quote: (post)

Originally posted by NemeBro
Just saw this. It got a lot of mileage out of its premise but frankly didn't have the balls to go far enough. Making Brandon's space ship responsible for his descent into murder robbed Brandon of any real agency and as such hamstrung what could have been much more interesting themes and a provided a more thought-provoking deconstruction of the Superman mythos and the superhero genre. I'd have preferred the film ask questions like are people born in equilibrium with each other, or are they forced into it by being placed in a relatively even playing field? What happens when a child is possessed of power to make him utterly above consequence? Essentially, a lot of more interesting shit could have been done with the Superman archetype than just making his space ship infect his mind, and though one could argue that there are hints that it just exacerbated issues that were already present in Brandon's alien psyche, or that the ship and Brandon's alien nature is an effective subversion of the Superman assumption that that Jor-El's influence upon Superman is a positive one and that he was flung to be the last beacon of hope from a dying world to inspire another (where instead Brandon was sent to be a brood parasite), for the first I'd still argue that the presence of the clearly mind-altering ship cheapens it by once again putting Brandon's agency into question, and for the second while true I guess that isn't nearly as compelling as the possibilities I've outline IMO.

Still, I enjoyed the movie, I liked how they emphasized how horrifying the wrong type of person with a Superman powerset would be (his speed in particular being played for horror), I liked that Brandon's victims didn't turn out to all be bullying scumbags and were mostly decent people, I liked how brutal some of the deaths turned out to be, and I quite liked the sequel hook. I just think the movie could have been a lot better.

I'm glad it was made, and hope to see more superhero genre films that go outside of the formula set by the MCU. Probably a 7/10.

quote: (post)

Originally posted by Robtard
Having it touch on the 'are people born evil or made' aspect would have been better, but maybe too cerebral for a film like this, especially in the allotted time. I think it was only around 90mins

quote: (post)

Originally posted by Robtard
Having it touch on the 'are people born evil or made' aspect would have been better, but maybe too cerebral for a film like this, especially in the allotted time. I think it was only around 90mins