Movie Review: The Fantastic Four: First Steps

 

Hey everyone, my name is Anthony and welcome back to my Movie Review.

Yup, another day with another superhero movies, this time we’re going back to Marvel Cinematic Universe for the third and last one in a single year, and perhaps save the best for last, whereas the latest Captain America is rather… Mediocre, which im glad I never seen it. Then there’s Thunderbolts, which I’ve covered this one that its pretty nice one, even if the movie’s marketing felt like an afterthought that it ended up with an underwhelming box-office. That is until we have this film that they would hopefully this will be a big deal after two previous movie in the name of team of Four figures, and Family.

“The Fantastic Four: First Steps” is a 2025 superhero film that was directed by Matt Shakman, produced by Kevin Feige, and written by Josh Friedman, Eric Pearson, Jeff Kaplan, Ian Springer and Kat Wood.

In order to know where a movie of Fantastic Four begins, we gotta go back a decade ago, but we’re not to talking about the one the unreleased one from the 90s. Back in 2005, we had the very first film starring Fantastic Four directed by Tom Story, I remember saw it that, while they tried, but it kind of botched it for trying to be a bit hard for be funny or such, even if this movie came out three years after Spider-Man, while Story’s first F4 isn’t that great, but it made a lot of money, which he was happy for the result ever since they start developing a decade ago. Two years later, Story returned to make a sequel called Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer and… Its the dumbest and the most disappointing film that I remember saw it once back in my old school and its not hard to see why the new installment and spin-off with Silver Surfer were dumped after the box-office got flopped. When MCU became a big deal (but long before Disney acquired 21st Century Fox), Josh Trank stepped in at 20th Century Fox to do the reboot of Fantastic Four as a loose adaptation of “Ultimate Fantastic Four” in 2025 and… This is easily the WORST take on F4 ever made (which im glad I’ve never seen it) with negative reception and it was a box-office bomb that it cost damaged to 20th Century Fox with an estimate between $80M - $120M and Trank was pissed off over the failure.

After Disney was eventually own 21st Century Fox, this left many fans that they would like to see MCU’s take on either X-Men (though we have Deadpool and Wolverine) and even Fantastic Four, the latter of which is exactly Marvel Studios’ president and the producer, Kevin Feige is looking for to do his vision of Fantastic Four. Originally, Jon Watts, who did with three Spider-Man movies in MCU, was attached to be the director of the new F4 movie, but decided to leave the development, saying he’s running out of gas after working with Spider-Man: No Way Home and MCU contents, along with focusing his next film “Wolfs”. Man, even some filmmakers were burnt out on MCU, but I digress. While after we had a F4 cameos like John Krasinski’s Mr. Fantastic (though he said he would love to coming back, but no avail due to lack of discussion) and the return of Chris Evans’s Human Torch in Deadpool and Wolverine (while being skinned to death), Feige eventually had a discussion to a new director Matt Shakman, though Matt was hesitant that he was planned to working on new Star Trek, but he was thankfully left the development to working on new Fantastic Four, but it wasn’t going to be in our main universe in the development, its going to be taking place in a different universe in retrofuturism style, while, like Gunn’s Superman, made a brief origin of the team.

So, with all that said, will this movie be a worth of fantastic, or is this film that it should’ve been eaten by giant evil being in galaxy?

Well, lets find out.

The Story

For movie about four members working together after the space mission, you think the story is gonna be about working together for good reason and saving the world? Predictably, yes, but, its actually well written.

The movie takes instead of Earth-616 (or Earth-199999. Yeah, our main world’s identity is confusing in Multiverse saga), it takes place in the retrofuture world of Earth-828 in the 1964, it was a celebration of 4 years’ birthday of of four astronauts’ space mission before they were struck cosmic rays to receiving powers, ranging from fighting bad guys, solving problems from disasters, building up diplomacy called “Future Foundation” for removable military weapons and bring peace, and finally thanks to marriage between Reed Richards and Sue Storm, they’ll potentially becoming parents thanks to her pregnancy. But at the same time, they’re caught hot water when the world meet Silver Surfer (specifically Shalla-Bal) when she came to Earth in a warning message that the world is about to end from the giant space being called Galactus. So its up to Fantastic Four set up to leave Earth for negotiation keep their home world safe.

Its a fairly decent story in this movie that its all about save the Earth from the evil threat of Galactus to prevent being devoured along with trying to push away from Silver Surfer, even if its easy to predict for the story and the climax, but its nicely executed for elements, like difficulty plans and evene working together. That’s exactly what its telling for the latter, its the message to be together in the name of family, cause after all, Reed and Sue are potentially becoming mom and dad since they’ve been married from like a decade ago. There’s always struggle for how to get along from dangerously becoming selfish when it comes to either protecting the baby, the level of genius or even last minute changes. Its always a tough decision for being part of family and being the group of four heroes, especially when it comes to preventing the end of the world, which I will admit, even though its challenging for how to be working as a family figure of superheroes, but also has a good heart. Though if I have a nitpick is the purpose from Galactus for the one and only request to spare the planet, but il save it for the characters, but less SPOILERS. Despite it has a heart and some drama for struggling plans or saving the Earth, but in MCU fashion, it has a humor moments, which I will say, the humors did gave me a chuckle from either the dialogue or even some physically, though like always, some can gave us humors work, but others, not so much.

While its predictable and some humors are hit or miss, but the writing is done pretty good for its message, the setting and even catch a break from the main universe, the latter is nice to take a fresh air to see Earth-828.

The Presentation

The movie’s budget costed $200M, which I guess it explained why its an anticipating big budget film unlike Brave New World and Thunderbolts. But as for the presentation, Man… It looks pretty damn good what they gave us, at least for some.

It safe to say from starter, the filming were done on studio for the sets and green screen in Pinewood Studio in Buckinghamshire, England under “Blue Moon”. But in fairness, they look pretty nice what they’ve build to giving retrofuture come to life, it gives an imaginative, colorful and old-school look what it feels like to be in retrofuture vision in New York City, it looks so damn good and beautiful for old imagination old future look from the 1960s. I mean after all, we’ve seen plenty of retrofuturism posters either from 30s, 40s or even 50s. Sure, many people trying to capitalizing the retrofuture concept in real life, some are pretty cool, but others, not really. Of course, second half of flying into space is also a fun journey, even if it was a setup for negotiation to Silver Surfer and Galactus, while Galactus’s ship is like a miniature version of Unicron from Transformers for eating planets to Galactus himself. Though the only except for their filming is when they filmed Durdle Door in Dorset, England for Shalla-Bal’s origin.

As for the designs, like I said, they wanted to bringing retrofuture comes to life, it wasn’t just the world or the city, but also the fashion, they look faithful for the set of 1960s from wardrobe, advertisement, the vehicles and such, which they look pretty nice. As for Fantastic 4, their costumes are not from the comics, but more like a reference from the 1994 version by the late producer Roger Corman, based on the bright blue and white costumes they’re wearing, which I find them look pretty good and fitting for 1960s (Even if the Corman version has never get a chance to release this movie, but that’s a long story). But of course, lot of people had been waiting for is The Thing, which he surprisingly looks faithful from the comic unlike either wearing a rocky costume from 2005 or poor-man CG naked Golem abomination in 2015, its a pretty nice touch what they’re going for, but the downside is that he could’ve been either only wearing pants or trunks than a bodysuit, im just saying. But I also find funny when he has a rocky beard based on teleportation plan due to limit of powers. And finally, they also brought their robot assistant name H.E.R.B.I.E., which I find it pretty cute, especially it was done by animatronic and some visual effect, again, nice touch there.

As for the action and the effects, I find them pretty good and fascinating to watch in MCU fashion, however, the actions are minimal for the focus of the chemistry between our four heroes, we only get to see the montage in the first act when they fought numerous baddies like Mole Man, Giganto and Super-Ape, the space chase between our four heroes and Silver Surfer and the of course, the climax. Despite the minimal of actions, but the effects are pretty nice, aside of practical effect like the aforementioned H.E.R.B.I.E., the visual effects from powers, mocap and such are pretty fascinating what they’ve done, especially with the help of numerous effect companies like Industrial Light and Magic and Sony Pictures Imageworks.

While some presentation like nearly lackluster action or some are my nitpick, but they did the best work for the effects, the settings and the actions, il give credit for that.

The Characters

For a movie about the four heroes, you think the characters will give a promising development with some good hearts? Well, I think so, for the most part.

Lets start off with Fantastic 4 themselves, they’re the astronauts and superheroes in New York to fighting against the evil threats for peace, along with exploration ever since after they got exposed from cosmic ray. Of course, they have their different personalities, whether be Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic (played by Mando himself, Pedro Pascal) being a leader of the four from his genius science and stretching body, Sue Storm/Invisible Woman (played by Vanessa Kirby) being the older sister and the Reed’s love interest with invisible and force field, Johnny Storm/Human Torch (played by Joseph Quinn) is Sue’s young and cocky attention-seeker in his flight with fire, and finally, Ben Grimm/The Thing (played Ebon Moss-Bachrach) Reed’s best and former veteran astronaut in his big walking rocks with strength and durability. When it comes to them in this movie, while they remain the same from the comic, but they’re not working together as a team, but they working together in the name of Family, this is thanks to a subplot and chemistry between Sue and Reed that they’re now becoming mother and father when she’s pregnant for baby Franklin, which is pretty nice, but I find the idea of going on space journey for negotiation while being pregnant is a bad idea, which is the other nitpick part I have in this moment, I mean it would’ve been fine if she’s giving birth when they’re on Earth instead of going out in space, but that’s just me. But in fairness, the written between Reed and Sue are pretty nice, based on their difficulty for becoming a parents when they’re mission or even finding a new plans based on incoming Galactus, with Sue being caring and warning when it comes to cooperation, while Reed, despite being the smartest leader, but have a hard time to came up that he could dangerously becoming selfish if its not going on the way, even being father is challenging too. As for Johnny, he’s no stranger the comedic role for being cocky, curious and kind of self-aware, he just likes to showing off. I guess its not hard to see why Quinn is a fan of Chris Evans’s role of Human Torch in 2005, which I can see why he nearly imitates Chris’s role, but more development and less womanizing. As for Ben Grimm, he’s more of a gentle giant for being loyal and moral for family like an uncle figure of the family, he’s more of passable, but il give a credit to make him likable, but the real likable in my view is either Human Torch or even Invisible Woman. While The Thing is fine, but I find them pretty good and possibly relatable when it comes to working together for family in their business, but of course they did a good work of their performances, I can tell they’re having fun for their roles.

