. Thranduil (Lee Pace), the selfish Elvin king is a racist/xenophobe and doesn’t care what happens to the rest of the world. His son Legolas (Orlando Bloom) follows his lead and is also basically a jerk (also there’s little reason for this beloved character to be back for this film other than to dynamically kick-ass like he did in the ‘LOTR’ films). Sure he’s got a thing for Tauriel and that’s going to eventually evolve him into the Elf we know and love, but … yep, next installment. (Luke Evans also co-stars as Aragorn, I mean, Bard the Bowman; he doesn't like the dwarves' gemstone-finding motives, but you'll learn more about that Christmas 2014.)

The one character of any substance in the picture is Tauriel. A fictionalized creation that's not in the book, if you’re looking for the barest of superficial character texture, you’re thanking the gods Peter Jackson and his co-writers invented her. Empathetic and at odds with her people’s cynical outlook on Middle Earth, Tauriel actually cares about people in need of help (including dwarves, the sworn rivals of elves), so it’s her internal conflict that gives the movie its only shallow of humanistic depth.

In case you need reminding, “Lord of the Rings” lays in the background, sometimes not all that subtly; the ring, Sauron, the evil that is about to engulf Middle Earth and a prequel-like sequence that should be called, “How Sting [Bilbo’s Sword] Got Her Groove.” The truth is, audiences are going to approve of this sequel. It’s entertaining, it’s engaging and it’s got thrills, but all at the expense and to the detriment of what stories, narrative and filmmaking should be about. See you at the next chapter. [C]

#4 Thor: The Dark World

Late in "Thor: The Dark World," Chris Hemsworth's title character crash-lands on a British Underground platform. He's dazed but knows that he has to get back to fighting Malekith (ex-Doctor Who Christopher Eccleston), a malevolent dark elf. Thor asks for directions back to Greenwich, and promptly boards the train. As the train lurches forward, a woman falls onto his broad chest. He smiles knowingly. This scene is one of several high points in "Thor: The Dark World," a blocky fantasy-adventure whose plot is never as exciting as its characters. All three "Iron Man" films have this same basic problem, but story was never more important than personality in those earlier films. "Thor: The Dark World"'s characters are often very charming, but they're only so much fun when they're stuck going through the motions.

"Thor: The Dark World" mostly concerns Malekith's "Transformers"-worthy schemes. Malekith was previously put in his place by Bor, Thor's grandfather, when he tried to turn matter back into anti-matter using Aether, an ancient, all-powerful energy source. Now, after Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), Thor's super-smart human scientist not-quite-girlfriend, stumbles upon some Aether, Malekith returns. Leading an armada of black splinter-shaped spaceships, he sets out for Asgard, home of Thor and his fellow Norse Gods. But the Asgardians are still recovering from Thor's half-brother Loki's (Tom Hiddleston) recent failed coup. Now, Thor and Loki must team up to save Jane, Earth, Asgard, and the other eight realms of existence from complete annihilation.

Malekith may be a major threat to life and the universe as we know it, but he's just one of a handful of characters who are run through their paces in "Thor: The Dark World." This sequel is consistently unfocused in that sense: major characters get to flex their muscles for a scene or two, but only when they're absolutely needed. There are a couple of scenes where characters get to be both important and exciting, like when Kurse (Adewale "Mr. Eko" Akinnuoye-Agbaje), Malekith's super-powered henchman, breaks into Asgard, and starts a prison riot.

But there are just as many scenes where inherently exciting characters, like Thor, kill time connecting plot points. Watching Thor make quick work of an inconsequential enemy in an opening scene should be fun. But the scene has no flair to it, and feels like a perfunctory introduction to the character. The first scene in the film where Hemsworth gets to be really charming comes later, when he's squabbling with Hiddleston about operating a commandeered dark-elven space-ship. The squabbling itself isn't that funny, but the scene's pay-off is. Hemsworth's eyes light up as he gets the ship to fly, instantly reminding you why you came in the first place.

Still, more often than not, "Thor: The Dark World" is more busy than exciting. There are a couple sub-plots too many, like the one with frequently-naked super-scientist Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgard). And too many characters that are introduced with a promising scene, like Rainbow Bridge guardian Heimdall (Idris Elba), are forgotten during the film's climactic battle. The film's world also generally looks slapped together, especially the dark elves, who look like a cross between "Land of the Lost"'s Sleestaks and "Doctor Who"'s Cybermen. Visually, "Thor: The Dark World" is a step back after "Thor," which at least looked unique enough.

