Last night was Game 6 of the NBA Finals. The San Antonio Spurs played the Miami
Heat. Who won; who cares! Loyal Spurs fans of Austin stayed
at home or gathered at sports bars and left me the opportunity to sit in a
semi-empty movie theater and re-watch Man of Steel without the distractions a
crowded theater would bring. As I was
walking into the theater a pizza delivery guy complimented me on my Kingdom
Come t-shirt. I told him it was my
second time seeing the film and he replied, “you liked the movie?” as if I
should have taken off my t-shirt right there and had fanboys throw vegetables at
me. I said, “Not really, I just want to
make sure it’s not complete shit.”
I love Superman. I
remember going to the comic book store as a kid and picking up Superman #75,
The Death of Superman. I’ve followed him
from The Fall of Metropolis to the Last Stand of New Krypton and I couldn’t
wait for another Superman movie to be made.
I’m one of the select few who liked Superman Returns. I get why people didn’t like it. I mean what’s the point of having the most
powerful man on Earth in a film if he’s not going to hit somebody, right? I know why a general audience rejected it,
but anyone who really gets what Superman is all about knows he’s about more
than just throwing punches.
That being said, Man of Steel is the antithesis of Superman
Returns. This film was action packed! Director Zach Snyder of 300 and Watchmen fame
was picked to head this project. David
Goyer, the writer of all three Blade films and The Dark Knight trilogy co-wrote
with Christopher Nolan producing. From
the beginning I felt like Zach Snyder’s style wouldn't fit with the ray of light
Superman is, and not one of Nolan’s films had any bright suits in them. So my hope layed with David Goyer. I have now realized that Goyer is great at
writing anti-heroes.
Man of Steel is the not the Superman I grew up reading,
or any of us grew-up watching on TV and film.
Snyder, Nolan, and Goyer wanted to take this character into the modern
age and make him relatable, but in doing so they changed some very core values
that make Superman the best hero there ever was. I wanted to see this film twice before I
wrote this entry because the first viewing left me confused and thinking about
what they got wrong. During the second
viewing I was sitting in the theater thinking about what small changes they
could have made to make it better, or what I would have done. In my second viewing I learned to appreciate
the good stuff a little more and came up with these lists.
DISLIKES
#5 Virtual Jor-El
In the Christopher Reeves films Marlon Brando played Jor-El
and when the Fortress of Solitude rose from the Artic he had an interactive
message for his son about who he was and where he came from. A similar message came from this Jor-El,
played by Russell Crowe. He told him where he came from, why he was sent to
Earth, and what he was supposed to do.
Then Jor-El’s conscious came aboard Zod’s ship, and that’s where it got
weird for me. Jor-El pretty much got
Lois out of danger by controlling Zod’s ship.
I know Krypton had advanced alien technology, but what is the point of
Jor-El dying if he’s going to act "alive" the entire film and interacting with
not only Clark, but every character! Zod then speaks and deletes Jor-El aboard
the recently risen ship. I personally hope
that’s the last we see of Jor-El for the rest of this franchise.
#4 Minor Character Development
The main characters in this film were Clark, Lois, Jor-El
and Zod. I get that. But when they interact with people around
them and then those people are in danger I want to care about them, which means
I need to know them so I can care about them.
From his interactions with Lois I got a sense of who Perry White was,
and I think Laurence Fishburne did a good job.
But who is Jenny and why do I care that she’s trapped in a pile of
rubble? And the guy trying to help get her
out, Steve, only had like one line at this point before this heroic act. He was a useless character. Perry could have been there by himself trying
to help Jenny and that would have saved some money on hiring that actor.
Colonel Hardy served his purpose, Dr. Hamilton played a pivotal part, but I all
I know is that he carries mints in his pockets.
I think Martha Kent’s part could have been amp’d up a bit, but I blame
the flashback for that one.
#3 Pacing/Flashbacks
This film had four flashback scenes. They helped set-up Clark’s childhood and
growing up different. In one scene
Clark’s powers make him scared, another shows him getting picked on, and
another is Clark using his powers in public.
The final flashback is a tornado, but I’ll get to that in a minute. Those three flashback scenes could have been
combined into one and ended the movie sooner and get to the bathroom quicker. Batman Begins starts the same way. It started out with a troubled hero trying to
find his purpose, sprinkled in the heroes troubled youth flashbacks, and then
put him in the cape. The problem with
Man of Steel is that the flashbacks were still going on after we saw Clark in
the cape. When Bruce put on the cowl we
knew everything that led him to this point because the flashbacks were
done. When Clark put on the suit I still
didn’t know if his parents were dead or alive, or how he ended up in The
Perfect Storm.
