Henry Cavill IS Superman: - - - - - Part 14

[sf2]

I thought Henry was great. He had such authority, charm, likeability, and he was a badass. He's the Superman for the 21st century , just as Daniel Craig is the Bond for the 21st century. If one is looking for a Chris Reeve type Superman in MOS, then they're going to be disappointed because we're not in 1978 anymore.

Besides badass n authoritive, he still has this 'kid' quality in him which is kinda strange. U wouldn't find it in reeve.

 

[The Batman]

I am surprised (and pleased) at the lack of "Henry is the shiny new toy, so let's bash Reeve now" type of posts.

 

[elgaz]

I am surprised (and pleased) at the lack of "Henry is the shiny new toy, so let's bash Reeve now" type of posts.

I'd hope there would be enough maturity on here that those type of posts wouldn't appear. Reeve was perfect for a Superman movie at the time it was made, and Henry is perfect for the one made now - 35 years later.

 

[I SEE SPIDEY]

Reeve's performance is iconic to most and I have no issue with that because it's a great performance. I just see Cavill doing his own thing and I like that thing. It's a different thing but it's still a Superman thing. There is room for both, I didn't like the last guy so there isn't room for him on my roster. Sorry.

 

[Brian Braddock]

It doesn't look anything like Bill Murray, though.

That's why I said 'haircut'.

 

[Brian Braddock]

I thought Henry was great. He had such authority, charm, likeability, and he was a badass. He's the Superman for the 21st century , just as Daniel Craig is the Bond for the 21st century. If one is looking for a Chris Reeve type Superman in MOS, then they're going to be disappointed because we're not in 1978 anymore.

The above post should have been printed out and given to every critic as they were walking into the theatre.

 

[Rowsdower!]

Yeah, just because I loved Henry in the role, it doesn't mean I love Reeve's Superman any less. I think they were both brilliant performances; they were very different and still felt like the same core character. Reeve is the quintessential Silver Age Superman, and Henry is the perfect Modern Age Superman.

 

[Brian Braddock]

That's pretty much it in a nutshell.

 

[Lily Adler]

I am surprised (and pleased) at the lack of "Henry is the shiny new toy, so let's bash Reeve now" type of posts.

Now we're not barbarians like those Thanagarians over there on those other boards.

Seriously, I actually applaud the restraint. The only Superman incarnation that seems to be getting the hate is Routh from a few posters.

 

[titansupes]

Yeah, just because I loved Henry in the role, it doesn't mean I love Reeve's Superman any less. I think they were both brilliant performances; they were very different and still felt like the same core character. Reeve is the quintessential Silver Age Superman, and Henry is the perfect Modern Age Superman.

Nailed it.

 

[Frodo]

Yeah, just because I loved Henry in the role, it doesn't mean I love Reeve's Superman any less. I think they were both brilliant performances; they were very different and still felt like the same core character. Reeve is the quintessential Silver Age Superman, and Henry is the perfect Modern Age Superman.

This is how I feel as well. I don't think people are bashing Reeve. If anything people, who grew up with Reeve are bashing Cavill because he isn't the Reeve version. I grew up with with Reeve so he's my Superman in that sense. But that doesn't mean that Cavill is not good or wrong because he isn't the version that I grew up with.

The time for my Superman passed a long time ago. Cavill is the Superman for the kids of 2013 . Alot of people my age may not like or accept that, but that's one of the consequences of growing up. You see the torch passed to a new generation of youngsters who have no idea who Reeve was let alone have seen the Donner film. If anything their closet frame of reference is Tom Welling. Its kinda what happens as new generations discover this character.

 

[The Chris]

I look at Reeve and Cavill the same way I look at Connery and Craig for Bond. The perfect performances of their times that will be considered two of the best of all time (If not the two best of all time) I can watch Man of Steel and love what Cavill's doing, and still look at Chris Reeve with a giant smile.

 

[Lily Adler]

It seems different with Superman, since I know many Batfans who hate mostly what came before after Nolan.