But in most other respects, "Thor: The Dark World" is a step in the right direction. The scene where Thor enlists Loki's help is a perfect example of the film's slight but memorable improvements. The conversation they have is inconsequential, but watching a defeated Loki surrounded by over-turned furniture and a reddish-brown PG-13 blood-substitute on his prison cell's walls makes the scene worthwhile. Hemsworth and Hiddleston have such good chemistry that it sometimes looks like Thor and Loki will kiss before Thor and Jane will. There's just enough tension and humor in "Thor: The Dark World" to make the film's otherwise listless proceedings worth watching, but only just.

#3 Star Trek: Into Darkness

Before we start I want to say this about Star Trek Into Darkness: I’ve seen it in both 3D and 2D, and I urge you not to waste your money on a 3D ticket. Seriously, there is nothing in this movie that requires 3D, and it does bupkuss to enhance the experience.

Mind you, this movie is a visual feast, but 3D doesn’t really add anything to the feast except for maybe that piece of parsley that is used as a garnish that you throw away and never eat.

Enough of the tortured food metaphor. I went into STID with very low expectations. As I’ve said in the past, Star Trek is not at its best in movie format, especially in our post-Star Wars world where science fiction movie must equal BIG-ASS ’SPLOSIONS! in order make its box office requirements. At its best, Trek is about the exploration of the human condition, something not remotely on display in either of J.J. Abrams’s films. I figured we’d get what we got four years ago: a visual feast (as long as you don’t mind lens flares), excellent acting, and a script that doesn’t hold together upon scrutiny. My expectations were, sadly, met.

Let’s cover the good stuff first. The movie is fun. Even when it’s at its heaviest (the Harewood family, Pike’s death, Khan’s anguished expository monologue), it never loses sight of the fact that it’s an adventure story. The pace is excellent—the two-and-a-half hours just zip on by—and the script keeps a light touch.

The acting here is first-rate. As with the previous film, the actors embody the characters they’re playing without spilling over into parody. In particular Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto do an excellent job with characters who are both the same and different from their alternate-timeline counterparts played by William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, because Kirk and Spock are the characters who were most changed by Nero’s time-travel shenanigans in the last film—the former lost his father, the latter lost his world.

Okay, side note here: the myth that Kirk is a rebel who follows his own path and breaks all the rules is just that, a myth. If you actually watch the original series, Kirk in fact regularly obeyed orders, consistently followed the rules—a notable exception being in “Amok Time,” and even then he was forgiven by T’Pau stepping in. Kirk’s maverick rep is entirely an artifact of the movies, especially The Search for Spock—again, Kirk only breaks the rules when his best friend’s life is at stake.

Anyhow, I mention this because Pine’s Kirk is way more of a rule-breaker than Kirk ever was even in other feature films, and I like the way Pine plays him. The Kirk we knew is in there somewhere, but it’s underneath the angry kid who grew up without a father. (It wouldn’t be a J.J. Abrams film if at least one of the characters didn’t have Daddy issues, after all.)

As for Spock, he goes on a nice character journey here, albeit one with a rather sudden resolution. In the opening scene on Nibiru (about which more in a bit), he pretty obviously has a death wish. He’s practically begging the volcano to eat him. But then he mind-melds with Admiral Pike as the latter dies, and he later admits that he doesn’t want that. And then—well, that’s it, really. I would’ve liked the arc to have completed itself in a manner other than Spock talking about it to Uhura and Kirk in the trading ship. But then, there’s another arc he has to go on after that—which, again, we’ll get to.

Either way, though, Quinto is superb, channeling the Leonard Nimoy of forty-five years ago while making it his own. He’s joined by a strong supporting cast: John Cho is a rock, Zoe Saldana is solid, Karl Urban is criminally underused (but, like DeForest Kelley before him, recipient of many of the best lines and is a master curmudgeon), and Anton Yelchin does the best he can with what he has to work with.

But the standouts here are Simon Pegg as Scotty and especially Benedict Cumberbatch as “John Harrison,” who is soon enough revealed to be Khan Noonien Singh.