Next up is Shalla-Bal, aka female Silver Surfer (played by Julia Garner), a humanoid silver alien from Zenn-La who’s Galactus’s assistant for searching planets to feed for him, despite she has a difficulty choice to be either stick with him or being negotiated for harsh deal for peace. I find her to be… Not bad at best, she’s more of a secondary villain to neutral, she’s another passable one. But I find her to be in the wrong place, yes she looks beautiful in her metallic appearance, but its just that they could’ve stick to Norrin Radd, aka the OG Silver Surfer, the first Galactus’s Herald, which is something that if they wanna follow up the Heralds of Galactus, bring Norrin as the main neutral, not his future girlfriend/next gen of Silver Surfer. Im not saying I don’t like Shalla, nor even Julia, I think she did a nice work of her role, but questionable choice having Shalla in the final cut instead of Norrin, which I guess its no wonder why when Shalla is picked up into this movie, it left many fans a lot of question of left Norrin like an afterthought. Or maybe we’re gonna wait IF we have Norrin himself in MCU’s future. Or maybe in the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday.

And finally, we have Galactus (played by Ralph Ineson), a gigantic cosmic being who consumes planets for his growth power in destruction for over billions of years since he was born. I find him, quite terrifying for being giant planet eating space being, but I find his writing to be… Underwhelming, he’s just a giant walking menace in demand if he either takes one thing to keep the place peace, or he’ll takes his gigantic ship to consuming the planet for his power hungry. I think its safe to say he’s pretty much an afterthought, while Shalla is like the focus in her choice, while he treats her like a tool to be on his side or else. While I find Ralph’s performance as Galactus is fairly decent, but its just the way he was written is just lazy, we just want to learn more about him than nothing.

As for the rest, there’s not much else to say about them, either for plot development or just there. There’s Lynne Nichols (played by Sarah Niles, aka Bernadette Pearce from F1) is the newly founder of Future Foundation after Sue created it for drop the weapons for peace, Harvey Elder, aka Mole Man (played by Paul Walter Hauser, aka Embarrassment from Inside Out 2) is one of villains back then who rules the undergrounds for Moloids, and Ted Gilbert (played by Mark Gatiss) is the host of his own talk show.

While some characters are okay, but il give a credit for the execution for some of their developments and even their performances.

And now for my Final Opinion of this film.

Overall, The Fantastic Four: First Steps is exactly what we’ve been looking a film that its worth with the name after years of giving us some bad Fantastic 4 movies.

It has a very nice writing, the setting is so good, some characters are enjoyable, the actions are fun, some jokes are good and it looks pretty good what they’ve accomplished.

However, while its pretty good, but its nowhere perfect with couple of problems like some design are nitpicky to me, its kind of predictable, some of the characters could’ve been better and, I almost forgot to mention that the film’s run-time could’ve been better to be a bit more than to 2 hours instead of less than 2 hours, which it probably explained why there are some developments that, while some work well, but others like the villains, could’ve gone potential.

Even if the movie has problems that im pointed, but its a big relief to giving us a good Fantastic Four movie. Although, even when I looked back the 2005 movie, even I understood its bad for couple reasons, but its my guilty pleasure that its not bad. But when First Steps came in, its a pretty good one. Its definitely a must-watch film for MCU and F4 fans. I enjoyed this one, but not perfect from flaws compared to my new favorite film of this year, Superman in DCU.

For my rating, im gonna give this one an 8/10.

So this ends of my movie review, if you guys have your opinion or any suggestions, let me know at comment bellow and support me on KO-FI.com/blackevil.

Thanks for reading, and im Anthony, signing out.

Movie Review: Superman 2025

 Hey everyone, my name is Anthony and welcome back to my Movie Review.

Last time, I did my looking back on Man of Steel, which, as I’ve said before, I used to think its somewhat good, but looked back now, it was nothing but an over-budget overhype film that its just nothing but desperate attempt to bring heroes into darker tone, but turning into a joke to any DC loyalist (like me) are disgusted to looking back, that is until when we have those Snyder Cult are taking their defense way too far to personally attacking opposing fans with harassment campaign with BS and death threats. I know it sounds like an agitation, but can you blame those hardcore cult how toxic they are? Which at this point, when DCEU went into final years (particular with Shazam’s sequel, blue Beetle and Aquaman’s sequel), I’ve lost all hope of DC movies that I much rather watching either animated series (like My Adventures with Superman or even Harley Quinn) or some of other old contents. But of course, when it was bad, its no stranger reboot is a thing to fix the problems what we have (for the most part), including this long waited return to bringing back to the old route in today’s review.

“Superman” is a 2025 Superhero (and sorta reboot) that was written/produced/directed by James Gunn and co-produced by Peter Safran.

The idea of this movie came during the first half of DCEU, when making the sequel, Batman V Superman, it was originally intended to be the dark version of “World’s Finest” that both Superman and Batman have a bitter feud before they gotta dealing with Brainiac, but as we all know, this sequel is the most baffling, broken down mess how it turned out, it went back to the drawing board after Superman was killed off (like too early) when they’re bringing him back from the dead in Justice League. But ohh boy, the drama isn’t stop there, after Snyder left due to personal reasons from his family, Joss Whedon took the role and the result was a MAJOR disaster, despite it ended up making money at the box-office. After the “Stupid Idiot” version of Justice League came out (until Snyder came back to release his own cut version of JL), they were promised to making the sequel of Man of Steel, like possibly going in lighter tone, along with Henry Cavill (who played Superman) would like to be inspired from Pixar’s Up, but didn’t worked out. But for the next couple years, the whole plan to bringing back Superman felt completely forgotten, especially Cavill was originally appear in cameo on “Shazam!”, but couldn’t due to his schedule conflict for playing the villain role in “Mission Impossible Fallout”, but Henry hasn’t gave up for his role, but it felt like an afterthought as he was parting ways from DC Studio because trying to make a new one with him is pretty much hopeless. However, there’s a new plan involving Black Superman (lets say, came from modern Earth-2) with J.J. Abrams as the director and Michael B. Jordan will portraying as Black Superman (aka Val-Zod), how’s the project been? Well, I haven’t checked any recent reports, aside of James Gunn would give them a helping hand. Speaking of Gunn, after released “THE Suicide Squad” and the sequel into series “Peacemaker”, the final years of DCEU was a complete crap show with so many disappointing films and box-office flops, and at the same time, its also when the new boss of Warner Bros (and the biggest punchable face) named David Zaslav after WarnerMedia and Discovery merged together (Yeah, its not gonna go very well since the merging of AOL and TimeWarner), he went into a new direction of this company, and also crap show moments like canceling almost EVERY projects from movies to even series (such as a Batgirl movie, a Scoob’s Christmas movie, DC Super Hero Girls (Yes, it was canned after cliffhanger, of freakin’ course…!) and Coyote vs ACME, but the latter is revived thanks to giving project away to Ketchup Entertainment for second chance). After canceling “Superman: Legacy”, DC Studios going under a new management with James Gunn and Peter Safran as the duo CEO and duo Chairman, they decided to reboot DC cinematic universe as “DC Universe”, the plan is to bringing DC back to the old route to be not just having some projects in dark tone, but also in lighter tone, and even some mature one, the latter of which start off with “Chapter 1: Gods and Monsters” (kind of like MCU’s saga) with the series called “Creature Commando”, taking place around after “THE Suicide Squad”, but involving monsters (I saw it and its actually pretty good), while Peacemaker’s second season will be back, but jumped into DCU.

But when it comes to Superman, it was originally going to be sorta like a midquel of Man of Steel, but it was changed into a new Superman movie with David Corenswet as our new Boy Scout. According to Gunn, his version of Superman is an inspiration from the comic series “All-Star Superman” based on couple of elements, and its been said that this movie is gonna be about Superman’s struggle to connect the humanity while skipping over his origin, which I understand his decision, like we’ve heard about his origin like thousands of times, eh?

So, with all that said, will our new Superman can give us a positive hope to connect the humanity to save the Earth, or is this film isn’t a movie, but its an “it”?

Well, lets find out.

The Story

For a sorta follow-up and reboot of DC cinematic universe, you think the story will be something new and improved writing? Well, yes for the latter, but the first part, kind of.

The movie begins without Superman’s origin, but only mentions via texts (which I understand the skip, but it feels like we’ve seen his origin like more than dozens) from Kal-El (aka Clark Kent, aka Superman) being launched out to crash landing to Earth. Speaking of which, we see Superman crash landed to the ground of Northern Arctic in brutal injury, but thanks to his high-pitch whistle, he’s summoned by his trusty pet Krypto the Superdog to the rescue to his hidden Fortress of Solitude with his robot servants called “Superman Robots” to healing him with Yellow Sun. Despite he misses his fight with “Hammer of Boravia”, Superman is also living in double as Clark Kent to working on Daily Planet as a mild-mannered report (despite of kind of clumsy), and as a hero to fight the baddies and the menace. But after beat the Kaiju with an unexpected help from the Justice Gang with Guy Gardner’s Green Lantern, Hawkgirl and Mr. Terrific, the rich nemesis Lex Luthor broadcasts a video of Kryptonian message (given by Kal’s parents, Jor-El and Lara Lor-Van) about not only the reason why Superman is landed on Earth, but also been “said” to conquering Earth in the name of Kryptonian, causing the public turning against the last son of Krypton, its up to Superman to find the way to stop Lex in order to clear his name.

