"Whose Line is it Anyway?" Reboot: Initial Reactions

     So, as of this Tuesday (7/17/13), we have seen the reappearance of "Whose Line is it Anyway", the hit improvisational comedy show that, for one, really defined part of my childhood, as I grew up watching it, and always flocking to it when I discovered the syndication that flitted on and off of the air, or was playing original episodes. The original, nearly decade long run was an absolutely fantastic, albeit cheesy, form of vaudville-esque sketch comedy, that was very much eternally self-aware and had fun with itself a great deal of the time.

Now, the one thing that always defined the show for me, in hindsight, was the relationships of everyone on the show. It felt, very much like a troupe or a family, akin to Monty Python's Flying Circus in a respect. Simply due to the chemistry and the relationships being one of the building points of the comedy, even though the humor ranged from conventional, to absurd, it was all built on the strength of the relationships between the comics in question. Regardless of who was exchanged, switched around, added on, removed, or anything, there was eternal sense of the relationship between the comedians on stage. It lent to a great deal of banter, in-jokes that can easily be picked up on, for even a new viewer, and made it feel like there was a lot of emotion that added on to the strength of the comedy, making it feel natural, letting it flow, and making the points between the games all the stronger and make the show actually feel longer and more lasting, despite the criticism of the sheer number of breaks between show and commercial, to where it cuts out a healthy 10 minutes of the shows running time, rather than most television only sacrificing 6 minutes for advertising. The point is that upon my first viewing of the 2 new episodes of the series, I feel that so far, there is a very missing sense of Family that made the show more than just a good sketch comedy, but a good show in general.

While I won't deny the comedic talent of the new host, Alisha Taylor, or the strength in comedy of the now well-aged returning stars, Ryan Stiles, Colin Mocherie, or Wayne Brady, there is still this sense that, something's been lost in terms of the relationship. The relationship is still strong with the 3 main center-pieces, because they have had a decade to work together, and still share a strong sense of kinship on stage, it's that it feels ... Insulated. Largely due to the current lack of strength of relationship between the host and the cast. This could be due to it being her first real time on the show, and being a host of a show of this particularly original nature, but it still leads to a cauterized whiplash from the details that made the show more light-hearted and easy to connect to.

 There's no banter really between Alisha and any of the cast members, and there isn't the classic ending point to the "Points don't matter", bit at the beginning. Ex. "Welcome to Whose Line is it anyway, the show where everything is made up and the points don't matter, that's right, the point's don't matter, like whatever your girlfriend says while the game is on". There was a constantly chiding sense of friendship, references, and other matter of silly, and at times, topically biting humor that really gave the show a sense of strength, which the first two episodes of Season 9, as I will be referring to it as for sake of ease, sorely lacked. Further, what made the show particularly charming with it's sense of family and closeness, wasn't just insulting the host in a tongue-in-cheek manner, it wasn't just the steadily accrued in-jokes and patterns, it was how the audience was even brought into it a good number of times, with the yelling and audience suggestions, and particularly, bringing in the audience members. Now, it wasn't done EVERY episode, admittedly, but it was a steady and often enough pattern that it became part of the show's "vibe", and was one of the defining aspects that stuck in the mind of the viewer. However, given this is how they kicked off season 9, given a 6 year hiatus on the show, I feel it is something they should have done, which they didn't, to remind the old fans, and the new ones, the tone of the show would be delightfully sarcastic, zany, and very inviting through these relationships, by making the audience a part of the family, and feel as much a part of the show, as the actors, and the host, making it truly genuine improvisation, and really building a strong relationship all around that made it feel Natural.

 The same was done with the celebrities, when they, occasionally, showed up on stage. There presence was natural, defining to the episode, due to it being a rarity, and also didn't make them a centerpiece, but rather, delighted in their style, while letting them into the show's environment, rather that conforming to the reason the celebrity was deemed noteworthy. Further, they were highlighted by being on stage, the Entire time, thus making them feel as if they were part of the Whose Line is it Anyway Family. Season 9 does NOT do this. At all. Rather, what it does is: Has a sketch or two, has the celebrity show up, have the scene conform to why they're famous, they leave, different sketch, they return, sketch related to their area of fame, leaves, different sketch, end-credits featuring celebrity and why they're famous, done.