Pegg is a delight here, taking the ridiculousness of the Scotty character and embracing it. He resigns on a principle, and it’s a good one, but still comes through to help Kirk and save the day later on. Pegg is a great verbal and physical comedian, and those skills shine through without ever losing sight of Montgomery Scott’s skills and importance to the ship.

But the movie is utterly stolen by Cumberbatch. And it’s not even close. He’s surrounded by some pretty high caliber actors, and Cumberbatch makes them look like a high school repertory company. He absolutely sells every element of Khan—his intelligence, his anger, his passion, his calculation, his fury, his strength, his skill. When he announces to Kirk that he’s “better” at “everything,” it includes acting. Hell, he does more with an intense gaze at Kirk through a window just before he beams to Kronos than anyone else is able to do in the whole movie.

(A friend pointed out how impressive Martin Freeman is that he doesn’t let Cumberbatch so completely steal every scene on Sherlock the way he gets away with here.)

I especially like that, while we get a revenge-obsessed Khan à la The Wrath of Khan, the version of Khan that Cumberbatch is playing is much closer to the younger Khan we met in “Space Seed.” He’s more subtle, more conniving, more of a long-term planner. (For all that they spoke of his intelligence in Wrath, he was a lot more reactive and not at all complex.)

The movie is also very pretty, with some stellar visuals. As an added bonus, the Enterprise design didn’t piss me off as much this time (they used Livermore Labs for engineering instead of a brewery, which helped), though the lens flares really have to go.

If only the script actually made sense...

Okay, we start with the Nibiru mission, which is a) the only part of the movie that feels like Star Trek and b) has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the film. I would much rather have seen a movie that dealt entirely with Nibiru, establishing the culture, seeing the process by which the crew decided to neutralize the volcano, and then dealing with the consequences of the natives seeing the Enterprise (beyond a fobbed-off joke scene). For starters, that would’ve actually been a Star Trek movie...

Also, why is the Enterprise hiding underwater? Seriously, on what planet does that make a lick of sense? They have transporters, and they don’t want to risk the natives seeing the ship, so why not just keep the ship in orbit where it’s in no danger of being seen? (Because then we wouldn’t get the cool shot of the Enterprise coming out of the ocean.)

And then Spock objects to them coming out of the water to rescue him because it would violate the Prime Directive. Except for one problem—just a few scenes later, Pike is reaming Kirk and Spock out for both fixing the volcano and letting the natives see the ship. In fact, Pike seems to think that the volcano tampering is the worse violation—though I think he’s more pissed that Kirk kept it out of the report than anything. Still, if they’re both regs violations, why did Spock start getting all persnickety about being rescued being against regs when the very reason he was in the volcano in the first place was as big a violation of those regs?

Kirk is then demoted to commander, with Pike given the Enterprise back, and Spock transferred to the Bradbury. This might be a really cool development, except it only lasts for six-and-a-half seconds, as Pike is killed, Kirk is given his ship and his rank back, and Spock’s back by his side. What was the point of that whole thing if it’s not actually going to matter?

Meanwhile, we meet “John Harrison” who convinces Mickey Smi— er, that is, Lieutenant Harewood to be a suicide bomber in exchange for Harrison using his magic blood to cure his ill daughter. (For all that the magic blood is the stupidest thing ever, at the very least they put that gun on the mantelpiece right there in the early part of the movie, so we know what thedeus ex machina will be.) Points, by the way, to Noel Clarke and Nazneen Contractor, who sell the Harewoods’ anguish just with facial expressions and body language.

Harrison then fires on the meeting of high-ranking officers that always happens when someone blows up a building on Earth. He fails to kill Admiral Marcus, though Pike is killed, and he then uses the magic plot-device long-range transporter that Scotty created in the previous movie because the plot needed to get Kirk back onto the Enterprise. This time it’s used to let Harrison escape to the Klingon homeworld, which he does for no reason that the script bothers to explain. Sure, it’s a place where Starfleet can’t follow, but doing so actually plays into Admiral Marcus’s eeeeeevil scheme to start a war. So why didn’t he go somewhere else? Romulus? Some faraway planet where he could live to scheme another day? Or, at the very least, a planet that wasn’t inhabited with people who wanted to kill him?