Again, I understood that we’ve seen the origin like multiple times that we start straight with the bang, but story wise, its pretty nice to going with the fun of character driven to Superman, but plot is rather predictable and its another one of those films about heroes trying to clearing their name, you know, when the main protagonist has been accused for criminal activity or even posing a threat to fight back to regain their appearance, like its easy to predict the result throughout the movie, but like I said, the movie is mainly focusing on Clark Kent/Superman for his character driven that he tries to connect to the humanity for, in a classic motivation, “fight for Truth, Justice, in the American way”, which is exactly what he likes to do, though, it isn’t as easy based on public reception for the motivation or someone make a conspiracy against our Kryptonian hero. But of course, the movie also has a subplot where we have Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen, despite they’re try to know the answer the reason why Superman is here to protecting people, along with also trying to finding the proof against Lex’s accusation against our hero, especially it will be challenging to teaming up with Justice Gang, which its a pretty nice backup to help Superman before he’s taken away to the Pocket Dimension. While its flawed, il give a credit for the writing for not just a character driven and some drama moments from Clark’s difficulty choice in front of Kent Family and even the intense interview between Lois and Clark/Superman, sure the interview scene is fun, but its also kind of personal that Superman is trying to clear the truth that, again, he was born to protecting the people of Earth in peace, despite she’s taking the interview seriously. Thankfully, unlike DCEU, while it does trying to be serious, it also wants to have fun, which I will say, its actually pretty good and even chuckle worthy with some good jokes, ranging from Guy Gardner being… Guy Gardner, a fun one-line and even the running gag between Superman and his pet Krypto, which I find it pretty cute and fun as well. However, if I have a nitpick for the writing, is there’s a plot hole about Lex Luthor created a portal to the Pocket Dimension, I know Lex is genius, billionaire self-entitled with his sense of God Complex, but seriously, how the hell did he discovered or even knowing about the Pocket Dimension??

While the story is predictably flawed and my nitpicky plot hole, but they did a fun work to go lighter, fun and some faithful to DC, especially for story driven to our main Kryptonian.

The Presentation

Unlike Man of Steel that its an over budgeted film that costed between $225 to 258M. Here, it costs almost low as $225M, its almost the same number, but MoS’s budget is estimated, I mean sure its slightly cheap to look at, but to be fair, it looks bright, colorful and surprisingly pretty good.

For starters, the filming location is pretty nice and beautiful, along with the background design to either look faithful from the comic like Daily Planet (good riddance on that compared to DCEU) or even trying to be new like the Fortress of Solitude that its basically a headquarter with spiky crystals that it can also hide underground to prevent being witnessed (especially for Superman Robots that she should’ve keep their eyes on trespassers like Lex Luthor and his group). Sure, they also filmed in the set from the interiors like Fortress, Daily Planet, LuthorCorp (Yes, its renamed from “LexCorp” to “LuthorCorp”, im guessing its meant to be a family business like any business’s names after the founders’ last names), while the Pocket Dimension, isn’t just the set, but green screen with digital background, which probably explained they were filmed in Trilith Studios at Atlanta, Georgia. But of course, it wasn’t just filming in the studio, but also filmed outdoor, they first filmed in Adventdalen valley in Svalbard, Norway, is no secret it was first filmed on Winter season to fitting in for Superman’s secret base, but that was the first filming when they started. While the rest are filmed in Northern Ohio from Cincinnati to Cleveland, which filming in Ohio to portraying Metropolis (along with Bovaria) is a pretty nice place.

As for the effect and design, they’re pretty good for what they pulled, though for the most parts. The first of which is the costume, which im sure its been talked about all the time, even before the film’s release, mainly for Superman’s costume. I know some of you going full on toxic calling it “Ugh Superman? More like Diaperman!!” or “Shame on you for worst costume, Gunn!!” Yeah, those reactions (mainly from DCEU/Snyder fans) are overblown and a high level of stupidity. Why? Its meant to bringing Superman back from the way he used to wearing, like you know, blue bodysuit with Symbol of Hope, red boots, matching shorts and cape. But of course, there are some loyalists called it a relief to the old school outfit (for some parts). If you ask me about this, well, its actually not bad. Sure, its nowhere simple and classic as Reeve’s Superman, but its more like a the more modern with classic outfit with the textures and layers around this suit, and to add another classic element, having his symbol to his cape, which is a nice inclusion that we never forget. Speaking of symbol, when I first saw that, I was all like “The costume looks good, but ugh, what’s this symbol, it looks like a cheap 7 instead of S!”, but in reality, based on research, it turns out the movie’s symbol is a reference of one of Superman’s comics “Superman: Kingdom Come”, I haven’t noticed it, but il give credit to try to find something new logo that came form the comic, rather than from scratch. But if I have a nitpick on Superman’s costume, it would be the neckline that its higher rather than lower that we all know. I know the neckline part is a reference to New 52, but come on, that part is botchy if you wanna be classy. Meanwhile, there’s the Justice Gang costumes, while they’re look cool, but it feels like a copy-paste with different colors, I mean it would’ve been fine for Mr. Terrific, but not so much for both Guy Gardner and Hawkgirl. There’s also Lex’s The Engineer and Ultraman which I find them to be decent, while The Engineer looks cool, despite one using nanotechnology as a weapon (Yup, another nanotech cliché in a superhero movie since MCU), while Ultraman looks unique instead of being a diabolical version of Superman, but is it just me or why is Ultraman looks like a long lost cousin of Black Noir from “The Boys”?

As for the effects, its also pretty nice. While they’re using CGs in post productions like Superman’s abilities, Mr. Terrific’s drones and Green Lantern’s energy power, along with some mocap of Superman Robots, but they also want to tone down the CG with practical effects, which is pretty good what they pulled off like wires from flying, and even some robots were done in animatronic.

As for the action scenes, they’re pretty good to watch to we like to see Superman flying to the air in an ass-kicking contest from facing against Hammer of Bovaria, fighting against a Kaiju, the chase and fight in the Pocket Dimension and even the climax, they’re pretty good to see some action impact, but of course, it does have some sense of humor, which again, did gave me a chuckle to watch from either delivery or visual gag.

While it has some problems it suffered (like some costumes), but it looks pretty good to have fun, bright and colorful that it feels so refreshing.

The Characters

After having a bland written characters in DCEU, you would hope they gave us a proper character development in the follow-up/reboot cinematic universe? Well, they’re surprisingly pretty good, for some.

Lets start off our title protagonist, Superman, aka Clark Kent, and aka Kal-El (played by David Corenswet), once mild-mannered reporter in Daily Planet to brave and helpful hero to Metropolis, for being the last son of Krypton. In this movie, while we all know he’s the main focus (Well, 75%) and him young in over 20s, he’s more like the young hero in difficult to coop from not as perfectly powerful, kind of naïve and struggled himself from the public face. He’s like he’s in RPG level 1, sure he does have powers like flight, strength, heat vision and super breath, but like I said, he’s nowhere 100% indestructible and not-so-smart, especially when either Lois, Jimmy or some other employees of Daily Planet that he’s kind of a loser (sorta like Peter Parker in Spider-Man, except nerdy). While he’s not perfectly stronger, but at least he’s enjoyable in this movie from curious and overwhelmed to caring and protective. When it comes to David’s performance, I think he did a good work of his performance, ranging for double life with different voice like Christopher Reeve’s Superman to young and struggling like Jack Quaid’s Superman. Here’s an interest fact, back in the audition for who’s gonna be the new Superman, my favorite actor Jack Quaid was in there to playing as Superman in self-tapes, but as we all know, David got the role as our Man of Steel. Though I think Jack would be great if he plays as The Flash. Then again, he did voiced Superman is one of my favorite show “My Adventures with Superman”.

Next up, we have Lois Lane (played by Rachel Brosnahan), a reporter of Daily Planet and Clark’s supposed love interest, but left her many questions to him. Though at first, we may investing her and Clark to having their loving chemistry, like we’ve seen plenty of times, but in this movie, despite they’re in relationship, but she’s much more taking seriously for the reports and looking for the truth, which is especially the point when we have the intense interview between her and Clark. And much the aforementioned my favorite show “My Adventures with Superman”, she isn’t depicted as damsel in distress, she’s more concern about Superman at risk from public backlash against him and she’s also like to come help our main hero to clear his name, especially teaming up with Justice Gang, il give an appreciation of changing Lois’s development from constant kidnapped victim back then to now becoming heroes’ unlikely helping hand, especially for Superman. But of course, Rachel did a good work of her role, especially with her chemistry with David.

After that, we have Lex Luthor (played by Nicholas Hoult, aka Renfield), he’s the main antagonist in the movie where he runs his rich business “LuthorCorp”, but when he sees Superman he wants to putting him out of picture of either release his own heroes like The Engineer, Ultraman or even Hammer of Bovaria in his hatred towards our Kryptonian. While most version of Lex is either calm with a small ill temper based on his resentment on Superman, but here, he’s quite of over-the-top boss of his business that he’s overly obsess, determine and manipulative that he REALLY wants to put Man of Steel out of misery for either imprisoning him or kill him, but if its not going on his way, he’s clearly turning into a ticking time bomb in a fit of crashing out to either in desperation of hunting down Superman or even badly treating his employees. Like Jesus, obsessed much? But I will give a credit for Hoult for doing a pretty good work of his role that we love to hate.