 

[The Chris]

It seems different with Superman, since I know many Batfans who hate mostly what came before after Nolan.

I'll be honest in saying I'm one of those batfans. I literally only have time for the comics, the timm animated universe, the arkham games, and The Dark Knight Trilogy. But I haven't really watched the old burton/schumacher films since the tdk trilogy started and have no desire to, and a new batman isn't enticing to me cause I feel really satisfied at the moment. That may change once I actually see the new stuff but for now that's how I feel. Superman however I've always been more willing to accept the multiple versions. Heck I still like Routh, but I definitely like Reeve and Cavill the best.

 

[Frodo]

I was introduced to Batman through Michael Keaton so , again , for me , he will always be my Batman. That said, I really think Bale's Batman is great , and I'm so glad Nolan was able to do 3 good films without changing actors like they did every other week in the 90s.

The whole old versus new stuff always happens , and I knew it was gonna happen with Cavill. I wouldn't be surprised if we see it happen again once Wonder Woman is cast in her own film and that actress will be judged against Linda Carter by older critics, while the kids won't even know who that is, and just show up to the material fresh.

 

[I SEE SPIDEY]

My sister brought up the Bond comparison as well when she and I were discussing Reeve and Cavill. I don't know if she was talking about Craig/Connery or Brosnan/Connery.

I gotta be totally honest with you guys, Reeve is great but I didn't grow up seeing him as my Superman. My Superman, the one I grew up on, was the Animated Timm/Dini/Daily version. I was smart enough at 9 years old to know that Dean Cain wasn't cutting it for me. He did the best with the material he had but no, that show was too romance based and made the 9 year old me (who was in no way interested in boys at the time) queesy. And the cheese was annoying to me. Reeve's movies were just these old movies to me, three of which came out before I was born. I do enjoy Reeve's performance but I still don't enjoy any of the films.

I don't care why the critics who didn't like Cavill, didn't like him. That has nothing to do with my opinion.

 

[Dar]

I don't think I've seen this posted yet. Jason Alexander shared his thoughts on Twitter: http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1rktdio LOL regarding Henry, I know every female I know (myself included) wouldn't mind a piece of him. Superman II was the first film I remember watching in the theater (I was 5) and there's always been a special place in my heart for Chris Reeve, who was my first celeb crush. But I didn't think of him once during Man of Steel.


Ok, I know you've been waiting - my review of MAN OF STEEL.

Now, as a Seinfeldian, clearly Superman is in my blood. I have spent many years pondering all the complexities of what life as Krypton's favorite son must be like here on Earth. I have contemplated everything from "would xray vision allow you to see naughty bits or just the bones under the naughty bits" to "is Superman poop the equivalent of tungsten steel". I have seen every incarnation on TV and big screen and I have followed the comic books over the years. If the final Jeopardy category was "Superman", I have no doubt that Ken Jennings would be eating my dust. So....

Going back to the Christopher Reeve films (and I knew and worshipped Chris) - I was so thrilled with the initial parts of that film. Krypton was epic, Smallville was beautifully evoked. I adored Brando and Glenn Ford. I loved the exploration of the complex question of Clark's purpose and the challenge of cloaking his amazing abilities. However, after the Fortress of Solitude and the re-education of Kal-El, the movie took a left turn and delivered us a Superman and a Metropolis and a Lex Luthor that were the stuff of cartoons. The movie totally changed tone. And while much of it was magical for it's time - especially the flying sequences (minus the Can You Read My Mind cloud dance) were spectacular. But the movie ultimately disappointed because they abandoned the real and epic Superman that the beginning had promised.

The Brandon Routh entry was a step in the right direction but was so over wrought and rather clinically cast. It worked hard, I applauded it's intention but it was not a memorable film. And for Superman to not be memorable - well, hard to imagine.

Then Chris Nolan reinvented the Batman genre, magnificently. We were asked to invest in Batman as if he were a real, tortured, driven genius, warrior and activist. It was complex and dark and thrilling. And suddenly, our comic book heroes were worthy of adult interaction with the audience.