Scotty then resigns rather than allow the classified torpedoes that he can’t scan into his engine room. Kirk accepts the resignation and puts poor Chekov in charge of the engines, only to come around to Scotty’s (and Spock’s) POV on the mission and deciding not to use the torpedoes that Scotty refused to have on board. So why let him go? (The reason, of course, is because the plot needs Scotty to go to Jupiter and find the Vengeance.)

Skipping over the absurdity of Klingons with helmets (they have cranial ridges, wearing a helmet is like giving Superman brass knuckles),* we then go to Khan’s surrender, enabling him to play Hannibal Lecter for a bit before Kirk needs his help against the Vengeance—a ship that Admiral Marcus has managed to create all on his own, with help from Khan, whom he found shortly after Vulcan was destroyed.

Marcus’s conspiracy is maddeningly vague. Did he do this by himself? That’s not really possible, so how did it gain so much traction? How many other ships like the Vengeance are there? If there’s just the one, it’s not much of a conspiracy, really. Who else in Starfleet is involved? Plus, Marcus himself is missing only a mustache to twirl. His third-rate Jack Nicholson speech to Kirk on the bridge is embarrassingly bad, and the moment where Khan crushes Marcus’s head is something of a relief, because as a bad guy, Khan’s obviously the more interesting one. (Peter Weller is usually better than this.)

And then we have the Parade Of Endless Action Set Pieces. I actually rather liked Kirk and Khan rocketing through space from the Enterprise to theVengeance, though the debris field was a little too full given the duration of the battle and the damage to the Enterprise, and the scene went on a hair too long—a perpetual problem, as the Kirk-fixes-engineering-and-dies scene and the Vengeance-crashes scene, and especially the Khan-Spock-chase-and-fight-on-the-big-red-thingies-that-only-seem-to-exist-so-people-can-have-airborne-fistfights-on-them scene are also waaaaaay too long.

The script is choked with fan-service, starting with the choice in villain, and extending to quoting/referencing the previous movie that villain was in over and over and over again. Pretty much none of these work. Quoting “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few” just makes the Nibiru scene that much more annoying. The insertion of Dr. Carol Marcus into the narrative is beyond forced, and totally unnecessary except as that tiresome fan-service—only it doesn’t work, as the character Bibi Besch played wasn’t a weapons expert (in fact, her objections to the weaponizing of Project: Genesis is a major plot point)—and also to have a gratuitous shot of Alice Eve in her underwear. (I freely admit to enjoying the latter as a heterosexual male, but it really was spectacularly gratuitous.) But the plot wouldn’t be any different if the admiral and doctor weren’t named Marcus, and it’s a pointless callback.

Reversing the death scene from The Wrath of Khan was cute-ish, but mostly just annoying, especially since Khan apparently stepped outside for a cigarette while this was going on, as this lengthy repair/death scene goes on while the Vengeance does nothing.

And then Spock shouts, “Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!” The first time I sawSTID, it was in a packed midtown theatre on the preview night. That crowd cheered when “Harrison” announced that he was actually Khan, so this was an audience that was right there with the filmmakers on this.

They all laughed when Quinto did his Shatner impersonation. I just rolled my eyes. It was a ridiculous moment.

This is made infinitely worse by the use of Khan’s magic blood to revive Kirk, thus making his sacrifice even more pointless. And it also gives us a resolution between Kirk and Spock that tries to paint their friendship as being as strong as it was in the other timeline, but that friendship had decades to build. Hell, it was already in place when we first meet them in “Where No Man Has Gone Before” (they’re playing chess and Spock is calling the captain “Jim,” they’re already friends), and the bond deepens over the course of two TV series and a couple of movies, so that when Spock dies in The Wrath of Khan, of course it affects Kirk. But Kirk and Spock don’t have anything like that kind of bond yet, indeed, they pretty much have the opposite of one. The entire sickbay scene after Kirk is resurrected by magic blood (I assume Augment blood will become standard issue in Federation hospitals going forward?) falls completely flat because the relationship isn’t convincing.

(Oh yeah, one more thing about the magic blood. If Khan has it, wouldn’t the other 72 guys have it? Why did McCoy need Khan when he had 72 other sources of magic blood right there in his sickbay?)