Next, we have Jimmy Olsen (played by Skyler Gisondo), a young boyish photographer of Daily Planet, and being Lois’s companion (though as a friend, since again, we see Lois and Clark are in love), I find him to be fairly decent, though he’s meant to be Clark’s best colleague, but he’s more like Lois’s best colleague to taking pictures for Daily Planet. While he likes to work with Lois, but he’s sorta plays like a detective that, like Lois, he’s looking for the proof, but more towards LuthorCorp, along with secretly having a crush on Lex’s employee, Eve Teschmacher. But like Lois, its nice to see him in action, for a bit, to helping Superman to not just clear his name, but also exposing Lex Luthor’s setup. Again, its nice to see humans come to helping Superman in support. And Skyler did a nice work of his performance.

Lastly, we have Justice Gang, which they’re like the prototype version of Justice League, but as we all know they’re the sidekicks in the movie, but not ready to bringing Superman to the team, cause again, Justice League wouldn’t be for about… Next couple years, cause DCU has just getting started.

There’s Guy Gardner (played by DC’s overused actor, Nathan Fillion), he’s the leader of the gang with his use of Green Lantern’s Power Ring, along with being the jerkiest one in Green Lantern Corp for being abrasive and kind of a prick. There’s Hawkgirl, aka Kendra Saunders (played by Isabela Merced, aka Dora The Explorer, and aka Anya Corazon in… Urgh, Madame Web…!), she’s the young member of the gang as half-human half-Thanagar (or Metahuman if you like to call), who joined the team after retaining her past trauma that she’s more of an angry demeanor with a small sense of humor. And finally, we have Mr. Terrific, aka Michael Holt (played by Edi Gathegi), the brain of the gang for inventing high-tech gadgets robots and his flying transport to fight for justice and he’s surprisingly likable in the movie from acceptable for helping normal people like Lois to even a fun, but brief, chemistry between Superman and Terrific.

As for the rest, they’re actually fascinating for some have a good personalities, or some just there for plots.

There’s Metamorpho, aka Rex Mason (played by Anthony Carrigan) who’s an archaeologist to becoming a metahuman superhero with powers of the elements, though he’s also been in prison at first, Eve Teschmacher (played by Sara Sampaio) who’s Luthor’s assistant and his girlfriend who’s constantly like to taking selfie that she’s kind of annoying of her selfie faster I scream “MISS TESCHMACHER!!!”, Perry White (played by Wendell Pierce) who’s the chief-in-editor of Daily Planet in no-nonsense mood, along with his resentment on Lex Luthor, The Engineer, aka Angela Spica (played by Maria Gabriela de Faria) is Lex’s partner with her ability from her nanotechnology, Ultraman (played by [REDACTED]) who’s Lex’s second partner, even though he looks more like a silent bodyguard, Jonathan and Martha Kent (played by Pruitt Taylor Vince and Neva Howell) are Superman’s adoptable parents ever since he was launched out from dying Krypton, along with either Martha isn’t as accustomed to technology, while Jon, like always, giving advice to be responsible to be a hero. And there’s remaining Daily Planet employees like Steve Lombard (played by Beck Bennett) is a big shot reporter (though he’s more of a douche), and Cat Grant (played by Mikaela Hoover) is a pretty columnist.

Oh and lets not forget Krypto the Superdog, he’s also enjoyable to watch from being playful and kind of being a troublemaker, sure we can see Krypto is either played by actual dog, or others done in CG. And here’s an interesting fact, Krypto’s appearance is based on James Gunn’s good-boy dog named Ozu. Nice touch.

I should also point out there’s even more characters brought in from either brought from DCEU (at the time) and came from the beginning of DCU, either for plot or for cameos, there’s Rick Flag Sr. (played by Frank Grillo) the father of his late Jr while working as the director of A.R.G.U.S. since Creature Commandos, and Peacemaker, aka Christopher Smith (reprised by veteran wrestler (before retirement, as im writing this), AND HIS NAME IS JOHN CENA!), a vigilante wise-cracking S.O.B. who likes to killing people in his name of peace, though he only shown on the news, but won’t give you a SPOILER details.

While some are flawed, but its pretty nice to have a new improvement to give them a well-written characters and a fun acting to deliver.

And now for my final opinion of this film.

Overall, the 2025 Superman is definitely worth of hype, and I enjoyed this movie for being refreshment after the embarrassment of DCEU.

The writing is pretty nice, the presentation looks bright and colorful, the action scenes are fun to watch, it has some nicely written characters and the jokes are chuckle worthy, along with some surprising Easter Eggs from references if we’re familiar.

Sure, while il give an appreciation from the writing, but its nowhere perfect, while the story is good, but predictable, some plot holes left me questioning and some costumes are good, but can be nitpicky.

This is a “Must-Watch” film for any DC loyalists who wants to see a new and improved take on Superman if anyone like to bringing DC back to the old route, but for non-fans of DC, I’d say give this one a watch, im sure you may like this movie. For me, after all the anticipation, this is the film perhaps I would like to rewatch the film, once it’ll coming out either digitally or physically, since it’ll probably becoming my new favorite. Like I said, this is easily a highly recommended film that you should check it out. It may or may not be the movie of the year, its fun to watch.

For my rating, since I enjoyed this one, im gonna give this one a 9/10, along with earning the Trophy of Success. This is definitely a film that we wanna give a huge thanks to James Gunn to make DCU the beginning of the new era.

So this ends of my movie review, if you guys have your opinion or any suggestions, let me know at comment bellow and support me on KO-FI.com/blackevil.

Thanks for reading, and im Anthony, signing out.

Movie Review: Man of Steel REVISITED

 

Hey everyone, my name is Anthony and welcome back to my Movie Review.

For decades, while I enjoy Batman contents, I’ve always like to see movies or shows involving the strong hero of Metropolis, Superman. Even though Batman maybe my number 2, but Superman is definitely my Number Uno, he’s ranging for living himself as a last Kryptonian on Earth (unless we have Supergirl or even his nemesis General Zod) to confronting at Lex Luthor. Although since we’ve seen numerous contents involving Superman, he has a tumultuous time for how he’s portrayed, from being ridiculously overpowered in a cartoon days before the 90s, a heroic but awkward behind the identity like Christopher Reeve’s Superman, or a good-heart, clumsy and yet struggle in double life like Jack Quaid’s Superman. But in case in cinema, Superman is pretty much in a rollercoaster ride from good to forgotten ranging from either continuation like Superman Returns that sadly got flopped we used to have DC Extended Universe to competing against MCU, but failed miserably, especially in 2023, which, as im writing this, resulting not only Zack Snyder being done with DC contents, but James Gunn will be the creative control to rebooting DC’s cinematic universe with next year’s Superman. Speaking of which, since I heard about the DCEU, I had my old review of it and I was pretty much bashed it so badly like an immature version of Nostalgia Critic (before the controversial “Change the Channel” that im moved on from NC, but long story). And ever since DCEU is pretty much dead from reboot (New 52 style), I decided to looking back at this movie thinking to myself “Am I really bad that I took this movie so hard to make it look bad?”. Which is why im doing yet another Revisited Edition of my Movie Review since I did with Rush.

“Man of Steel” is a 2013 superhero movie and the first DCEU film that was directed by Zack Snyder, produced/written by Christopher Nolan (yup, the same guy who did Batman trilogy before DCEU), co-produced by Charles Roven, Emma Thomas and Deborah Snyder (who’s Zack’s current wife) and co-written by David S. Goyer.

The best way to describing the development of this movie was… Tumultuous. After the release of Superman Returns 2006, they were hoping to give a second chance to make a sequel with per-self-destructed director Bryan Singer to direct. But sadly, due to a lack of test screening from Singer’s request (Bad move there, Bryan…) and bad timing to competing against Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and The Devil Wears Prada, the movie got Kryptonite’d at the box-office. Thus, Warner Bros went back to the drawing board for another revision of Superman. Originally, they were originally planned to having Matthew Vaughn and Mark Millar working together for making their version of Superman, not just they’re take of Man of Steel, but to hopefully make an epic eight hour trilogy, which im assuming they wanna competing with Chris Nolan’s Batman trilogy. However, that plan was ultimately changed for reintroduction of Batman and Superman, especially for the latter that director role was changed to McG as a director, since he wanted to making his own Superman movie (despite there was a court that it was resulted Jerry Siegel’s family recapturing the rights of Superman’s origin and Siegel’s copyright.) with, surprisingly, Christopher Nolan joining in as both writer and producer (aside of revealing Man of Steel is going to be on its own cinematic universe than sharing the same time with Batman Trilogy). However, rather than making an old school reference of Superman since Action Comics #1, it went into a nonlinear narrative and modern take with David S. Goyer stepped in as writer of story and screenplay. However, the director role had been changed all over from many choices from Darren Aronofsky (the one who gave us The Wrestler that I covered a couple years ago), Matt Reeves (before he gave us The Batman, also been covered) to the late Tony Scott. But it wouldn’t be until Zack Snyder threw his hat in the ring as a director role with his wife Deborah joined in as a producer. However, despite Nolan said there will be no connection between Man of Steel and his Batman Trilogy, the movie was originally planning to having the new Bruce Wayne in the movie with Ben Affleck as the new Batman role, but that plan was left in a shelf for awhile until Batman V Superman was brought in. I should also point out that while this is a reboot of Superman, but they’re also using it as the beginning of “DC Extended Universe”, which I understood their prep of their cinematic universe, but maybe they were late when Iron Man was already started five years ago to starting MCU, it feels like a bad timing after their long development for their reboot.