 Which leads to a major problem in terms of the show's ability to actually have staying power, due to it being focused on the guest stars without making them feel like they are important to the show, leading to a weird issue of focus that just causes the show to feel weaker. Coupled with the lack of relationship inherent to the comedy, and the lack of audience connection to the relationships that really make good improvised comedy, for a show like Whose Line anyhow, leads it feeling weaker and colder and less entertaining.

 Is the improvisation still good? Yes, they still have comedic talent, it's just that it falls behind to the strength of the earlier seasons due to the lack of rapport. I hope they can earnestly build a better relationship soon, over the course of the season, so that we can really get a show that's better than what it currently is. I do admit though, I feel the formula of the celebrity pattern they're using won't fade anytime soon, meaning I might always have this gripe over the show, and the general contrivance that follows their presence always making it feel odd to watch, and make it feel less natural. Where the American Run of Whose Line is it Anyway was founded on creating a very warm atmosphere, that created close bonds with every aspect of the performance involved, whether they be camera men, the host, the audience, and all focused on creating a series of easy to understand and pick up on references, memes, and motifs, each contributing to a very natural feeling to the improvisation that gave it strength in the number of connections that are powerful, but easy to be apart of, whether celebrity or no. The 9th season has decided to become celebrity centric, contriving itself for the guest who dominates the times they are allowed on stage, but is otherwise disconnected from the bonds of the show, and with little interaction between the audience, the host, and the cast, leading to the lack of access to the connection between the triumvirate that is Ryan Stiles, Wayne Brady, and Colin Mocherie, making it feel as a whole less enjoyable, and less natural, so that it doesn't have the same impact, or create a sense of strong identity that the original had.

 However, I stumbled onto a short-lived GSN series, 1 season, 40 episodes, that seems to keep the relationship going, "Drew Carey's Improv-a-ganza", only 10 episodes are on Youtube, and finding all of them on the internet might be blastedly difficult, but it is definitely worth a watch if you enjoy seeing, as the relationship is still very much there, albeit the show isn't quite as good as the American run of Whose Line is it Anyway, but is still better in terms of the inviting relationship that it provides.

Pacific Rim: THE BEST MOVIE EVER MADE

Allow me to start this by saying that, not only will NOT follow my usual posting format, as a Spoiler section is not really needed, because this movie is not as much about narrative as it is about experience, and to spoil an experience for something like this is that which I'd rather not do. The narrative isn't that important to the overall film, as I will state why in as rambling a manner as I can muster.

 Know, that you MUST SEE this Movie. Or I will hunt you down with a 20 story mecha, and pummel your remains into the Earth. Now, to start with, this movie is stupid. Horrendously Stupid. It is balls to the wall, silly. However, this is by far the most FUN I've had at the theaters in a very long time. Not intellectual intrigue, or pretentious fixation kind of fun in the intellectual sense, but just pure, unadulterated, deeply visceral and geeky FUN. I have never gotten to be able to say that any film in particular, and I hope I can say it more in the future, because if more movies follow this basic protocol of "Have FUN" then we may actually be able tor really enjoy movies that aren't trying not to trigger synaptic fire.

 Word of Warning: If you THINK for one moment too long, you may not enjoy this movie.

 Breaking down the movie.
- - - - - - - - - - - - -

 One: This Movie has amazing casting with little character. Some of the characters are flat and one dimensional, you can really predict a lot of the characters. Desperately so, and if you've seen ANY Action movie centered on a government organization you have seen this movie. But God DAMN was it fun to watch these characters. They had just enough problems to keep us involved in their stories, while not being too interesting beyond a surface layer. However, some characters were more interesting. For instance, my favorite characters, and in my opinion the most developed, were Mako, who looks like Faith from Mirror's Edge, and the General Pentecost, or as I remember him "General Badass".

 A lot of the casting choices are actually really underground actors, or at leas they aren't famous enough that I recognized them, except for Charlie Day from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and Ron Perlman makes a fun appearance as a gangster and scavenger character who actually is important. Even some of the background character designs are absolutely fun to look at, like a highly caricatured duo of Russians, both with bleach blonde Drago hair, and is rocking a beautiful black beard, for this weird whiplash on the sight of him. Even though I claim that the characters aren't that interesting, the way that they structure how the robots work, through neural interface and the concept of "the drift", where memories and sensations are experienced between partners, means that you actually can feel a lot of the chemistry between the characters develop, but just not show a steady bond, which is actually quite clever on the part of the writers given the premise because it gives us far more time to devote to the giant Monster fights over petty "Character development", and all that. That is not what we're about here for Pacific Rim. And that is what makes it special.

