MONSTERS, SUPERMAN, ZOMBIES AND THE DOME

I generally avoid films featuring animation (thus skipping Monsters University, which was #1 for the weekend), vampires, zombies and comic book supernatural abilities.  Well, I went to two  of them anyway this weekend, but more for the technology:

                                Rotten Tomatoes
                             Reviewers  Audience   Technology

  World War Z            67             86           RPX and 3D

  Man of Steel            56             82           IMAX and 3D

WWZ came in #2 and MOS #3 this weekend.  RPX is the acronym for Regal Premium Experience:

The sound was louder, but the screen was not quite giant.  However, World War Z was entertaining and tense, with a sundry of technical flaws.  You've heard of avian flu.  People afflicted can infect others, and a certain percentage dies.  World War Z has nothing to do with a real war.  Brad Pitt plays a United Nations World Health Organization staffer asked to risk his life to find patient zero responsible for a pandemic where the victim becomes a zombie who runs around moaning and biting others, who then become zombies, and so forth.  Pitt fails, but there will be a World War Z2, and, in fact, a trilogy is now being considered.  Paramount was this film, Mission Impossible 5 and GI Joe 3 on tap for 2015.   I guess zombies are better than vampires, although that could well be WWZ4.  (Sorry, couldn't get rid of the following space and I'm due somewhere now.)

Man of Steel is about the beginning of this superhero.  The IMAX and sound system were special, with the seats vibrating more to create that effect.  That's Steve Reeves from the TV series to the left, and the darker Henry Cavill today.

Krypton is dying through resource management stupidity (not unlike what is happening to our planet with global warming).  Interesting that these people look exactly like us Earthlings.   However, compared to us, they are all supermen and superwomen. They also ride giant drangonflies because they can't fly on their planet. Through all this chaos, Krypton's resident brain, Jor-El (Russell Crowe) and his wife (Ayelet Zurer) have a real baby (too confusing for me to explain why this is extraordinary).  They send off their child as a newborn baby in a spacecraft to Planet Earth.  Nothing is shown about what must have been a magical ride from Krypton, or how long it took, but who, apparently, safely lands on a farm in Smallville, Kansas, and found by Kevin Costner (Earth father, Jonathan Kent).  and Diane Lane (Earth Mother, Martha).

Named Clark, the youth grows up confused and only once uses his powers to save a school bus.  Later, one particularly confusing coincidence is that he just happened to be working as an itinerant laborer in Alaska when the U.S. Government finds a 20,000 year old spacecraft from Krypton…pretty much in Clark Arctic backyard.  Let's see now, the budding Superman arrived 33 years ago.  The ship 20,000 years earlier.  Maybe here is where I might have fallen asleep, but, somehow, Clark finds a secret entrance, enters and, with a key placed by his birth father in the baby’s compartment, unlocks a hologram where he is told by his father the full story.  I guess Jor-El could gave transmitted this information to their 20,000 year old scout ship.  However, nothing is explained.  A little while later, this spacecraft flies away without Clark.  Huh?  Where did it go?  Really confusing, just like this narrative.  I must have missed a clue or two somewhere.

The S, incidentally, symbolized HOPE on Krypton, so Lois Lane (Amy Adams) just nicknamed him Superman, in contrast to the comic book series where there was a love triangle:  Lois loves Superman, Clark Kent loves Lois and Lois is kind of out to lunch.  Amy as Lois knew from the beginning.  How anyone could be so unconscious that Clark was not Superman was one of my grievances about the shallowness of comics.  At least the film had some sense.

Superman's real father (Russell Crowe) and Earth father (Kevin Costner) kept repeating how Kal-El (Clark's given name on Krypton) would Save Humanity on Planet Earth.  So why was he eternally limited to fighting Lex Luther, Atomic Skull and assorted villains in the dinky fictional town of Smallville, Kansas?  There are larger global problems.  Clues about MOS 2 and MOS 3 litter the movie.  Perhaps, maybe, Superman and Batman in the same film?  I'll make sure to skip that one.

Oh, yes, can't leave without a few words about CBS's Under the Dome showing tonight, 10PM EDT and PDT, 9PM in Hawaii.  This is the latest Stephen King novel made for movie or TV.  He is an executive producer, but the boss is Steven Spielberg of Dreamworks.  This book was only published four years ago, is 1,100 pages long, and as King can be quoted, killed a lot of trees.

I won't play spoiler (for this you can click to Wikipedia, which does give everything away).  But I can say there will be a lot deaths.  Some have speculated that King wanted to highlight the Bush-Cheaney relationship, warn about global warming and sustainability and dabble with the cannibal mentality.  It is all that, of course, and should keep you occupied this summer on boring Monday evenings for 13 weeks.  Of course, you can also use your DVR to skip the commercials and watch on boring Thursday nights.

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The tropical depression west of Mexico now has a name, Cosme, and at a strength of 55 MPH, is heading towards Hawaii.  Tomorrow Tropical Storm Cosme becomes a hurricane, but by Thursday should begin weakening.

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