I was looking over my blog recently and came to a shocking realization; I forgot to review this movie! I had written the "Tale Of Dark Stuff" post with the intention for it to lead into a Man Of Steel review, like how the Incredibles post lead into Iron Man 3. But it just never happened; I guess I'm either super lazy, or this movie didn't leave anywhere near enough of an impact to make me remember to review it. Or it could be both. Yeah, both.
I guess you can't talk about this movie without at least mentioning Superman Returns, the last movie Superman movie to be released, back in 2006.
I won't talk too much except this; it's not that bad. Sure it had it's flaws, but the movie was nowhere near terrible. The biggest problem a lot of people seemed to have with it (Besides Lois having no clue the damn kid was Superman's kid) was that film really didn't have a lot of action. Hell, Superman never even threw a punch! Superman Returns didn't do that great, and future Superman movies seemed to be in limbo. The fans made it clear they wanted less character development and more action. A number of ideas and pitches were thrown around until finally Warner Brothers decided they would produce a Superman script by David S. Goyer. And oh look, Christopher Nolan was exec producing! Yay! What could possibly go wrong? Hmph.
Let me be start by saying I was really looking forward to this. The early buzz was great, the cast was promising, the trailers looked stellar, and I had an overall feeling we finally had an awesome, badass Superman movie. Nope. The biggest problem with Man Of Steel is that the movie is utterly joyless, with zero sense of fun or adventure. They were really trying to make this Superman's answer to Batman Begins, very dark and serious. I appreciate that, but it just doesn't work well for Superman. I don't mind them taking it seriously, but Superman needs to have some form of optimism. Superman is meant to symbolize hope, but this guy just represented a dark brooding guy who hates his life and saves people because his daddy tells him to. And for a movie that tries so hard to pose itself as a serious alien invasion movie, why do the Kryptonian "aliens" look, talk and act exactly like humans? I know it's also been that way in the comics, but it bothered me there too. Here was the chance to explain it; maybe a throwaway line on how humans and Kryptonians have a similar DNA to finally clear that up, especially in a movie trying to be "realistic." Another thing: Superman is supposed to be full of compassion and love for humans, right? That's why he saves people? Well in this version, he shows none of that. The final battle probably killed tens of thousands of people, but Superman never goes out of his way to save people. That's one of the problems I have with these big budget destruction movies. Hundreds of people are probably dying, but just so long as our small group of main characters (In this case Perry White, Lois Lane and the Daily Planet staff) survive, everything is gonna be okay. Sure they may be the last people alive, but so what? We need to have our happy ending somehow.
This was pure style over substance, typical of director Zach Snyder. We asked for more action, and oh boy we got it. But then we got the opposite problem. There was very little character development and WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYY too much action. It got really boring after awhile. Like Superman Returns, this movie simply cannot mix action and character development, although I think this was even worse. Sure Superman Returns had little action, but scenes like the plane rescue scene made it up for it. This movie had no real character development. We see Clark can't stop from saving people, but why? Why does he care? We see some of it built up, especially in the scenes with Jonathan Kent, but it's simply not enough.
Did I hate everything about this movie? No. The action was way overdone, but that's not to say there weren't some very impressive scenes, like the midair battle between Superman and Zod. The best part of this movie was easily the cast. The only main cast member I didn't like was Michael Shannon as Zod. He was too warlike, I didn't buy him as a general. The rest of the cast was great, although Amy Adams stole the show as Lois Lane. Without a doubt, this was the best incarnation of Lois ever. She was tough, resourceful and very, very smart. She's actually an investigative reporter, and manages to track down Clark and learn about his past. A HUGE improvement over Kate Bosworth's Lois. Henry Cavill was good as Superman, he really was. He carried the burden of his powers well and put a human face on Superman's struggles. An already weak movie would have suffered a lot more if he wasn't in it. Kevin Costner was really good as Jonathan Kent. He was warm and wise, and the scene with the tornado was very powerful. Russell Crowe was okay as Jor-El. He got the job done, but he was a bit dull.
It's too bad Man Of Steel is disappointing, because I really think they could have had something. I'm all for a more serious Superman movie, and I'm all for an action packed Superman movie. I just wish the filmmakers knew how to balance everything better. I know Goyer and Snyder are returning for a sequel, a sequel that will feature Batman. I do want a sequel to this instead of another reboot. The cast was too good to let go, and I don't think this mess was unfixable. But it needs new creative people, and I think Snyder and Goyer should be replaced. Not much thought on Batman, but we'll see. Overall Man Of Steel is a weak, disappointing movie, but not terrible, right? Nah, not terrible at all...
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-....Ok, you know what I'm going to say. There was one scene that pushed this movie over the edge, one scene that did push this movie into terrible territory, you know what it is. Zod is about to hit some people with his heat vision while Superman begs him not to. Zod is about hit them.... when Superman snaps his neck, killing him. Look, I get that they're trying to make a more "modern" Superman, but there's some things you can't change. Superman never, ever kills. This is an aspect of the character you can't change, and this movie had no right to try. What's worse is that it was avoidable. If they put Superman in a position where I really believed he had absolutely no choice but to kill Zod, then maybe I would have bought it. But they didn't even do that properly! He could have covered Zod's eyes, thrown him through the wall, punched him in the head, anything other than kill him! It was a rushed and frankly unforgiveable moment that totally sank this mess once and for all.
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