Subsequent hero films have been a mixed bag, none having the gravitas of Batman but many far exceeding the silliness the genre can impose.

Now, Man of Steel - the first trailer had me. Seeing him soar upward, shattering the sound barrier was about as thrilling as it gets for a geek like me. Eventually, a moment of another trailer would spin my head as Clark asks Jonathan Kent if he was somehow "supposed to allow the bus load of school kids to die" in order to protect his identity. And Costner takes a long, uneasy breath and answers, "maybe". At that moment, I was almost no longer the master of my domain. Those are the kinds of moments a fantacist like me dreams about seeing. It is an amazing depiction of the profound complexity that having nearly Godlike ability poses. So, I bought my tickets and took my wife and teenage son last weekend.

And the result? So much good, so much right - but some enormous opportunities missed.

I was not a fan of the concept of this Krypton but I realize that I may be in the minority. I thought the combination of the morphing technology with the medieval armors and armaments with the Avatar-like flying dinosaurs was a mish-mosh of ideas that seemed like a "let's throw it all at the wall and see what's sticks" approach. But I appreciated many of the conceptual ideas - the birthing/evolutionary development and the allusions to the demise of the planet resulting from over-zealous and irresponsible depletion of the planets natural resources. And I thought the actors did beautifully.

Once on Earth, I truly adored the non-linear timeline of Clark's story - jumping to his adulthood and using different situations to trigger the relevant memories of his childhood. Wonderful and different story-telling. I also adored the ideas behind what exactly the Fortress of Solitude is and the adjacent takes on things like "how does Superman's outfit become indestructible". Lot's of good thinking and excellent decisions abound. I even enjoyed how some of the mythology was changed regarding things like Jonathan's death and the relationship between Clark and Lois. All wonderful.

For me, the re-emergence of Zod was not handled well. It is not clear, to me, how his escape was made possible. And though touched on, his fixation on Earth and Kal-El was not fully justified to me. But more importantly, and I am not the first or last to proffer this - from the time Zod arrives on Earth - the movie moves away from all the wonderful psychological and mythical and important story telling and descends into a special effects lollapalooza - a battle of the Titans that goes on for over 30 minutes with more or less repetitive sequences, actions, effects and results. And while the final moment with Superman and Zod is a very, very important development in the Superman mythos, it did not register emotionally with me because the time to create a real relationship between these two antagonists was squandered. I was left feeling, "yes, the planet was saved but if it's going to be like this every time, is it worth it"?

The very final moments are just great and I smiled from ear to ear at the last line.
Most important, Henry Cavill IS Superman. He looks great, he is believable and understated and powerful and if every woman on the planet doesn't want a night with him, I don't know why. The cast is wonderful, kudos all around. My wife loved this film and my son probably enjoyed it even a bit more than I did but with similar reservations.

I can only imagine making something like this is overwhelming beyond words and I congratulate Zach Snyder and all his colleagues for a magnificent and hugely successful work. Man of Steel is well worth your time - whether you're a Superman nut or not. It's an often great, always worthy and fabulously fun piece. I just wanted it to live a bit more in my heart and gut. Instead, it's more of a smile on my face. Hopefully it is that and more for you.

Hope,
JA

 

[DKDetective]

My brother met Arnold and says he's much shorter than he looks in films. So yeah I doubt he is or ever was 6'2." Doesn't even look that tall in films to me.

In regards to the Arnold height thing, the guy is 65 now and has lost some height with age. He was officially measured at 6'1.5" during his bodybuilding days and you see any of the line-up photos with Ferigno and others, it was pretty clear that he WAS over 6' at the time. (Watch Pumping Iron for the best idea of his height since there is no shoes, full head to toe shots and no big budget tricks) Also, I was reading some stuff about how bodybuilders tend to lose more height with age due to all the heavy squatting and deadlifting that they do. It also destroys the archs in their feet without proper footwear and we have see seen the gym shots of Arnold working out barefoot or in sandals.

