Okay I went through the UE in one sitting last night for a second time. Man I love this movie. I really do. In spite of some actually quite substantial problems I have with what is both told and not told. I think some very crucial information to the story is simply glossed over or (totally non-existent) and that the middle portion still has significant editing errors. I *want* to forgive those aspects, and I do, but I still both love the overall film while being somewhat frustrated that I am forced to forgive anything at all.
I'll lead off with some of my issues. If someone wants to call attention to the fact that I might have missed something that rectifies these then by all means let me know.
1. The lead-lined wheelchair. Did they EVER say in MOS that Superman couldn't see through lead? It's been a while since I watched that film but I don't believe they did. A huge gaff to demand that the audience either recall his limitations from the comics or a 1978 origin film that isn't even in the same universe. This is a reboot, you MUST re-establish both his powers and limitations for a modern audience. I thought having lead in the wheelchair was a great idea but what an oversight if the connotations were never established beforehand. I'm hoping that MOS did so and that I'm simply misremembering.
2. Lex Luthor's special bullets. Why did his security team use them? Loading them up with munitions that are so uniquely his seems like a foolish way to remain covert. They almost ruined his entire plan to frame Superman in the desert. It'd be one thing if they were special bullets that would dissolve so that it looked like people gunned down by his team were instead killed by Superman but they seemed to have no special properties other than being a calling card linked directly back to him.
3. What did the jolly rancher Senator hope to gain by giving Lex Zod's body and access to the Kryptonian ship? "We can help each other." How? I get that Lex is established to be this big billionaire wunderkind with influences all over the place and that generally speaking he'd probably be a decent ally to have but why didn't the movie give even one line of dialogue explaining what he stood to gain. I assumed that he wanted access to the kryptonite Lex was importing but again, with Holly Hunter directly and publicly opposing it I still feel like we needed more of the other Senator's plan. Or was Lex simply going to pay him 10 million dollars? Again, they didn't need to add additional scenes for such a throw-away character, just have one single line of dialogue hinting about what Lex was offering.
4. The editing of Lois Lane's scenes before and after the Capitol explosion. She seems to be having this big race against time to warn Superman that she had proof that Lex framed him in the desert but then when she gets to the barrier and sees Superman land she seemingly inexplicably gives up. Why not call out to him? He certainly would have heard her and dropped everything to listen to her. It's what he *does.*
Also during the post-bomb cleanup they have a scene of her motioning to a cop to let her across the barrier and he doesn't seem to dismiss her but then they give us a few shots of Superman landing with a wounded woman, looking at the devastation, and then they cut back to Lois and she seems quite content to still be blocked off from him. Odd and distracting editing choices there.
5. "The Bat is dead, bury it." Ugh. Still probably the single lowest point of the entire film. Thankfully Affleck somewhat redeems it with his cool response but man, what a bummer of an opening line in the first ever cinematic exchange between these two icons.
6. Kind of a random nitpick but how would a random flight attendant know Diana's last name? Does she fly Turkish Airlines *that* often?
7. I now think it was mistake to show Martha Kent being abducted. We should have been thinking along with Clark that Lois was safe from Lex and then been shocked at the "Martha" bombshell right along with him. And then been horrified by the polaroids along with him as well. Even the scene itself played as if it was all a surprise for US, not just Superman. Did David Fincher show Gwyneth Paltrow being captured before the box arrived in the desert? No, you're supposed to let the audience "do the math" on certain things so you can have a bigger dramatic payoff later. We know that Lex has his goons all over the place and that they pretty much operate without restriction, we also knew at that point that Lex knew who Clark was, and then by obvious extension his mother. A big goof to spoil that part of his plan that I don't know that I've seen mentioned before.
8. And I get that this is probably just a personal preference thing but since Eisenberg is simply "Lex Jr." and not the REAL super-villain I think he should have been disposable. I think it might have been cool to have Doomsday rip him to shreds in horrifying fashion immediately after being born, at LEAST in the R-rated cut. Having him survive kind of made him feel like he had "we need him later in the Extended Universe" immunity which I didn't love. Or at the very least let Batman brand his ass.
9. I'm not going to break it all down but while I don't mind that Superman died, as I've said before I thought the funeral and it's accompanying melodrama (Lois getting the ring, etc.) was a bit mishandled.
Okay, those are pretty much my main issues with the film. Some of them are actually pretty big and yet I still think that the good pretty significantly outweighs the bad. I'm trying to think of other films where I feel that way. I'm thinking maybe Alien 3 or Batman Returns. Not sure. As for the good aspects of the film that I've continued to digest I'm going to list those in a follow-up post so as not to have this already long-winded one get any longer.