Some of the fan-service worked. Pine is given two redshirt jokes that work beautifully, especially the first thanks to Yelchin’s pained response. There are two references that are straight out of Deep Space Nine, one obvious (Section 31), the other less so (Ketha, the uninhabited region where Khan takes refuge is also the region where DS9’s Martok comes from). And K/S slash fans must have loved the scene where Carol Marcus reports to Kirk, and Spock acts for all the world like a jealous girlfriend. There are shoutouts to Daystrom (from “The Ultimate Computer”), the Kelvin (from the 2009 film), and the Gorn (from “Arena”), as well as cameos by a tribble and, oh yeah, the mainline Spock, who breaks his own promise to warn his younger self about Khan in a surprise Leonard Nimoy cameo.

There he is! Oh wait...

The Spock-Uhura relationship is still going full bore, albeit with some bumps. I never had a problem with this particular pairing, and anyone who thinks it’s dumb or pulled out of their asses is instructed to go watch “Charlie X” again, with particular note of the mess hall scene where Uhura’s singing. It also provides some of the comedy in the film, particularly Kirk and Uhura’s turbolift conversation on the subject of their relationship strife. (“Are you guys fighting? What is that even like?”)

That midtown theatre crowd I mentioned before enjoyed the hell out of the movie, as did the smaller crowd I saw it with Sunday night. It would’ve been nice if it was a smart movie, but that’s obviously too much to hope for, so we must settle for a romp. It’s a good romp, as romps go, and it’s keeping Star Trek popular after a decade of bad TV shows and bad movies, so I can’t complain all that much. STID is doing what Star Trek did four years ago: making Star Trek enjoyable and popular again.

And hey, maybe next time, we’ll get a script that makes sense.

*There’s also the shattering Klingon moon that’s colliding with the surface of Kronos, which is just weird. Is that supposed to be Praxis, exploding a good couple decades too early? Yet another element where the emphasis was on what looked cool rather than what served the story.

Keith R.A. DeCandido did the Star Trek: The Next Generation Rewatch for this very web site from 2011-2013, and has since moved on to a Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Rewatch, which runs here on Tor.com every Tuesday and Friday. He’s written a metric butt-load of Trek fiction, including more than a dozen novels, a tremendous amount of short fiction, a few comics books, some magazine articles, and more. And he’s written tons of other stuff, too.

#2 Man of Steel

A quivering butterfly. A panting dog. Clothes pegs bobbing in a bucket. All lensed in contemplative close-up. At moments like these, those post-trailer ‘Malick Of Steel’ comments seem on the money. But Zack Snyder hasn’t disappeared up his own Phantom Zone and given us a companion piece to Ang Lee’s arthouse Hulk (2003). Chins are here to be punched as often as stroked in this super-budget reboot.

Still, that big, iconic ‘S’ would seem to stand for ‘serious’ as much as anything else here. With dynamic The Dark Knight duo Christopher Nolan (producer) and David S. Goyer (scripter) behind him, Snyder’s mounted an intelligent, earnest attempt to modernise and mature the original superhero. It’s hello, existential woes, goodbye, red over-pants.

Longstanding elements of Superman mythology are given a darker spin: the Fortress Of Solitude is no longer the gleaming Swarovski-crystal haystack of the earlier movies but a shadowy labyrinth that doesn’t take kindly to visitors. Meanwhile, every schoolboy’s (wet) dream superpower, x-ray vision, here becomes the stuff of waking nightmares for a young Clark Kent.

He’s still the kid shot across the stars from Krypton to Kansas, a secret alien adopted by salt-of-the-earth couple Jonathan (Kevin Costner) and Martha (Diane Lane). But the adult Clark (Henry Cavill) is something new to the movies: not a bumbler (a la Christopher Reeve) but a brooder, rocking a big fisherman’s beard and trying to figure out his place in the world. Man Of Steel hinges on this itchy identity crisis, setting the portentous mood that pervades the first two-thirds as Snyder unfurls Kal-El’s origin story (non-chronologically, Batman Begins-style).

It’s an action-stacked road to the petrol-blue suit, kicking off with three crises in a row (in short: planet, oil rig, school bus). There’s also a generous number of father figures. Unfortunately, this means a lot of samey-sounding scenes of Clark being lectured on history, humanity, destiny, morality…

Repetition hampers the climactic smackdown(s), too. The great news is that Snyder has stowed his fetish for slow down/speed up/slow down motion-meddling (300, Sucker Punch, that owl movie). The less-great news is that he doesn’t quite know when to quit, or how to vary the violence. There are some truly titanic clashes here between super-beings, going at it like flesh-and-blood Transformers (skyscrapers haven’t been this abused since Roland Emmerich’s 2012).