P.S. I really think that Jaime Alexander is probably wearing 2-3" heels when she is standing beside Arnold? That would put old Arnold in the 5'11" to 6' height range, which is perfectly normal at his age for someone about 6'2" in his youth. My dad, who was 6'2" when he was younger and is only a couple years younger than Arnold, worked in construction all his life and is currently about the same height as me (6') if not slightly shorter. Arnold's apparent lack of height nowadays can be easily explained.

I don't have much of a gauge except for the people I know personally. My coworker is 6'2" and 210 lbs. He carries a bit of extra weight on him, but is very fit and does "boot camp" and Tough Mudder races whenever he can.

He does look to have a larger frame than Henry, though. Especially when you look at Henry's wrists compared to his forearm size in the shirtless shots. His wrists are ridiculously small compared to the rest of him. Normally that points to a hard gainer, which is perhaps why he had to be eating so much during the gaining phase.

Cavill's wrists don't exactly suggest he is a hard gainer. In fact, his weight issues in his early teens suggest otherwise. As someone lame enough to follow and analyze bodybuilding way too closely, I can tell you that bone size and structure/frame aren't necessarily the same thing. The holy grail of bodybuilding genetics is considered having a broad frame, but small bones. It is what gives one a certain "pop", which is what you noticed with Henry's wrist/forearm width comparison. It is part of why he had such an incredibly V-shape. Arnold and Ronnie Coleman are known for having such gifts.

As I was trying to say in my post that sparked all the Cavill/Bale comparisons, this is a big part of why Cavill LOOKS so huge despite weighing less than Bale and being slightly taller. His body simply put on muscle better. If you look at those Bale images more carefully, you will notice that he is THICKER ALL OVER despite having a tight waist and well-defined abs (at least in the pushups scene). The end result is that he is carrying more mass, but it looks less visually impressive, whereas everything on Cavill pops because he is carrying his mass in a more visually pleasing and impressive fashion. If bodybuilding was just as much about genetics as training and nutrition, every pro bodybuilder would look the same. Essentially, physique-wise, Cavill is the male equivalent of a woman with a ridiculous natural hourglass figure.

 

[MrMaooz]

Henry at a Man of Steel event in Shanghai

 

[Bruce Malone]

I think on the weight issue as for bale actually weighing more in begins (assuming we really do know what cavill weighed at the time?), a lot of your body mass/weight is carried in your lower body.

I feel like i keep harping on this but in the workout vids you can see that cavill has much slighter legs compared at least to his upper body. His quads are likely not that massive either. I wouldn't be surprised if bale had a more developed lower body than cavill and that's where some of weight discrepancy could come from.

Cavill obviously trained his lower body we can tell by the vid but genetics often plays a role in how big certain parts of you can grow.

 

[I SEE SPIDEY]

Henry at a Man of Steel event in Shanghai

Dear god.

 

[slumcat]

I think the cornerstones of male aesthetics are the V shape, muscle definition, abdominals and size/symmetry and Cavill's excels at all. He has said that he specially pays attention to muscle definition and his abs.

Look at the V in the pic below.

It is fantastic and makes him look much bigger than he is. Traps/pecs/delts are all well developed and going down to a narrow waist makes him look hulking. Definition is great too. This is not the best pic of the abs but his abs really popped when he just enters the frame near the clothes line. Definition is specially impressive in how clearly the delts are separated from the biceps.

Its the balance of everything that makes his physique so great. I think Cavill really knew what he was doing and what he wanted and executed it to perfection. He deserves all the praise he has received for his physique.

 

[king666]

Henry at a Man of Steel event in Shanghai

Spoiler

Dude seriously looks like Superman.
The hair looks perfect on this picture, 100% Superman

 

[slumcat]

I am not yet convinced that Henry was indeed bigger than Christian. Please provide more visual evidence to convince me.

He probably was NOT bigger but LOOKED bigger. The proof of the pudding is in the media reception.