When Man of Steel was landed on Earth on June of 2013, the movie had a VERY divided reception of this movie, while many people love the action, the presentation and perhaps some acting, but fell flat due to the poor writing for the lack of development, Richard Roeper from Chicago Sun-Times called it that it has no new ground for regard of Superman films, which he said, I quote “we're plunged back into a mostly-underwhelming film, with underdeveloped characters and supercharged-fight scenes that drag on and offer nothing new in the way of special-effects creativity”, but there were a few people liked this movie like Screen Rant’s Kofi Outlaw gave it 4/5 star and called it “Man of Steel has more than earned its keep, and deserves to be THE iconic Superman movie for a whole new generation”.

As for my experience, like I said before, I’ve wanted to see Man of Steel so badly at cinema that, after I watched Superman Return that I thought it was boring, I was hoped that Man of Steel would be better for their revision of Superman. I thought I liked it, but felt it could’ve been better, which, again, I made my so-bad-its-dated review that im pretty sure I took it too personally, thus, while im looking forward with James Gunn’s Superman for yet another re-re-re-re-re-re-revision for next year, I decided to rewatching if my thought has changed.

So, with all that said, will this very first DCEU does changed my mind that its not as bad was I said, or do I think it still dumb?

Well, lets find out.

The Story

For a movie being revision of Superman (aka the beginning of DCEU), Its rather a straight forward superhero movie with origins, discovery and fighting against the evil threat once and for all, IF the writing could’ve either makes sense or even some development.

Like many Superman’s origin, we begin in Krypton, after giving birth of our newborn Kal-El, his father Jor-El, despite happy to see his kid being born, but he’s also concern that his home planet is about to be destroyed (due to the planetary core is destabilizing instead of red sun), despite the skepticism from authority, and being confronted by General Zod to find the way to saving the planet, Jor-El has no choice but to setting up his son to not only capturing a genetics codex (which appears to be a skull), but also using it to Kal-El’s spacecraft to launching away to different planet (mainly Earth). Fast forward to couple years later after the landing, Kal-El, now named Clark Kent (thanks for being adopted by the you know who in many adaptations), he’s ranging from having a job of fishing to living in normal life (I think, cause the transitions between the flashback and present time were all over the place in confusions), despite he gains super powers thanks to yellow sun as Kryptonian. Aside of showing his stressful flashback from uncontrollable of X-Ray Vision, exposing his Super Strength to save the bus from incident to questioning himself to let them live or die without exposing his powers and his tragic loss of his father Jonathan Kent (in an anticlimactic tornado death). Then he goes all the way up North (lets say, Greenland, Alaska or whichever around in Northern Canada), when he heard about an UFO, which turns out it happens to be a Kryptonian scout ship, only getting interrupted when Daily Planet reporter, Lois Lane, has entered the ship when she’s assigned about the same situation, which she gets into trouble from being attacked by Kryptonian robots, leaving Clark took them down, healed her with Head Vision (Okay, how does that work as a heal factor to humans??). After fly away with the ship and drop her off for the rescue helicopters, Clark lands the ship to North Arctic, right before he meets the AI hologram of his late father, Jor-El, he explains about as well as we expect, he brought Clark Kent/Kal-El into capsule to launching out of planet and General Zod was an A-Hole to cooperate about then dying Krypton and telling Kal-El to becoming a protector to the people of Earth with his super suit. But later on, people on Metropolis (along with Clark Kent) witnessed a UFO in the air, then received an abrupt broadcast with pixelated threatening message from none other than General Zod, so its up to Clark Kent (as Superman) to first explaining who he is and then going to save the world when Zod and his Kryptonian crew planning to terraforming Earth as their own Krypton.

Now, the story itself is simple as what we expect, learning about his origin and facing against the evil threat, though I know this is long before we have Lex Luthor, here, we gotta dealing with General Zod in his desperation plan to bringing Krypton back from glory, which im okay for that. However, despite the simplicity, the whole movie is trying way to hard to explaining about how to be careful to hide the power and learning who Clark is when people viewing him in question before learning the truth from AI Jor-El or many other philosophical message for what purpose on Clark, what purpose on Lois or what purpose on other characters out there, its just all over that place, and it makes this movie either jumbled mess or the writing of this movie is a convoluted mess that it jumped all over the place from flashback and such, especially on the first and second act. And of yeah, did I mention they’re trying too hard to giving us a development? Yeah, the story, the world building or even character development feel so lacking that we can liking this, sure they’re trying, but the execution comes off as lackluster that we can enjoy or even related. But the one plot element that baffled me is whether or not Clark Kent/Superman has a choice to let people live or day, normally we can say “no” that suffering isn’t the right answer, but here, it feels like dying is optional that completely deviating what we know about Superman, but trust me, we’ll get there to the characters.

While il give a credit for trying something new after the origin, but the writing just came off as a mess, confusing and lackluster.

The Presentation

The movie’s budget costed between $225 – 258M, that’s about like one of those big budgeted film as what you expect, and by look at it, its… Fairly descent for its presentation. Or perhaps the presentation and the actions are the budget’s focus than the writing.

For starter, the filming location is interesting spot for taking place either Metropolis or even Smallville. While the presentation of planet Krypton looks interesting, but I find the setting to be odd at best that it felt more like a minimal of futuristic design, more with some nature and downright questionable, some designs like Kal-El’s launch pod looks like a fetus, which kind of make sense, but when General Zod and other hostile Kryptonians are banished into Phantom Zone, their pods looks like… Lets say, flying prunes? (Or just, use your imagination) Its no stranger that some shots were filmed on sets like either Krypton or even Fortress of Solitude (you know when the scout ship fly away to Arctic North that turned into the fortress?). But it wasn’t just filming on the set, but filming outdoors as well in Chicago (as yes, The Windy City), California and even British Columbia, Canada, the latter of which is like the focus on both Metropolis and Smallville like when they filmed on Ucluelet, Nanaimo, and of course, Vancouver. Sure they also film in Chicago to imitating Metropolis. Speaking of the latter, the setting in Metropolis is not bad for mix of Chicago and Vancouver, but one nitpick that I noticed the building of Daily Planet, which it looks like a MAJOR downgrade compared to the comic or even 1978’s Superman. I get they wanna make something different or realistic, but come on, I’ve better city design on SimCity.

As for the effects and filming, I find some scenes with the effects and the quality is fairly descent to see from Clark Kent/Superman coming out and using his powers like in he comes out indestructible (in fireproof) in offshore, X-Ray vision, the heat vision (either using his power or pose of threat in anger) and of course, his good’ol fashion flight. Sure, the Kryptonian effects are pretty cool to see, even though the technology are odd looking what they’re representing. However, one part that I really hate about this movie is the way they filmed. Sure in modern action movies, it tries to be like a point of view to see what’s going on with the battle or even the witness either Superman or the UFO, but when we’re not in action scenes, the shaky camera are annoying from the start, its fine when we’re in action like chase or POV, but there’s no reason to get shaky when we’re take a break. But lets not forget the constant zoom in the POV, like I get they want to play almost like a found footage, but there’s no excuse to have a constant zoom in the action or witnesses that, much like the shaky camera, it gets infuriating.

Of course, there’s one thing that many like to see, the presentation of Superman’s costume. When I first saw it, I thought it look pretty nice, despite the symbol of “House of El” is kinda off-putting. But, looking back now, I find it to be… Bellow average at best. I mean, I know “DC’s New 52” is one thing when Superman going full on trunk-less, not just for reboot, but some modern readers/viewers, but in case for this movie, not only they pulled similar design from New 52 (so we think), but also “a modern aesthetic” and for different tone. Though, while the symbol looks good, but again, off-putting, some textures are not bad, but between without shorts, and the darker color, I find it to be pretty bellow and didn’t have the charm what we know about Superman, gone is the bright, colorful and the charm. If you like this suit, that’s fine, but if you don’t like it, I know how you feel. As for the rest of the designs like Kryptonian armors, I think they’re not bad, though most of them are either done traditional like armorless bodysuits or some royal outfits, but some like armors are obviously done with CG.

And as for the action scenes? Well, I find some action scenes are fairly decent to see them flying around beating each others for either saving the people of Earth or even trying to change Earth to Krypton 2.0. But I think my favorite is the battle in Smallville, aside of cheap product placements and the turning and shaky camera, but its nice to see Superman got a helping hand from the military from hostile Kryptonians, and even the final bout between Superman and General Zod in Metropolis, despite Superman could’ve protect people and buildings from destruction and the final part… Yeah, il save it later. While some action action scenes are okay at best.

While the presentation looks fine, but its just too ambitious, too dark and annoying from various ways to filming.

The Characters

For the beginning of DCEU, you think they could give us a promising character development to make them like like MCU’s Infinity Sage? Yeah, due to the writing’s problem, the characters felt like they didn’t give us some good developments.

Lets start off with the Man of Steel himself, Clark Kent, aka Kal-El, and aka Superman (played by Henry Cavill), unlike other roles of Superman either Christopher Reeve or even Jack Quaid, this version is more of an outsider that he explores all over for help or being crossed the line like when he got bullied by drunken customer. In other words, he’s one trying to give a helping hand, but by only himself while kind of being a jerk at the same time. Yeah, when he started as Clark Kent, it just feels like he’s trying to help, but kinda being cheaply overpowered without knowing his powers nor even his own identity that like public in question, gone from being nice, mild-mannered and clumsy humanoid alien that we all know. But once he learned about his origin and then becoming a hero from his father Jor-El, he eventually becoming a hero to protecting the people of Earth, but once he becomes Superman, rather being well-protected and helpful, he’s more like, again, cheaply overpowered being that kind of being a godlike hero almost without any weaknesses, and not to mention, he also less helpful whenever he fights the hostile Kryptonian, leaving putting these people at risk without the safety and especially the final act, again, more on that later. But not to mention, they also came up that, there’s a scene when Clark talks a man in church about his powers, he’s questionably compared himself as Jesus Christ. Yeah, its been controversially brought up from “Superman Returns” when they did the comparison the powers, the message or even arms stretched out after throwing off the landscape with Kryptonite, but alas, they did it again in Man of Steel with even dumb execution that there’s no reason to comparing Superman to Christ, which sure, he is powerful and kind of careful to protecting some that he cares, but he REALLY needs to be caring, is the people of Earth to be protected without putting themselves in risk, along with being lackluster of merciful, which clearly made this Superman either being dumb or cheaply overpowered. Now before you’re going to attacking me, I’ve nothing Henry Cavill, he’s a good actor and he did the fairly decent role in this movie, especially for (by far) the only British actor who plays as Superman, but the problem is the way he was written that just didn’t work of the execution.

