So I saw Much Ado About Nothing tonight. The crowd was much older than I expected, frankly--I thought the geeks would be out in force, but instead it was the Shakespeare crowd. (Which of course can certainly overlap with genre geekery, no question.) Basically, it was middle-aged white folks, rather than people in their 20s in Captain America t-shirts.

I'm going to overuse the spoiler tag, since the only real spoiler is the production, not the content.

Anyway I found it quite charming and entertaining. It doesn't suffer too much by comparison with the Branagh-Thompson production, mostly because a lot of the stage business is different. For one thing, there's a lot more physical comedy, including a lot of wordless byplay that really conveys a great deal of meaning.

I was impressed by how good Denisof was at the physical comedy. I don't think his comic timing is as good as Branagh's, though: there were a couple of funny lines that didn't quite work for him.

Amy Acker was brilliant. Funny and fierce and lovely, and her "Oh, if I were a man" speech was stunning. I think she'll get a lot of attention for this role.

Fran Kranz was better than I expected as Claudio, in a role I think is kind of thankless, because he's really a shmuck. He believes a stupid lie, lashes out in the most vindictive and brutal way, and then never apologizes for his own actions, just claims he was misled. Same goes for Don Pedro, who I want to like, but at least in this production it's pretty clear that he comes off a bit tarnished.

I loved Reed Diamond, Clark Gregg, Tom Lenk, and Nathan Fillion, all of whom did really solid work. Fillion and Lenk were a riot together, again with a fair amount of silent stage business that had the whole theater laughing.

I have two minor complaints: 1) It's made explicit that Beatrice and Benedick slept together at one point, and that's part of the reason behind their antipathy. Which makes the whole Hero-isn't-a-virgin plotline really quite messed up by comparison. Why does it matter if Hero's not a virgin, when Beatrice isn't? The only way to avoid that contradiction would have been to change the Hero plot to be more about her betraying her fiance than about being a virgin, and they didn't. So it struck a false note by comparison.

2) Joss should just have cut the line about marrying "an Ethiope", rather than lampshading it by showing the one black guest at the wedding. Too awkward by far.

Finally: man, they do a lot of drinking in this movie, and wow, Joss has a gorgeous house. So pretty. There's a shot where I got distracted by the wooden floors under the actors.

I think Claudio wouldn't have cared if Hero wasn't a virgin, I think he cared that the one she supposedly slept with wasn't him.

I liked Man of Steel better than I expected, but there were a couple scenes that made me and my companion snicker that weren't intended to do so. Anvils fell like...like lots of other metal things falling. Maybe it's just me, but: the World Engine was the scariest thing I've seen in a movie in a long time.

Since last night I've been thinking about how really Zod was a hero. A hero who lost his cause and lost his mind, a tragic hero who could have gotten everything he wanted if he'd been willing to talk, to listen, to negotiate, to wait a little bit longer. Sometimes the hero loses, and goes mad, and tries again, and loses again, and somewhere along the line he becomes the villain.

Man of Steel collateral damage estimates: [link]

but what about in the Indian Ocean?

We saw less of that, but that had to be really really bad. Not to mention Smallville seems effectively gone.

The part of the machine in the Indian Ocean must have caused tsunamis. It wasn't meant to be an unpopulated area, either; they showed a fisherman there. Must have been horrible destruction.

In Avengers, the heroes contained the destruction to one part of the city, saved as many people as they could, and helped direct the rescue of others. In MoS Superman and Zod just leveled the city. Supes only saved Lois, and the strategically-placed family he killed Zod for. The problem, to me, is not that there was collateral damage; it was how unnecessary much of it was, and how unconcerned the hero seemed to be about it.

Does it bother anyone else that none of it was necessary at all? Zod could have had what he wanted if he'd simply asked Superman to give him the Codex. He could have gone to another planet -- he'd already visited dozens of planets that were obviously suitable for Kryptonian life -- and re-started his people. Why wouldn't Kal have wanted to help him with that? Why did Zod spend the first part of the movie talking about how they could do better, only to do horribly worse himself? Zod could just as easily have come down and said, "Thank Krypton-God we found you! We've been looking for years! Come with me, I'll tell you all about your people; we'll find another planet and you can help us bring our world back to life!" I mean, yes of course, he'd gone mad and he didn't care about us, but that was a writers' choice too. It wasn't inevitable; it didn't have to happen that way.

I haven't seen the movie, ZK, so this may very well be stupid-- are you saying that the character didn't have to do that once he'd gone crazy? Or that the writers shouldn't have made him crazy?

Zenkitty,

Well, Zod started off wanting to get revenge for something something Superman's father did in sending the codex away, even though dad was right and the codex would have perished a short period of time after Zod went all final solution on the ruling government. So he was aggressive and murderous when he approached Earth. You'd think 33 of our years might have chilled him out, but I guess he took lessons from Khan during the intervening years.

What you describe is the potential for a very interesting movie. What if he searched for Superman without posing a clear threat. Feigning kindess. Superman gets ready to leave with them and then sees the message from his father. Boom. Then have a mid-space fight on a nearby Krypton outpost and spare us all the PTSD fodder.

LeN, your last paragraph sounds like a movie I would have really enjoyed!

ita !, it's a problematic stance. Zod is written as not behaving rationally from the very beginning of the movie, so expecting him to behave rationally at the end is unreasonable. Obviously we wouldn't have the movie if Zod hadn't tried to conquer/destroy Earth. It just bugs me that Zod's reason for invading Earth is irrational, and not one person, including Superman, ever addresses the fact that the invasion was unnecessary, or the fact that what Zod really wants is a legitimate desire. Even if Zod wasn't about to listen, Superman could have said, look, all you want is your people back, we can totally do that, you don't even need my adopted planet.

But I may not be being reasonable there.

except...

Superman didn't know where the codex was. knowing what we know now, I am not sure Superman could give them what they want, or that the process was easy.