There is so much hype and publicity around Cavill's physique that usually does not happen at a time when gym toned bodies are dime a dozen. But even today, Cavill's physique managed to draw gasps from the audiences and managed to get a lot of ink in the media. Plus Cavill is sheepishly asked in each and every single interview how he achieved his body.

I think its definitely because it one of the more impressive physiques we have seen on the big screen. I think the last time we saw such hype around somebody's physique was Gerard Butler in 300 which was also a Snyder effort.

Did people come out raving about Bale's physique out of the theater? No. Because its a good strong functional physique. But Cavill's is more visually striking and impressive and looks more difficult to achieve.

 

[DKDetective]

I think the cornerstones of male aesthetics are the V shape, muscle definition, abdominals and size/symmetry and Cavill's excels at all. He has said that he specially pays attention to muscle definition and his abs.

Look at the V in the pic below.

It is fantastic and makes him look much bigger than he is. Traps/pecs/delts are all well developed and going down to a narrow waist makes him look hulking. Definition is great too. This is not the best pic of the abs but his abs really popped when he just enters the frame near the clothes line. Definition is specially impressive in how clearly the delts are separated from the biceps.

Its the balance of everything that makes his physique so great. I think Cavill really knew what he was doing and what he wanted and executed it to perfection. He deserves all the praise he has received for his physique.

He probably was NOT bigger but LOOKED bigger. The proof of the pudding is in the media reception.

There is so much hype and publicity around Cavill's physique that usually does not happen at a time when gym toned bodies are dime a dozen. But even today, Cavill's physique managed to draw gasps from the audiences and managed to get a lot of ink in the media. Plus Cavill is sheepishly asked in each and every single interview how he achieved his body.

I think its definitely because it one of the more impressive physiques we have seen on the big screen. I think the last time we saw such hype around somebody's physique was Gerard Butler in 300 which was also a Snyder effort.

Did people come out raving about Bale's physique out of the theater? No. Because its a good strong functional physique. But Cavill's is more visually striking and impressive and looks more difficult to achieve.

Excellent posts, completely agreed. That is exactly what I was getting at. Physiques and bodybuilding are all about illusions. The where and the appearance of the muscle is often as important as how much of it there is. Cavill's crazy combination of small bone structure (see how slim his joints like his wrists are) and wide frame is freakish awesome and the perfect raw material for a great physique.

Based on the strength gains that Mark Twight published and his anecdotes about how hard Cavill worked in the gym, Cavill deserves a lot of credit for how his physique turned out in terms of work ethic and determination. However, I think you need to mainly acknowledge Mark Twight and GymJones for how Cavill looks. He is the one who designed the program to bring out Cavill's genetic potential and used his vast knowledge to keep him on track through tough workouts and guard against injury. Also, as you mentioned Cavill and the Spartans in 300 are perhaps the two of most noteworthy physique to catch the public's attention. I think it must be remembered that the common element between them was not really Snyder, but Mark Twight who was hired by Snyder to make it happen both times. Dude deserves mad credit. t:

I think on the weight issue as for bale actually weighing more in begins (assuming we really do know what cavill weighed at the time?), a lot of your body mass/weight is carried in your lower body.

I feel like i keep harping on this but in the workout vids you can see that cavill has much slighter legs compared at least to his upper body. His quads are likely not that massive either. I wouldn't be surprised if bale had a more developed lower body than cavill and that's where some of weight discrepancy could come from.

Cavill obviously trained his lower body we can tell by the vid but genetics often plays a role in how big certain parts of you can grow.

Yeah, I can definitely see the leg mass being part of it, but I think it is equally what slumkat and I are discussing. However, your points about leg mass bring me to another thing about Cavill's physique that makes him look so Superman-ish. He has a relatively short torso and longer legs (part of why they look slimmer and are harder to build as you mentioned). The longer legs make him look taller while his shorter torso exaggerates V-shape silhouette of his upper body. Perfect for making Superman look thick and wide while also tall and not stocky (as Bale was criticized for being in Begins).