Next up, we have Lois Lane (played by Amy Adams), the reporter of Daily Planet who’s been assigned about the strange witness about Clark. While she’s still being damsel in distress, but she’s more curious and pressured that she wants further story in difference between Clark Kent (while he was on his own before meet AI Jor-El) and Superman. Sure, when she was first introduced, she generically in distress from being threatened by Kryptonian robots to holding hostage by Zod and his crew, but she’ll eventually fight back as Superman’s helping hand, which il give a credit, but its just that her personality is rather minimal what we were hoping for, I don’t know either they forgot to give her personality, or Amy must’ve forgot how she’s portrayed, she’s just a curious in her risk to a lucky helping hand to Superman. Again, I’ve nothing against her, she did a nice work of her, but again, its easy to blame from the way she’s written or depicted that they’re “trying”, while the chemistry between her and Clark/Superman are… okay at best.

After that, we have General Zod (played by Michael Shannon), the main villain in the movie as a once convicted Kryptonian to hostile in attempt to changing Earth into Krypton 2.0 for his race’s glory after their home planet were destroyed. I think he’s kind of nicely written, sure Zod was introduced in the 78 Superman is more of an afterthought before the cliffhanger for Superman 2 (either theatrical or Donner’s cut). Whereas Zod is planning to taking over Earth for his dominance and revenge to kill Superman, here, Zod’s goal is to wiping out humanity for the rebirth of Kryptonian, which I find his goal pretty fascinating. Sure, Zod is over-the-top in his desperation to kill Superman because he has codex on his system, just that he wants it to be big and powerful than Superman (Yeah, that codex thing is also dumb too, it feels almost like a filler). Despite some flaws, I think he’s a pretty good villain, even if he’s kind of being over-the-top, and Mike Shannon did a pretty good work of his villainous role.

And lastly, we have Jor-El (played by Russell Crowe, aka Zeus in Thor: Love and Thunder, and Nikolai Kravinoff from Kraven The Hunter), he was the Kryptonian scientist about the concern of his home planet and the father of Kal-El (aka Superman) in his plan to not only launching his son to Earth, but also putting the aforementioned codex on his son. Of course, he comes back, but as a holographic AI where, as we all know, explains when Krypton used to be and where Kal-El was born before landed on Earth to becoming the hero to the people of Earth in the name of hope and peace (for the most part). I find him also a passable character. Cause, like many version of Jor-El, he gives plot development who they were before Kal-El landed on Earth, along with taught him that he’s gotta help people, but some of the execution just didn’t turned out as what we getting after Superman say goodbye to his father to going back to Earth. Despite some problem, I also give an appreciation that he’s also a helping hand to Lois Lane to escape the hostile ship, I know he didn’t discover Earthlings, but still, il give a small credit for that. Though il also give a credit to Russell Crowe’s performance, he did a fairly nice role for being a sorta emotional and caring father to his son Kal-El.

As for the rest, they’re just there for extra plot elements, but most of them are cheaply executed from dialogue driven or even some are questionable. There’s Jonathan Kent (played by Kevin Costner) who’s Clark’s late father that he makes a questionable motivation whether or not if Clark let people at risk to death, along with his very anti-climatic death by tornado, Martha Kent (played by Diane Lane) is Clark’s mother that she’s caring to give wisdom to him (Well, so we think that she’s rather minimal), Perry White (played by Laurence Fishburne, aka Morpheus from The Matrix) is the editor-in-chief at Daily Planet who’s not-so-loud boss when he assigns Lois about the witnesses of Clark’s action and some unnecessary dialogue driven to explain what happened about life at risk or not (no disrespect to Laurence, but like some, he deserves better than the way he was written) and Faora-Ul (played by Antje Traue) who’s sub-commander and loyal to Zod.

While some actors did their nice performances, but the way they’re written are either okay to questionably bad how they’ve been translated in execution.

SPOILER ALERT for those who haven’t seen the movie or didn’t care

The final act may have some good start, but ohh boy, the ending battle was pretty controversial.

After leaving the ship to thanking and goodbye to AI Jor-El, General Zod and his group are deploying their terraforming machines (called “World Engine”), blasting from North and South in attempt to destroy Metropolis and wiping out humanity, our heroes suggest a split up that Superman is taking care the small one from the South, while the Lois and the military are trying to destroy the main one over the Metropolis, using Superman’s pod that contains a bomb that transport into dimension called “Black Zero”. But at first, it may sounds the end of the world is start, but obviously, Superman was already took care small one, but he’s gotta recharging himself from yellow sun. Back to Metropolis, the military with their aircraft, carrying Black Zero with Lois Lane, they’re preparing to sacrificing themselves with their dimensional bomb, but at first, they got ambushed by Generel Zod and Feora-Ul, thankfully, Superman flew by to destroy Zod’s ship and Dr. Emil Hamilton (played by Richard Schiff) flick the switch of the bomb to sacrifice themselves for being transported into Phantom Zone, while Lois does a leap of faith, which Superman flew to save her. But alas, it was far from over, as General Zod is pissed about his plan to bring back Krypton is wiped out, this brings us into Kryptonian throw down, one who’s made to protecting humans in peace (again, so we think that he’s supposed to be 100% overprotective) and the other is an extremely hostile against humanity. After fighting in the air and briefly in space, they both landed on train station, Zod has reaches his boiling point to questioning Superman to either let Zod in Mercy or let human be killed by Zod’s Heat Vision.

And thus brought us one of the most controversial moment ever. Instead of defeating Zod in merciful way either knock him unconscious or a new weapon to sending his Kryptonian’s ass back to Phantom Zone, Superman SNAPS Zod’s neck, killing him instantly. Which, as we already know, this isn’t supposed to be like this, because, in every medias (depending) Superman has never, ever, ever, EVER, killing people on his way, he’s build to fighting bad buys in mercy like taking to the prison or even banishing into the Phantom Zone, but not in a genocide option. Sure, when we saw Superman II, Superman did knocking out Zod by both crushing his hand and throw him into crevice, even though we never know either he died or just knocked unconscious after Superman set this up by locked himself in chamber while activate the red sunlight make Zod and his partners got powerless. I know its kind of out of character, but at least its soft (for the most part). But here, they took it seriously to have a genocide option to having Superman in difficulty option to either live or die, which again, it wasn’t supposed to be like that we know about Superman, since he’s build to using his powers to protecting humanity and even punishing villains in mercy, he’s might into light side that he brings peace to the world without violence. When I first saw this, I was both shocked and confused for what just happened and “Why would he did that!?”. Looking back now, its safe to say having Superman killing off villains like Zod is bad and controversial, which it clearly lost the meaning and maybe even the identity of Superman that we all know. I know some may like it, but this scene right there is the perfect example how not to changing a light-hearted hero in darker tone, well, depending for the execution. Sure Batman didn’t kill people, unless he does in whichever comics before Burton’s Batman…

Anyway, after all the mess, Clark is in double duty as working as a reporter in Daily Planet, and as Superman to going on his independent duty, leaving military and government into question from his lack of safety and the amount of damage.

Yeah, it feels like a rushed ending we have, especially we don’t want to know after when Clark/Superman just did to Zod, its as if killing solution is just like… Nothing happened at all.

And now for my final opinion of this film

Overall, Man of Steel may sounds like a revision of Superman for the starting point of DCEU, but alas, this movie is nothing but a big budget overhyped mess in the equivalent of saying “What you see is what you get”.

Sure, the filming is fine, some designs are good, the story is nice at some moments, the concept could’ve been alright and the acting are also fine, il give credit that they’re trying for more modern.

But everything else fell apart from annoying camera effect, some plot elements are questionable, some characters didn’t have a proper development that we all know, the other designs are dark and underwhelming, its rather silly for being in dark tone and the writing is a mess that it focused too much on either build up dialogue and actions.

I know its been talked about last decade ago that we’ve been divided on this. We can be give this one a mixed bag or just find it disappointed. For me, its definitely the latter that, looking back, while I may like the concept, but the execution could’ve gone better what we got, especially its been hyped up to be something big and better, but it just fell flat on the ground after being exposed by Kryptonite. But yes, I know there are some people like this movie, but the problem is that the fans of this movie (and DCEU) are taking their defense way to hard to telling us to Eff off if we don’t like it, which, we can all agree, they becoming the most toxic fans that they just can’t take criticism with gatekeeping the people who’re involved from DCEU, and sending harassments and death threats against opposing people. And yes, even I got personally attacked by those god forsaken toxic fans when I don’t like something. Like, I just can’t take these kind of people with their cheap double standards. Anyway, this is one of the film that you gotta watch it for once and let you guys draw your conclusion, and also, just don’t be those toxic fans, otherwise being a hardcore fanboy of this movie will mentally hurt yourself (“Stop it… Get some help…).

For my rating, I decided to go lower, il give this one a 4.5/10.