Two: The fight scenes were fun to watch, and were AMAZING, and are honestly, what obviously was given the most effort over the entire film, and friendships may be made and broken over which fight scene was your favorite because of the sheer amazing that nearly all of them have. These were what we all came to see it for, what it was made for, and I honestly was squeeing half the time, from the sheer scale and wonderfully silly beauty that these fights have. At one point, they even start doing things as if it came out of a Mecha Anime or a Sentai Series, especially thanks due to the setting having a case of gratuitous Japanese. I don't want to explain these, and why they were amazing. I can't. I might not even do it in the spoilered editions of my musings, because you NEED TO SEE THESE. They are works of geeky art! I sat there wondering after one of them "Can they top this? I think not, this one scene won the movie for me." And Then, while failing to beat my expectation managed to Challenge it with a wonderful show of amazingly silly force! These fights are what Micheal Bay believes he does in his movies, what he wants to do in his movies, but is actually done RIGHT.

 Actually, I could easily tear away from my attempt at organization to give that as a fantastic summation of the film. It's what Micheal Bay thinks that he does, a fun, silly, not that high brow film with amazing special effects, badass characters that are actually funny while managing to straddle a line between caricature and being believable people.

The effects are gorgeous, though the CGI occasionally felt fake early on with the Kaiju monsters, and the constant night fighting actually creates some very interesting luminous visuals, due to the glowing monsters being given runic symbols and such, which made it an interesting panoply of color and glowing blue blood and such. They did a lot of interesting things with the setting, with a background of political conflict, world histories and a setting built on reactions to the existence of Kaiju, and that influencing events surrounding the defense force and so on, it all had a very believable world, despite points where science decided not to existence, some odd bits of causality that can be inferred about Pacific Rim's take on certain issues of scientific credibility, and generally some wacky things.

This is a movie that one does not nit pick, because to do so, does the zaniness a disservice. However, the film as a whole manages to invest one enough to care, while focusing on the major center piece, THE RIP AND TEAR. The setting is interesting enough to be believable, the characters are interesting enough with their various archetypes and fun scenes abounding for each of them, but generally with enough meat to carry them through the entire concept of character development (except, oddly enough, for the "main" protagonist), while the fight scenes are really the center piece of the film and got the most love, with enough around to buoy support and take what could have been a horribly average movie, and by matter of sheer awesome make it a decent movie. If they added more to some of the characters, hell, it could have been a GREAT movie, but it knew what it was.

 It was Roland Emerich in scale, Micheal Bay in budget, and just smart enough to be a good popcorn flick without being dull, offensive, or uninteresting. While the beginning can be seen as slow due to exposition concerns. However, this movie can be nitpicked to pieces, and I did it myself as I was watching it due to odd interplays of science and the limits of believable narrative are stretched at times, it is a simple entity, but a beautifully simple one, unlike most simple movies which fall to eventual blandness. It is very much, actually, like Sentai and Mecha Anime in that regard, it can do beautifully over-complicated, silly things, and be perfectly amazing and embrace that that's what it can be, and what it is.

This is ExtravagantEvil, going Medieval on Bad Movies.
It's almost as if someone added a degree of "grounded reality" to Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagaan.

Pacific Rim, we Love you and always will, because you will never change.

Extravagant Evil: Man of Steel ... Heart of Gold, Movie of Diamond Encrusted, Platinum Genius

The Following will have a Spoiler section, and a non-spoilered section.

NO SPOILERS
To start with: I have made a personal vow to see this movie again, just because I am very consumed by many moments in the film that made me really think about it, and surmised it to be an interesting examination on the character.


Man of steel does a lot of interesting things artistically to really try to complete this image of Superman as a concept as much as a character and is very heavy in terms of symbolism. One thing I loved about it is that it stayed very true to the existential roots that really did make Superman in his inception, that of the Ubermensch and all that jazz. They really played those elements well, and had him as an interesting character that played off of Zod in that same existential framework. Zod as a villain really did make sense as a villain for this film, and you need to see it to really see why. I will discuss more in the section I designate for a Spoilerific examination as to WHY it works so well, but for now, know simply that it does.

