Man of Steel

And then I became really worried when they turned Lois Lane into a redhead....



"Man of Steel", the latest attempt to reboot the now 75 year old franchise that is "Superman" has finally arrived after months and months....and months of hype and hoopla. It's been somewhat of a bumpy road for Supes which is surprising seeing as he is arguably the most popular and recognizable of the superheroes. Superman was probably at his most popular during the late 70's and early 80's with Christopher Reeve putting on the spandex and starring in 4 movies (2 of which were great, the last 2....not so much) reboot upon reboot tried to take form during the 90's, most notably with director Tim Burton and star Nicholas Cage but those never came to fruition. 2006 finally brought Supes back to the big screen in director Bryan Singer's underappreciated "Superman Returns" starring complete unknown Brandon Routh. Even with a 200 million domestic gross "SR" was not able to revitalize the franchise and DC comics had to take a backseat to Marvel in the comic book movie wars.

I don't hold Superman in the high regards that most of my fellow fanboys do, I have and always will be apart of #teammarvel but along with Batman I have always respected the mythology of Kal-El/Clark Kent and will always show up for the movies. The main problem with Superman being converted into a feature film is the problem that other American literary classics have: the material, it can be said is un-adaptable. It may seem odd to think that a comic book such as Superman could be un-adaptable but beyond the "faster than a locomotive" notion there are a lot of layers to the character and the world(s) on which he is from.

After the success of "The Dark Knight" trilogy director Christopher Nolan was tapped to produce a new Superman movie. On paper this seems genius, after Batman was basically turned into a walking punchline Nolan revitalized Batman. It showed that when done right comic book movies can be seen as more than just popcorn fluff.


The bottom line is that "Man of Steel", with all the talent involved has to be looked at as the biggest disappointment of the year. Nolan again is just producer here but other than a few moments it hardly seems like he had any involvement at all. The director, Zack Snyder has made one great movie (Dawn of the Dead), two good movies (300 and Watchmen), a horrible movie (Suckerpunch) and a movie about talking owls (Legend of the Guardians) he has a great visual eye but his actual storytelling abilities leave much to be desired. Henry Cavill is Superman this time around and while he definitely has the look and build for Supes he plays the character very wooden and stale. This could be more from the wooden and stale script but the big problem here is that if this movie spawns off sequels and the long in development "Justice League" movie he has to be more charismatic. Amy Adams is Lois Lane and while its nice to see the character as more than just the damsel in distress even as talented as an actress as Adams is I just don't think that 250 million dollar blockbusters are really in her comfort zone. Kevin Costner and Diane Lane play Superman's adoptive parents, Jonathan and Martha Kent and both, especially Costner are underused as the stuff about Clark growing up and discovering his powers are some of the best stuff in the film.

The story structure is the movies main problem. Jumping between past and present gets tiresome and Clark seemingly jumps into his role as Superman in basically one scene, he gets the suit, he figures out how to fly and BOOM! he's Superman. The outline of the story was crafted by Nolan but Snyder can't tell the story with the same depth that Nolan would had he been behind the camera, the last 40 minutes or so is basically a CGI clusterfuck and a great character such as General Zod is basically left as a screaming thespian as played by character actor Michael Shannon. The final act of "Man of Steel is really its undoing, along with the CGI clusterfuck the movie ends just as last years "Skyfall" did in that it wraps everything that you actually wanted to see throughout the movie in the last 5 minutes so it gets you excited for the inevitable sequel(s).

Maybe Superman is the comic book equivalent of "Catcher in the Rye" a piece of literature that is universally loved but should just stay in the written form. To me Superman is not a relatable character and especially since they took kryptonite out of this version he has no weakness so when is there cause for concern? The Superman I respected stood for "Truth, Justice and the American way" this Superman is seemingly wrapped up in his own daddy issues and whether to keep facial hair or not...