So this ends of my movie review, if you guys have your opinion or any suggestions, let me know at comment bellow and support me on KO-FI.com/blackevil.

Thanks for reading, and im Anthony, signing out.

Movie Review: F1 The Movie

 

Hey everyone, my name is Anthony and welcome back to my Movie Review.

If anyone who haven’t seen in my works or may not know, im a fan of Formula 1. Since early 2000s, I enjoyed watching many drivers with teams racing all over the world to see who’ll win to score and dreaming to becoming the world champion in their fast open-wheeled cars in high speed, while also putting their lives on the line without suffering on live TV. Even with the safety left a lot of question if its good or could’ve gone much worse, F1 is no stranger to be enjoyable to watching from Ferrari vs McLaren since 1970s, some team trying to take the next level to building strong car or even seeing one driver who’s rising to the ultimate challenge, for better or for worse when it comes to rivalry. Though in nowadays, while I still like to see F1, but it feels like its no longer the same where it used to, ranging from Max Verstappen is aggressive against anyone with his time in Team Red Bull, Ferrari are acting like clowns based on their idiotic strategies and excuses, some kids are either desperate or full of ego (*cough* Lando Norris cough), some teams are no longer the same when they used to like Williams, the V6 turbo charge sounds is like vacuum scratching on a chalkboard, some circuits are taking place in the streets for which came off as both lazy and cheap, and worst of all, the president of the FIA is a complete control freak. But, even if F1 is in desperate to be good since the good’ol days, it doesn’t mean its 100% bad, it has some good moments and stuff. So, why did I bring this up for today’s review? Well, looks like somebody think it will be interesting to having a movie in Formula 1.

“F1 The Movie” is a sport drama film that was written/produced/directed by Joseph Krosinski (yup, the same director who gave us Top Gun: Maverick), co-produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, Lewis Hamilton (yes, the one and only modern seven times F1 champ since Michael Schumacher), Brad Pitt, Jeremy Kleiner, Dede Gardner and Chad Oman, and co-written by Ehren Kruger.

The idea of this movie started on a bidding war, when both Brad Pitt, Jerry Bruckheimer, Ehren Kruger and Joseph Krosinski start developing their big project about the world of F1, with Lewis Hamilton jumped in for the project, along with FIA in collaboration. Many studios jumped in for the war for who’re going to be involve with the project, its not just major ones Paramount, MGM and even Disney, but also streamers like Netflix, Amazon and Apple. As a result, Apple (ugh…!) had won the bid and going to be involved with the project as both in production and distribution (though Warner Bros are also threw their hat in the ring) to giving us the movie with F1.

So, with all that said, is it as dramatically exciting to race with fictional team, is this film we’re going downhill very badly much like either Williams or Sauber?

Well, lets find out.

The Story

For movie going into fictional with F1, you think the story is gonna giving us something unique or pretty cliché from the get-go? Well, technically, yes, but its a mix about drivers and the team, dependable…

The movie begins with the bang, where we introduce a nomad free agent driver name Sonny Hayes, who’s racing with Porsche at 24 Hours of Daytona, which he ended up win the race. However, despite his winning and received a check, the reason why he’s in nomad in his van, its because he used to be a promising driver with Lotus, right before his near death experience with a near fatal car crash, leaving him having an addicted to gambling (hence his gimmick) and got three times divorce (Ouch…!). Despite living himself into hell and winning Daytona, the latter is impressing his former teammate/buddy, Ruben Cervantes, who came for discussion to offering Sonny to coming back to the world of F1 with his team “Apex Grand Prix F1 team” (APXGP F1 Team), mainly because his team is struggling that since they arrive about couple years, the team is in backmarker and had no wins, no podiums nor even high score, otherwise the investors and the board of directors will sell the team if its another year with no wins nor podium, though Sonny wasn’t so sure, but he accepts the deal. Once he packed up to flying in UK, he arrived at Silverstone to meeting members of the team like Kate McKenna the team’s technical director, Peter Banning, the board member, Kaspar Smolinski, the team’s principal and finally, the hotshot rookie/teammate, Joshua Pearce. Unfortunately, when they started on British GP (instead of starting on Australia or even Bahrain), its up to Sonny Hayes cooperate both the team and his teammate to do the best driving in order to keep the team open to prevent shutting doors.

Basically, the movie is basically the mix veteran driver who’s asked to coming back to the motorsports when he used to, and the team’s struggling to keep the doors open or else be gone when the season is over, its like a mix between “The Wrestler” and one of my favorite sports movie “Slap Shot”, which I find it to be fairly descent concept that they gotta race to do the best to putting their teams and business on the line, even if it kinda took similar concept from Slap Shot, or at least like any struggling business from several movies. Though the movie isn’t just the team’s sacrifice, usually focusing on two drivers (kind off), whereas Sonny is about trying to get himself back since 3 decades ago to help the team, and Joshua is trying to help the team and kind trying to be a big deal in the name of family, even if its a challenging chemistry between of two from in order to not only help the team, but also working together to do the best finish, especially for their different personalities, but you know what this also reminds me of? It reminds the EA F1 game’s campaign called “Braking Point”, specifically the first one that was introduced in F1 2021, you know a game where a young driver who entered F1 to teaming up with a veteran to working together, but became a crap show from the start, even though I never played the game, but I watched the cutscenes from the internet (but if anyone wants to play it, sorry to say, its no longer available in digital market, but buy physically). There’s also a subplots in this movie that it has two things, the first is the team’s setup that they’re trying to upgrade or even make an odd strategy to win, which sure, upgrading car is dependable if the FIA accepts it, or worse, if its illegal for their investigation, which is common since some teams trying to make something unique to upgrade their cars to win, some can be acceptable (though only in season before its banned after its over, similar to Mercedes’s Dual-Axis Steering in 2020) but others crossed the line (like the infamous Brabham’s Fan Car in 1978’s Swedish GP). And the second subplot is the struggle of Sonny Hayes’s life, mainly his origin, but let me tell you, when they showed his origin before he three decades return, they gave us quite possibly the Biggest BS moment I’ve ever heard as a “not-so-smart” F1 historian, but trust me, il talk about it later, even if it may sounds like a SPOILER, but just a small detail to reveal. Sure, while this movie has an action and couple of drama, but the movie may including some humors, either from deliveries or the dialogues, which I will admit, while the writing is trying to be understandable about F1 (even if they tried a bit “too hard”), but at least they gave us some chuckle moments.

While the story is flawed from similar ideas, but its a nice from the get-go about the taste of modern F1, some good humor dialogue, even if there are some moments that either defying F1’s rule book and the WTF origin.

The Presentation

The movie’s budget costs between $200 – 300M, but man… The movie’s presentation looks pretty damn cool to watch with actions, despite there are some moments that I asked so many questions in racing scenes.

For starter, the filming locations are pretty good and fun to watching with racing sequences, like Gran Turismo the movie, they filmed in actual race tracks, commonly the tracks in F1 like Silverstone Circuit in UK (the OG F1 track since 1950), Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium (one of fan favorite, but also dangerous as we all know), Monza in Italy (another classic track since the 50s), Suzuka in Japan (one of my favorite F1 track), Zandvoort in Netherlands, Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in Mexico, Las Vegas Strip Circuit (god I hate this track, all that for cheap show than racing…!), and Yas Marina in Abu Dhabi, but rather than filming this during the race, it was filmed in Friday, which is taking place with two practice session before the qualification on Saturday, meaning it will be pretty unlikely to filming in actual qualification and racing, so they have to film on Friday’s practice sessions for their time to film. Although they also filming outside of F1 tracks like Daytona International Speedway on Daytona Beach, Florida during the “24 Hours of Daytona”, it plays like the famous “24 Hours of Le Mans, but the track in Daytona is rather short, whereas Le Mans is ridiculously long straights with couple of chicanes. And even Brands Hatch in UK (yes, the same track that was used in F1 since Rush) for the flashback scene in Spanish GP in 1993 (though they could’ve filmed in Jerez circuit in Spain, maybe they skipped over for their budgets or so), but the rest is obviously using stock footage (and post-production edit) of the infamous near fatal car crash of Mark Donnelly during the Friday practice of 1990 Spanish GP (Again, more on that later).

The way they filmed the racing sequences are pretty good and fun to watch based on the placements of cameras from onboard view (with perfect center like in IndyCar whereas in F1, the camera is off-centered), a sidepod with fast-paste turn when the car is overtaken or incoming car (they can be fun, but sometimes it could be overused to just stayed camera. Those where Apple (ugh…!) stepped in for the way they filmed in production based on the use of iPhone and powered by A-series (Apple Silicon) system on a chip, which is especially when the team did the same thing when they did in “Top Gun Maverick” like the placements on which sides and cockpit, along with shrinking the size of the cameras to prevent the cars’ weight. And the aforementioned turning control was actually came up from Panavision.

But of course, the first highlight part of this movie is the fictional team, APXGP F1 Team, for my best, its a British F1 team to act like one of the more new team since last couple years, but they never had winnings, nor even collecting points after three years (Huh, its pretty much a fictional backmarker since Manor Racing in 2016), otherwise, like I said before, leaving board of directors and investors tell them that if there’s no wins, APXGP will go “bye-bye”. For their headquarter, its easy to notice that they filmed in McLaren Technology Center, the wind tunnel scene was provided by Williams, and the racing simulator was filmed in Mercedes HQ at Brackley, which is located on West Northamptonshire in UK, so not bad to filming in team’s headquarters, which is coincidence that both teams have Mercedes engine supply. But when it comes to their cars, rather then building a F1 car from scratch, they recycled the F2 car (Dallara F2 2018) to modifying it with V6 Turchocharge hybrid engine and a couple aerodynamics packages to look like an F1, despite its an F2 car disguising as an F1 car (come on, I can build my own F1 car in EA F1 game with “MyTeam” career). But as for the livery, it feels just like one of those black and gold car, in other words, they recycled the same color scheme from Team Lotus in 70s and 80s.