But as with the Bay-‘bots, the fun starts to numb when it’s stretched this far. Just when you think it’s all over… it isn’t. At least it makes up for the set-piece shortage in Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns.

The overall arc, meanwhile, plays like a mash-up of Superman: The Movieand Superman II: we don’t have to wait for the sequel for General Zod (Michael Shannon, reliably intense) and his soldiers to escape space-jail and start hounding our hero. Armoured-up and steaming with righteous fury (he’s on a misguided mission to restore his fallen race), this Zod is all business; none of Terence Stamp’s droll asides. In fact, humour’s at a low premium throughout. Bright, brave, beautiful, Amy Adams is everything you want Lois Lane to be – except funny. Laurence Fishburne plays Daily Planet boss Perry White like Morpheus: Office Manager.

Costner and Russell Crowe (a more athletic Jor-El than Marlon Brando) give good gravitas, but you wonder at times if the filmmakers have confused dark with dour. The lack of levity bemuses more in a high-flying fantasy like this (where people still shoot flame from their eyes and shout things like “Release the world engine!”) than in Batman’s noir-edged world.

Happily, Henry Cavill doesn’t make heavy work of one of the biggest, toughest roles in comic-book cinema. True, he’s more solid than spectacular; Christopher Reeve’s wholesome authority safely remains the performance benchmark. Yet Cavill nails many of the key beats, whether howling in grief or grinning like a loon as he climbs the clouds for the first time.

For a good while the Lois/Clark relationship is cat/mouse, but without generating much sizzle. Although one late development (harking back to Richards Donner and Lester) teases that things will be friskier next time out.

Man Of Steel seduces most on the visual front, boldly sacking off primary colours in favour of 50 shades of grey-blue. The desaturated palette underscores the seriousness, though there’s joy in the design-details. Krypton is convincingly otherworldly (and alluringly swirly), its denizens utilising some eye-catching computer software that looks like the next level of those desk toys where you make a mask of your face by sticking it in loads of pins.

Elsewhere, there’s the loveliest bout of animated exposition since the story of the Deathly Hallows, while the Zod squad are dressed to kill (kill! kill!) in some of the finest mo-capped couture yet seen. And alongside all those Malicky moments (did we mention the jar of pencils?) are grace notes of purest popcorn. You’ll believe a man can fly. You’ll also believe he can look super-cool skidding across tarmac in the heat of battle.

Verdict:

A bracing attempt to bring the legend back into contention that successfully separates itself from other Super-movies but misses some of their warmth and charm. But given the craft and class, this could be the start of something special.

#1 World War Z

This is going to be short. Why? Because I’m tired and I want to go read. Enough of a reason for ya?

Either way, here goes…

I liked it. I haven’t read the novel, so I didn’t have my teeth clenched going into the film (How dare they change the book?! Hollywood NEVER does that!). I also like Brad Pitt. I know some folks don’t, but ever since I saw him in True Romance (minor, but awesome role and performance) and in Johnny Suede (yep, I was one of fourteen people to have seen that film), I’ve really been a fan. So that’s probably why I liked the film. I’m also a sucker for the whole father-protecting-his-family trope. Because I would protect my family from zombies. I’d soil myself in the process, but I’d certainly protect them. In fact…has anyone tried accidental defecation as a zombie deterrent yet? Or uncontrolled urination?

*hustles over to notebook and scribbles idea for zombie story*

“If they can smell fecal matter, they won’t hurt you!”

Anyway…

No, the film wasn’t earth-shattering, and sure, it would’ve been twenty times better had it been rated R, but the zombies-on-a-plane scene was cool, as was the first zombie attack (which I found genuinely frightening).

There were problems, plot holes, and some silliness mixed in, but perhaps because my expectations were somewhere beneath the theatre basement for the picture, I ended up liking it. My favorite part, by far, was a wordless confrontation Pitt had with the chattering zombie. I can’t find a screen cap of it, but Pitt did a great job in the scene, and the zombie makeup was good.

So…yeah, World War Z wasn’t a great movie, but it was worth my time.