Further, like a lot of things done with Superman, largely in the comics, they do a lot of interesting messianic imagery with Superman, and it actually feels very aware that the symbolism like that is required for a god-like character like Superman. To the point where I feel they have a lot of fun with the symbolism to both strengthen the character and use it as a means for a viewer to have fun taking in the symbolism if they did really notice it.

This leads to another thing that Nolan did in this that I liked, he really did have fun with this, while being very serious and interesting all the while. His Humor was Subtle. From what I've heard of some reviews, they pinged it for lacking humor, a la the Avengers, but the humor here is more subtle so as not to lead to Tonal dissonance in a very artsy, but main stream accessible film. In fact, as I will highlight in my un-spoilered section of my observations, the worst joke was in fact a more obvious joke out of tonal dissonance.

Now, this movie was not perfect. Far from perfect. However, not too far away to where you can't see the possibilities in your peripheral vision; which is, ironically enough, a very Nietzsche-esque way of describing the movie. Able to see what it could be, perfect, if it had more will power and restraint at times.

The Action scenes are few and far between in this 2.5 hour long epic, which lead to an issue in that the way they reacted was to really over-extend the fight scenes to a point of gratuity at times, to where one grew almost as exhausted as Superman from the fighting in and of itself. While this does deliver on the epic scope required for combat with a god forged in armor of will-power, it does also become a strain because they go and go and go and go, with fire and bullets and speed and dervish, without time for the audience to breathe at times. It builds tension to the point where it just becomes pain through the chaos now and again.

If they gave more slow points in the fights, it could have kept the scale with a natural lull in the action to
marvel at the chaos, which I will touch on in the more open section I'll compose.

The acting was very good, and while I was very hesitant of their choices I really actually appreciated the performance of Henry Cavill, he carried a very compassionate sense of distance and understanding, and really Really fit the restraint needed to define Superman very nicely. Not to mention his face and body type fit Superman's frame nicely and really made us believe that Henry Cavill could fly.

Due to my concerns with the fight scenes the movie develops some pacing issues, but each section in turn, even if the pacing is odd at times create a very interesting and thought provoking experience that actually is fun to watch by really mixing together really well Nolan's and Goyer's writing, interesting casting, and Zack Snyder's familiarity with high paced action and the over the top nature of combat that superman requires.
While it has it's quirks and issues, as such an odd combination is wont to do, it plays it straight enough to not shatter Suspension of Disbelief

I will be examining more closely my praises and issues with the film below.

For those who don't want to See Spoilers,

This is Extravagant Evil, going Medieval on Bad Movies.


- - - -  - - - - - - - - - - - - -

ALL THE SPOILERS!!!
ABANDON HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE!!!





Okay, in the beginning we focus on Krypton, which I found really interesting as a concept, and tells his origin as it has been told before. It is a very interesting setting, with very interesting technology. It is very grim and distinctive, with this full plate armor, and very fluid natural technology in the forms of things like self assembling nano technology type ball-bearing building blocks, and a very distinctive landscape composed of a landscape that looks like someone took a comb across the entire landscape like combing the beach in Space Balls, Cranked to 11. It had so many weird elements to it, that it was hard to process all the portions together quite right.
Why is their this giant, overly decorated, archaic council of persons that make Xerxes look subtle, and all this armor and all this technology here and taking this particular shape? Not to mention the wild life being shown and being very odd and just not feeling like it gelled together. This lead to me wanting to see more of Krypton explained and explored, but we know the rules, Krypton is destroyed and all hope is lost, therefore we don't get to see any more justifications for the sheer grimness and austerity that embodies the decaying Kryptonian Empire.

That is another interesting thing that they did, I feel like they made the entire society very grimdark, where Kal-El was the first natural birth in all of history and it all devolved into a caste system of giant genesis tanks due to population limits, on an expanding society that covered thousands of worlds over 100,000 years. Which is still very odd, because why would the empire suddenly decide to contract?

So it does take a lot of liberties with the Kryptonians, and made them more "Noland-y", and I liked it, I just wanted more time to really get these elements all set into each other and really get a feel for it, so that it doesn't feel like they just took a bunch of cool elements and aesthetics and smashed them together and shucked it into a blender.