The last and definitely not the least for the highlight, are the racing sequences. Like I said they filmed in Friday without getting bombarded from qualifying/racing schedules. Those racing scenes are pretty good and fun to watch to see a struggling team trying to overtaking against any teams to collect points and fingers crossing to win. However, while the racing are pretty good, but its worth pointing that the racing are real, no special effects involve. But sometimes, some scenes gave us some dumb moments that left me so many questions. For example, in Hungarian GP, Sonny Hayes is constantly getting clipped by any drivers on purpose to bring out safety car to let Joshua Pearce having an easy overtake from pit strategy in their “Plan C” (What is this, a debris caution mix with Crashgate??). Or worse, some scenes with questionable near death experience, in Italian GP, when Joshua is trying overtaking Max Verstappen in Sonny’s dismay, Pearce got hit by Parabolica’s (Monza’s final corner) sausage kerb that got him flying in the air and crashed outside of the track, I mean, I get this is a reference from Alex Peroni’s crash in F3, but as an F1 car? That’ll be impossible to crash like this, when today’s F1 car are heavy like 800 kg, unless if the cars get lifted by wheel after wheel like when Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton crashed together at 2021’s Italian GP. But don’t even get me started when Sonny went in Race Rage in Las Vegas before bumped into Sergio Perez and crashed in fences to track (im pretty sure they replicate Carl Edwards’s nasty crash at Talladega in 2009 Aaron’s 499 when Brad Keselowski took his first W, but that’s just me), they wanted another shot of having Brad Pitt coming out of car and fell flat after the crash, but it was removed in the final cut (Yeah, cutting the walking on the track while almost dying after the crash scene is a good call for removal, cause it will be even more exaggerating).

While I question about the on which questionable moments and even some exaggeration part, but at least the film’s production, the filming and the racing are pretty damn good to watch as both movie goer and F1 fan.

The Characters

Since this is the alternative time in F1, you think they could give us something interesting and relatable characters that feels almost like F1 drivers? Well, yes, but with more personalities, though dependable for the execution.

Lets start with the main protagonist, Sonny Hayes (played by Brad Pitt), the veteran driver who used be a big shot back in his younger days of F1 when he used to be with Lotus, right up until he near fatal car crash of 1993 left him away to becoming a broken man from gambling addictions, three times divorce, desperate for job searching and “Racer for Hire” that he just wants a check, despite he’s in nomad life in a minivan. I find him to be a fairly descend character, even if he’s another one of those broken down athlete in whichever sports movies (like say Randy Robinson from The Wrestler), even if he still has a passion of racing, and also looking for money. While he’s accepted to going back to the track, you would think that Sonny is going soft to give it a shot with modern technology compared to when he had in the early 90s? Well, yes and no, he could drive, yes, but it just came off as mixed from constant slip to even constant clipped by almost every cars for the combination of questionable pit strategy and safety car deployment, that would be fine to coming back as race engineer, but not so much for coming back to driving the car in his late 50s. Oh and remember when he had a replica of near death moment from Mark Donnelly back in 1990? Well, in typical movie fashion, while he suffered a harsh injuries of C5 fracture from 1993, he walked out in no problem after being recovered, which it just didn’t make any sense that, if you have a harsh injuries, that all depends if you’ll coming back to race or forced to retire from medical concern, in case for Donnelly back then in practice, his crash left him a F1 career ending with even worst injuries with brain and lung contusions and bad leg fractures that he was close to be amputated. But for Hayes, its just spine injury that he could’ve been retired forever and bounded on wheel chair, like there’s no freakin’ way to coming back to motorsports when he nearly died like this, along with living in broken down life. I know im harsh for saying that, but I know people said its dependable if you’re good to coming back or not if its not that harsh like say, Romain Grosjean back in Bahrain GP in 2020 (despite he has burnt scars on his hands, but he’s saved thanks to Halo cockpit). Again, while he’s a fairly descent protagonist in the movie, along with his origin that gave me a head-scratching, at least Brad Pitt did a good work of his performance, let along learning how to driving F1 car after learning how to drive with both F3 and F2 cars.

Next up is Joshua Pearce (played by Damson Idris), a British rookie driver who’s been with APXGP since when the team opened. While most drivers are either calm, taking seriously, genius, a cardboard cutout or being space and time wasting to be in F1 (cough Lance Stroll cough), here JP is a hotshot rookie that he always wishing to be the best be in F1 since Lewis Hamilton won 7 titles like Michael Schumacher. He’s being charismatic, fast and a loud cocky driver that he wishes to be a big shot in F1 to win the title, think of him as Rod Tidwell from “Jerry Maguire”, without the level of ego as an underdog driver. Especially when he and Sonny have a sour star in different personalities from Sonny being a veteran with questionable strategies, while Pearce is a loud rookie in the name of “Show me the money!” (kind of). And I will say, Damson did a good work of his performance that he has an energy from calm to charismatic (without being egotistic), and like soap maker in Fight Club, he also taught to driving two minor open wheeled cars before driving F1 car (even if its a F2 car disguising as an F1 car).

After the drivers, we have Kate McKenna (played by Kerry Condon, aka the AI F.R.I.D.A.Y. in MCU), a female technical director of APXGP that she’s trying to help the team upgrade the car in attempt to beat any teams to get the winning, even if when she tried to upgrade the car in whichever parts, the FIA will going after the team in question for legality. She plays almost like a mentor when it comes to taught our main hero drive the more modern F1 car, that is until she’s also the obvious love interest to Sonny halfway through the movie. She’s more of a passable character in the movie to teaching the drivers to hopefully this will win the team (despite if she could get herself into trouble if she crossed the line) and being Sonny’s new love interest, and Kerry did a nice work of her role.

After that we have Reuben Cervantes (played by Javier Bardem), who’s not only the owner of APXGP, but also had a history of F1, not because he used to be a racer, but he’s also Sonny’s former teammate back in F1 racing days as their buds. But when his team is in Dire Straight, he thinks that this will be the opportunity to bringing his old friend back to the glory to saving his asses before closing doors. While he seems to be friendly with old Sonny, but he’s also being so desperate to either keep the team going if they win, closing doors or going into new management whether he’ll stay or go home. I find him another descent boss of the team, but he’s more of a desperate man of bringing back to the good’ol days, even if Sonny’s near death experience his haunting him for why he backed out as a racer but working as a businessman to boss of the team, along as partially a historian of F1 (Huh, kinda like me, eh?). Though il give a credit for Javier’s nice performance of his role.

And finally, we have Peter Banning (played by Tobias Menzies), APXGP’s board member who’s keeping his eyes on the team if they’ll doing good or not. While he’s sorta like a secondary boss, to keep the business team in the flow, but he’s also… A fan of F1, based on his personality? I mean sure he may like F1 to keep the team open or not, but most board members are taking seriously to do the right thing, if not “BE GONE!”. But here, he seems to be a bit obnoxious that he enjoys a bit too much on F1, unless he wants to be the new boss of APXGP, as long as he doesn’t going nuts about. While he’s kind of over the top, but il give a credit for fun performance to Tobias.

As for the rest of the movie, the most common are the members of APXGP that they have plot developments and conveniences, there’s Kaspar Smoliski (played by Kim Bodnia) the principal of APXGP, Bernadette Pearce (played by Sarah Niles) who’s Joshua’s mother and kind of protective on her son if it didn’t go on his way, Hugh Nickleby and Rico Fazio (played by Will Merrick and Joseph Balderrama) who’re the race engineers on our main drivers, Jodie (played by Callie Cooke) who’s a clumsy tire gunner, and Cashman (played by Samson Kayo) who’s Joshia’s best cousin and manager.

Since this movie was filmed in fictional 2023 season, we have a couple of cameos of drivers, however, those F1 drivers are just there for being obstacles. But the only personalities we have in F1 are the principals/CEOs like Zak Brown from McLaren, Frederic Vasseur in Ferrari, Guenther Steiner from Haas (though we was in 2023 before he was fired due to disagreement after 2023) and even Toto Wolff (though the latter is about to give a plot element, but won’t tell you more to prevent SPOILERS),

The characters in this movie are fine at best, sure they may some that I like, but the rest, they’re more of passable or hollow.

And now for my final opinion of this film.

Overall, F1 The Movie is pretty nice film, while its the best film, as a fan of F1, but its not bad.

It as a descent story, the writing maybe good, the characters are above average, the acting are good and the presentation looks fantastic in the view and racing scenes.

Sure, while I enjoy this movie, but there are couple moments that left me scratch my head in confusion such as Sonny’s origin, a dumb strategy that makes Crashgate look like a joke and some crashes left so much questions (again, I know the racing and crashing scenes are done for real, no special effects involve).

While im sure non-F1 fans will enjoy this movie for all about the struggling team, a rocky chemistry drivers, and of course, the racing scenes to be a fun action moments. But as a F1 fan like me, I find it to be good, even if there are moments left me so many questions, even some motorsports fans that, while enjoy it, but they’ll probably be critical for various moments. For recommendation, once again, its one of those films that you gotta watch it once and il let you guys make a conclusion if you like or not, though if you do like it, perhaps you can give it a shot to watching a real F1 racing, either from clips on the internet or even live racing, if you want. But for F1 fans, it will be a debatable for how the movie’s presented.

For my rating, im gonna give this one a 7/10.

So this ends of my movie review, if you guys have your opinion or any suggestions, let me know at comment bellow and support me on KO-FI.com/blackevil.

Thanks for reading, and im Anthony, signing out.

Oh, and Happy 4th of July.