Man of Steel Review

I've said it before and I'll say it again: It is impossible to make a great Superman film. The character does not translate well to film and while the first two installments are good fun, they are not great films. The animated cartoon was good fun, hell even Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman was 90's camp at it's best. Although even that focused more so on the Clark Kent side of the character rather than the Superman side. So, still no great Superman film though.

Okay, there is one great Superman film.

I went to see Superman 6/Man of Steel the other day, not particularly excited or hyped but then again my expectations were relatively low. I'm not a fan of Zack Snyder in any way. I enjoyed the remake of Dawn of the Dead but perhaps foreshadowing Man of Steel, it pales in comparison to the original. I find his films to be visually compelling but completely void and hollow in the story department. His characters often too under-developed and unlikable. But we all know the focus is not on Snyder but the films producer: Christopher "Golden Boy" Nolan. I AM a fan of Nolan however, I like his direction, writing and most of his films in general. I love The Dark Knight, I like Batman Begins and I dislike The Dark Knight Rises, so his Batman trilogy can be both hit and miss with me and to be honest, was probably a big reason I was not hyped. I assumed this would be Superman Begins and be followed by Man of Steel and then finally Man of Steel Rises.

Anyway, the film opens on Krypton and Russell Crowe is playing Jor-El and Ayelet Zurer (take that spell checker) is playing Lara, Supe's biological parents. How come the father has an alien name and the mother a human name? After giving birth to Supes, we learn the planet is doomed and Jor predicted this but his advice fell on deaf ears. General Zod (Michael Shannon) stages a military coup, killing the council and Papa Supes in the process. Not before Jor manages to save his baby boy by hurling him through space in a metal can however and Zod and his followers are quickly captured and sent to the Phantom Zone (Where they play both The Phantom and The Phantom Menace on repeat for all eternity)  This whole sequence is actually pretty good, the costumes are great, the scenery looks pretty sweet and Crowe ain't too bad at all. Zurer is a bit wooden but she ain't around long enough to get on your nerves. Sure there is an abundance of CGI and things zoom and zoop around too fast but in general this is a solid opener. You just can't not picture these scenes being played out with Brando and Stamp mentally. It's actually a better movie if you do that throughout it's entirety.

Then things go down hill.

It follows the standard origin story, Johnathan (Kevin Costner)  and Martha Kent (Diane Lane) find and adopt Clark. (Both of his dads are freaking Robin Hood!) It's here we are introduced to grown up Clark Kent played by Henry Cavill. I haven't seen much else of Cavill but got to say, wasn't impressed by his performance. The character in general is horribly written but I didn't connect with him at all. Whatever. At least he looks the part I guess. Where was I? Oh yeah, Clark goes all Wolverine/Batman Begins, wandering the globe all bearded up, doing odd jobs and hitch hiking about. Nothing happens until we get to the arctic. Lois Lane (Amy Adams) is reporting about something or another and meets Colonel Exposition (Christopher Meloni) who tells her to shit in a bucket. I like Amy Adams by the by, she does a fine job here too. I never really see her as Lois Lane, she looks more like a Mary-Jane but she still does well in the role. She snopes around and follows Clark into a spacecraft and gets attacked by floating CGI bots. Clark saves the day, starts the craft and speaks to a holographic version of Russell Crowe. Oh and he gets his new suit.

He was slightly underwhelmed though

I know I'm skipping over the plot more and more but it already feels like an eternity. Basically the second-third act is Zod coming to Earth to A) Capture Supes but really it's B) Terra-form the planet into a new Krypton. Right now I can bitch a bit more and not focus on the story (Hell if the screenwriter didn't, why should I?) Firstly, the flashbacks. The fucking flashbacks. Everything is shown for us and it's a problem throughout, we see something and then have it explained for us. The Krypton scene at the start is fine until Clark meets Jor and he explains it all again. How dumb do they take us for? I know this a film that can turn your brain into a sponge but it doesn't erase your short term memory. All the flashbacks are sepia toned too because why not. Secondly, is he hell thirty three years old. Not only does act like a goddamn 14 year old who has been denied tickets to a Green Day concert but it takes him 33 years to learn he can fly?! After knowing he can lift buses and shoot lasers out of his eyes? You wouldn't be a little fucking curious about what else you could do? Thirdly, the 2 second shot cuts. I admired the framing and shots (Specially the ones without overkill ad placement) but you can't really appreciate it when it all goes flying past you. If sentences were short. This short. For no reason. It would piss you off.  I seen this motherfucker in 3D too. I was lucky my eye balls didn't melt.

Also, fuck the what was up with Costner's sacrifice for the dog? The nonchalant hand action that meant "No God Alien, this how I need to go. So you can learn something"  Apparently dogs lives are worth more than humans. In fact your dog > your Dad according to this.

In summary: I enjoyed the acting, mostly Shannon for half putting in a great performance and half chewing the shit out of the CGI scenery,  40% of the score (when it wasn't burrrrrrrrr wubwubwubwubwub'ing all the time)  and some shots here and there. The biggest crime here is that this mess cost $225 million. I'm pretty sure that could of bought copies of Superman 1 and 2 (both versions) for everyone on the planet. When you spend that much money and don't even put a CGI Richard Pryor in it, you can fuck right off.

48/100 - "I've seen 5 hour movies but this felt like the longest film of all time"

KRS