The aesthetic issue kind of came to a head for me with this odd 4 winged, bird dragon that Jor-El rode at the beginning, for soon after the visceral birth of Superman, we see that the entire society is falling apart as Zod is leading a coup. So, Jor-El rides his 4 winged insect bird dragon over to a "genesis pool", none of this is given context for the first... 45 minutes I'd like to say by the way, and swims down, as he is surrounded by fetuses attached to kelp, and grabs a magical rune covered skull called "The Codex", again, no context until the 45 minute mark. All of these interesting concepts, no explaination, no context, other than "People are dying and it's grim and dark and sad". However, it is very interesting and still manages to give an emotional overtone for what the Kryptonians are like and really gives Zod a lot of initial characterization, based on the emotion of the society, even if the overall chunks have this weird issue gelling as this pseudo-sci-fantasy construct, that feels like a more technologically advanced version of the Imperium of Man at times.

Also: Jor-El is played by Russel Crow, and it really really works. He is the same as he always is. Bored looking, tired, and disinterested. Jor-El is a broken man, no one listened to him, and his people are dying.
It actually makes SENSE that he is played by Russel Crowe with that in mind, and also, he soon after gets stabbed and becomes nothing more than a consciousness uploaded onto a magical flash-drive, so he is a broken down, tired, hologram for the remainder of the film. Once again, this actually makes sense to use Russel Crowe.

After all that, and Superman is sent through the "Phantom Zone" (read: the Warp) to appear at Earth, and Zod is safe from the planet's destructon due to being trapped in said Phantom Zone.

Then, the movie does something really clever. It does not tell Superman's remaining backstory linearly.
It skips to Superman in his 30's. On a crab boat. All of Superman's backstory is explicitly told through select scenes of flashbacks, and they let the fame of Superman's backstory, after having redefined Krypton for a new audience, and clarifying the relatively more obscure facts of Superman's name (Kal-el, all that) they just let the eternal story tell itself at the back of our minds, because we know it, and only show us when things change which I have to Applaud the movie for taking such an interesting direction by not directly discussing Superman, because it knows we know him backwards and forwards.

Through these, they actually do some interesting examinations on Superman's childhood, and half deconstruct his idyllic Kansas existence as he comes to really heavy terms with his powers, and we can see the mental strain that it puts him under, and how as a small child he reacted to the world with fear due to the lack of will-power. Which he eventually tempered of course. They are all done very nicely and really help define the character really Reall well.

He is essentially a drifter who keeps having to leave town after he helps people with his Herculean strength, out of an ingrained fear from his father about causing a panic with his existence, which strengthens the levels of Nietzsche sneaking into this movie, due to the constraints of the lessers and all that. Eventually, he's on an arctic trip with the military uncovering a giant object in the ice, where he meets Russel Crowe and we get a lot of context on the magical rune skull, the diamond motiff, and so on. The ship almost has a very Alien aesthetic with the hallways, and we find out that the S on Superman's costume, which is actually a symbol of the house of his father, is a symbol for hope. Of course, the only point of issue I take is "Why is Superman's Suit and cape on board in holding for 18,000 years?". This is one of the problems with the movie, some stuff you just have to buy and run with, and it does lead into the pacing issues I gave earlier.

This movie likes to expedite scenes that can be hard to write around given their set-up and skip to the next point.

We can talk more on that later as, before the ship is discovered, we get to meet our Lois Lane. She is ginger. She is hot. She is Spunky and curious and everything we want our Lois to be. She is great in this, and I would not have her any other way. Even if she is too stupid to realize the floating sentinel thing on the ship that she followed Superman on to, wasn't there to kill intruders and got whipped in the stomach . Superman heals this of course with his heat vision and dumps her in the snow and runs away. this all happens post exposition of course.

Now, as my immediate mastery over my memory of the plot starts to slip, I'll really start going into a more thematic and 'key scene" break down of the film with plot elements more interspersed.

Soon after Lois manages, through tenacity alone, to track down Superman, we get more reflections on his backstory and the death of his adoptive father, which really does give us a lot of insight into the Superman character again, but very much with a Spider-man element of dedication to it, here we get to see Zod hijack the world communications array and demand Superman, and eventually, Supes surrenders himself,ore t and is for a time, of his own choice detained by the military which leads to another example of the subtlety of the comedy of the movie being based on the sheer power and concept of Superman, like how he tears through handcuffs the military gave him like paper.

