Man of Steel: Review

I realize that this is very delayed and that most of the people who wanted to see Man of Steel all have, but this is what I thought.

Since I saw Man of Steel on opening weekend it is a movie that hasn’t left my mind. Partially because of the constant debate about the film between friends and other film nerds like myself. Partially because it was the number 1 film I was excited to see this summer, and partially because blogs I frequent, such as /Film, keep posting such interesting Superman based content. For example, this article, about why Superman, as a character, makes for boring movies. This article really helped me to contextualize why it is that Man of Steel didn’t hit home as well as I hoped it would.

When I first thought about this film I had hoped that under the supervision of Christopher Nolan, director Zach Snyder and writer David Goyer would be able to tell the Superman story in a similar way that the epic Dark Knight trilogy had for Batman. However, as Cracked points out, “We aren’t nearly as interested in acts of heroism as we are in the madness it takes for vulnerable people to become heroes.” To me this is spot on. As I watched Man of Steel I was in awe of the creation of Superman and the struggle he has choosing between his true people, from Krypton, and his adopted people of Earth. However, once he chooses to save us mere earthlings the whole movie seems to end. No one sitting in the theatre thinks Superman is going to lose, so it’s just a matter of how will he win.

This is the problem with Superman, again I cite the Cracked article, which states that Superman is so super that it’s impossible to think of him losing unless his powers are stripped away, but then he’s no longer Superman. Unlike Spiderman and Batman, even Iron Man, Superman’s greatest power is the symbol that he is. Spiderman and Batman are viewed as vigilantes and criminals in the recent film incarnations. Iron Man is viewed as a rich guy in a suit, nothing more, and on top of all that, all three heroes are viewed as human. They are defeatable, which makes them more interesting. Superman, can take over the world in a day, nothing can hurt him. He is faster than anything else int he world, he can’t be shot and unless we somehow take a way his powers he is unbeatable. Yet despite this infinite power he chooses to protect us, and that makes him the symbol of hope that his father, Jor-El wants him to be.

The film spends a lot of time reminding the audience that Superman is the great hope for the world. That only he can bring the planets of Krypton and Earth together and solve the problems that both societies have. The “S” on Superman’s chest literally means, “hope,” so it’s pretty slammed into the heads of every person in the audience. However here’s the problem: A hero who can’t be beaten being a symbol of hope gets really boring after about an hour and a half, and that’s exactly what happens to Man of Steel. 

Goyer builds the plot around the idea that Kryptonians, led by the evil General Zod, who is played brilliantly by Michael Shannon, come to the earth in the hopes of finding Kal-El (Superman) and using him to create a new Krypton on Earth. However Kal-El has a problem with that and fights back, ultimately beating Zod and bringing peace to the planet. Great pitch, but it makes for a mediocre, high concept film. Not to mention the unnecessarily long runtime of 2 hours and 20 min. Here’s a spoiler for you: the whole movie is done with special FX and the last hour of the movie is Superman beating people up. Although this sounds like what you would expect, it is done in such a way that all remnants of a story and of characters seems to disappear.

Instead of challenging Clark to face his fears (Batman Begins) or face someone that he hates (Original Superman Trilogy), Superman is not given any moral conflict at all. Instead, he is faced with an obvious choice of do anything he can to save the humans from this super evil bad guy. It sounds like it should be good, but it’s boring and it drags. Fights can only happen in so many ways, and an hour of fist fighting is un interesting in a movie, once Clark Kent puts on the blue spandex and becomes Superman it’s as if Goyer stopped thinking and just watched a little kid play with superhero action figures beat each other up for an hour and then did a play by play recap for the film.

Finally, it would be unfair of me to discuss Man of Steel, without addressing the ending. Now, if you don’t know how Steel ends, I apologize but ti’s time to come out from under the rock. Superman is forced to choose between the life of General Zod or the life of an innocent family and he chooses the family. Now, Goyer is on record as saying that he didn’t want to have Superman kill anyone unless it was necessary and so he put him in a situation where it was necessary. Personally, I love it. I realize that for many fans the thought of Superman killing anyone is a no-no. Well, I am not one of them, this was the only redeeming quality of the last hour of Man of Steel, watching as Superman was forced to make a moral decision, much like Batman at the end of Batman Begins. It was the first time since the suit was introduced, that we saw a man in the suit and not a hero and it was refreshing.

Now, with all this negative stuff said time for a quick roundup of the positives. The first hour is fantastic, Russell Crowe and Henry Cavill are amazing and cast perfectly. The origin story is told efficiently and the choice to use Kevin Costner as Jonathan Kent was great, and provided a realistic set up for the symbol that Superman inevitably becomes, and the code that he lives by. Finally, Man of Steel is a solid base on which to begin to grow the Justice league. With the Batman trilogy come and gone the DC universe needed something to give it traction, and although by no means perfect, Man of Steel does just that. Hopefully the writer of the next film (everyone cross your fingers and pray for Chris Nolan) will be able to hone in on how to make Superman great again because this film didn’t quite do it.

If you haven’t seen it yet, wait for it on Netflix/Redbox. But, if you still want to see it in theatres you might as well spend the extra money to see the hour of fighting in IMAX 3D, it’s pretty in your face and it makes for a fun, cliche hollywood  ride.