Now, before the decision was made, we see a really heavy amount of the messianic imagery, when Superman is discussing with a Priest what he should do, which is serious, but has a level of reaction humor that was well done on the part of the priest, and there's interesting lines like "Should we really trust in Zod", which to me sounded reminescent in "In god we trust", that made me smile personally. This scene highlighted a filming technique that dominated the film. Heavy emphasis on the foreground, blurring the background, and making it less about the setting, than the characters.

This is done a lot with the dialogue with the priest, when the background is just slightly blurred, and shows a stained glass of Jesus. Next to Superman's head, and he talks about sacrificing himself for Man, someone who must bear man's burden. Get the picture?

Eventually, we see that Superman is taken aboard the ship of Zod, and we find out a major diversion from continuity, it is not Kryptonite that is superman's weakness, it is simply the atmosphere OF Krypton and the environment, due to it being a difficult place to live. Therefore, due to him being empowered by Earth's easier environment, what happens is that he is forced into the capacities of their environment, to where it is essentially poisonous and debilitating without it actually being a source of sheer weakness, just relative weakness, which due to the more grim elements of this film, is more than enough and fits the tone.

Lois also gets dragged aboard for some reason, and she has the magical flash-drive that contains Russel Crowe, and he teaches her how to save Superman by screwing with the atmosphere and life support to match Earth rather than Krypton and save Superman.

Then he heads down to Earth, and here is where I start to get a major beef with the movie.

Due to the environment of Earth, a lot of the preserved Kryptons from the war have Super Powers, albeit to less a degree than superman because they haven't the time to concentrate on refining it, which is an interesting weakness also, because when they lose their personal biomes, they develop the Sensory issue that Clark conquered when he was 10, leading to it being a point of dishonor to Zod when his "Breather" falls apart and he's disarmed by this major distraction of X-Ray vision.

Now: Due to this, Superman has to use his powers to kick the shit out of the Semi-Super Super villains.
However,  know that Superman is aware of the scale his powers impact society and is eternally compassionate. He therefore, instead of doing the thing he always does when super-foes appear and lead them out of town to lessen the carnage, he acts Reckless, and insane, crashing into Diners, throwing the villains into trains, nearly destroying his hometown, and Metropolis, in a holocaust of fire and collapsing buildings and gas stations. This is Stupid. Very stupid. He tears apart the city and acts very much in heavy disregard of people he can't see directly, despite his highly refined super vision. I found it very distracting just how long this would commence of the sheer carnage and carelessness, and Superman would simply take it, rather than draw their fire to a less inhabited portion of KANSAS. Kansas. The land of corn fields and dust, and there was nowhere he thought to run to? All the while, indirectly causing mountains of death. Nice one Supes. Nice one.
, w
Now, as I write this, this reminds me of a major point of editing that they did in this movie that I liked, and at the same time, didn't.

They did a good job with the special effects, and really got us to feel what it was like to look at Superman flying around at high speed and punching through walls, and really the feel of speed in combat is there, and it is palpable, and interesting. When Superman learns to fly, this speed is also presence, and we have fun also just switching between Superman moving and his reactions to his new found, will-forged abilities and it really does give us a lens into what it's like

However, a problem occurs. It is hard to process at times. With the initial flying scenes it works very well, but in the scuffle of combat, in a flurry of more realistic/gritty darker colors, it can fall to Micheal Bay syndrome and be hard to process, and it falls into being a flaw I feel in the movie.
We focus a lot on Superman's perspective, and really get a vibe for seeing the world through the eyes of superman, except Speed. And this was directed b Zack Snyder. Slow-Mo Snyder. And he did not think that there was any moment that could not have had fun with Slow motion than Superman fighting Pseudo-Super men? Where everything is incredibly fast combat maneuvers, amid hails of bullet fire, giving a moment to process the punches, and experience the speed of Superman, and his villainous opponents, in comparison to bullets, would be an interesting way to give us a cool moment to breathe and be able to refocus on what's going on.

Another interesting thing, when Superman first felt the Kryptonian environment, he slips into unconsciousness, and through Kryptonian science, they probe his brain and send him into a very interesting confrontation between Superman and Zod, where they learn that Zod wants to rip apart Earth's surface with advanced terraforming to make it Krypton mk. 2. This was done with some interesting and trippy and dark imagery that really sold the issue that Zod and Superman have, and solidifies a major issue that Superman has in this, sacrificing the source to his largest existential question in the name of the people he feels close to is a very palpable issue, and I am truly a fan that they included it, and shows Zod's strength as a villain.

Back to the small-town-fight, there is a female that serves as Zod's right hand girl, and she is DULL when she speaks, she goes on this pseudo-evolutionary-social-darwinist-"morality is for the weak" rant while fighting in a diner and it is another thing I didn't like, was because it both sacrificed her as an interesting mini-boss, but also was just a bland and generic villain speech, which also falls into a problem of bull shit science that the movie suffers which I'll expand on.

Remember the magic rune skull?
It contains the genetic code for every Kryptonian genetic combo that is useful to their society. By the BILLIONS. We were lead to believe it was the magic flash drive. Rather, after Kal-El was born, they tossed it into a collection of Laser beams and stored all their genetic code into superman.
post-natal genetic add ons. By the billions of combos. Each one nesting on his blood cells.
THIS IS BASIC BIOLOGY.
NOT MAGIC.
BAD.
YOU HAVE BEEN A BAD, BAD MOVIE!
SIT IN THE CORNER AND THINK ON WHAT YOU DID!

It actually is very interesting for the plot as it makes Zod even more hellbent on killing Superman, especially after, surprise, Supes wins, but makes the plot for them a lot more inter connected which is really Really interesting. It's Still BULL SHIT but I can understand why it was done for the sake of the conflict.

Anywho, Superman saves the day, the Earth is protected, evil  terraforming is stopped, and due to dropping an interdimensional nuclear collision, which suffers from more bullshit science and expedited pacing to really keep the movie moving, they killed all the evil Kryptonians by tossing them back in the Phantom Zone.
Zod SOMEHOW survives.
SOMEHOW.

One last note: They actually do something very interesting during all this, with the giant terraform machine being in Metropolis, they make it feel a lot like 9/11 footage, and get a perfect reaction, and show that humanity does have a good core, which justifies Superman's goal a lot more, and really gives the setting flavor, and has a major emotional weight to it, and was really clever and well done.

Anyway, Zod has lost everything he fought to protect and is consumed by an existential crisis, and lashes out at Superman, vowing to slowly kill everything Superman ever loved, and him, slowly, and quickly advances in mastery of his powers, due to the Will of the Warrior, and he sheds his armor near the end, and flies, more themes of Nietzsche flying around, and the fight is well shot, though is very long, and drawn out, and so on.
Just tears the city apart and costs thousands of lives. Meh.

They land in a trainstation, and Clark gets Zod in a head lock, and a family is cornered in a section of the train station because Zod wants to make Superman mourn the people of Earth just like Zod mourns Krypton.
Shoots eye beams, slowly moving towards them, and Superman, trying to keep Zod's head away from them, divert his aim, Snaps his neck.

THAT'S RIGHT.

Superman kills Zod, by snapping his neck. And Superman just breaks down and cries as a result of this. That moment of existential break down lasts all of 30 seconds, and then it moves on to the end.

This is the scene that made me want to watch this movie a second time.
This is a major moment in Superman's character, and is really fitting with the  Noland way of doing this sort of thing, and I feel like I must examine this entire movie over again because of it, and I believe it was intended to be an accidental neck snapping, but I don't quite know.

This scene really did just solidify the movie for me, and made me realize that there is a lot more to this film than the surface, and is a major tone defining moment. It shows that Superman's ideals must now and again be sacrificed, and when it does, Superman dies inside. It is really my favorite scene because it gives the climax a moment to breathe and settle itself as a question of morales, which is what Superman will always be.

then it ends, it moves on, Superman is left alone after chatting with a US General, and gets a job at the daily planet, after a joke about Superman being hot.

All in all, a fantastic movie that really shows what superman is, despite changing Continuity a lot.
If you HATE Superman, watch this movie, it might just change your opinion on the character, as it shows what Superman is at his core, and fleshes it out really well. It is a beautiful, well made, and despite my criticisms, a fantastic movie that functions more as a perfect experience with interesting questions, rather than a collection of perfect scenes.
This Movie is a fantastic exploration of an interesting character, and while it suffers at times, and falls for occasional issues, it really has a lot of subtle, nuanced and well handled characters that deals with ideas of Human destiny, and the potential of man with willpower, and what we really should define ourselves as, and choose to be, with the importance of these choices being fantastically demonstrated.
This is, a fantastic, multi-layered movie, and one of  THE MOST engrossing films I've ever seen.

Finally,
this is ExtravagantEvil, going Medieval on Bad Movies.