The spaceship crashes, cut to Clark getting picked-on by
bullies on bus/kids whispering about him.
Bus then crashes and Clark saves them. Jonathan Kent then validates his
sons decision to help people, tells him where he’s from, throws in some great
Pa Kent wisdom, and we cut to Clark on the damn fishing boat. No more flashbacks, minus Jonathan’s death,
and we now know Clark’s past struggles and I care about him. DONE!
#2 Jonathan Kent
In every interpretation of Superman Jonathan Kent has died
from a heart attack. Why a heart
attack? Because it’s a lesson for Clark
that no matter how powerful he is he can’t save everyone from everything, even
his own father. In Man of Steel Jonathan
Kent, played by Kevin Costner, gets killed in a tornado because he tells his
son not to use his powers in public, even to save his own life. Mr. Kent told Clark the entire film not to
help people, one day, but not today. Not for another twenty years at
least. When Clark asks, “what was I
supposed to do, just let them die?” and Jonathan replied, “Maybe.” Oh hell no!
Jonathan Kent would never tell his son that! This Pa Kent came off as very hard and almost
cold. Jonathan has always been loving
and protective of his son, but knows Clark was meant to help people. Mr. Kent, meet Uncle Ben. “With great power comes great
responsibility.” At least now I know how this Superman could snap someone’s
neck; bad parenting.
#1 Zod’s Death/Ending Fight Sequence
This ending is already making a buzz on the Internet and for
good reason. Superheroes, classic
superheroes, never kill. Superman is the
model of that code. He’s the best of them
all, a beacon of hope. He’s the light in
a world of darkness. In The Dark Knight,
Batman, an anti-hero, does not kill the Joker and avoids it at all costs. But Goyer and Snyder thought, eh, Superman now
kills and Batman doesn’t. But to be fair
I think Zod never should have been there to begin with.
Superman flies into Zod’s ship and uses his heat vision to
crash it. Next we see Superman save Lois
and then after all the other Kryptonians are gone he fights Zod to the death,
while killing more people in their battle.
He does this by not only causing destruction, but when Zod throws a fuel
truck at him Superman gets out of the way and the LexCorp truck brings down a
building, probably killing hundreds of more people. But when four people are threatened with heat
vision, then he decided to go all “Punisher" on Zod. Superman cares about
everyone, and does everything he can to avoid anyone getting hurt.
Now when I said Zod never should have been there what I meant
was that after the ship crashed, while Lois and the gang where still arming the
phantom bomb, Zod and Superman should have had their space battle then, making
it shorter and ending with Zod going into the Phantom Zone with the rest of the
Kryptonians and Superman saving Lois.
DONE! You get you're Superman/Zod fight and the integrity of the character would still be intact. Somebody give these people
my number!
LIKES:
#5 Special Effects
When I read Superman comic books and see the action in the
pages I imagine how it would go down in real life. Well, real life has finally caught up with my
imagination. I saw this film the first
time in IMAX 3-D and was well worth it.
The fight scenes were awesome, if not a little over-the-top, and the
flying sequences were phenomenal in 3-D.
I finally got to see what a real-life Superman can do. I also got to see most of Metropolis
destroyed, but I only blame a few blocks of that on Superman and his disregard
for human life.
#4 The Suit
Nicholas Cage once said, “the Superman outfit it like a
Coca-Cola bottle, you don’t mess with that.”
Tell that to Nolan and Snyder.
Superman’s suit has gotten darker for this darker version, but it’s not
so much the tone but the texture I like.
He’s not wearing tights, but something close to Kryptonian battle
clothes, no red underwear, and it looks cool.
Now, how Jor-El got this colorful suit on a ship that had been buried
for thousands of years is a bit of a plot hole, but it does resemble what Zod
and Jor-El wear, including the cape, but minus the colorfulness. In most Superman interpretations Martha Kent
makes his suit and if they could have found a way to incorporate that it would
have been nice, but I’m ok with this too.
#3 Henry Cavill
I was pretty upset at first when I heard that Henry Cavill
from Britain was picked to played the greatest American hero. I saw Cavill in the few episodes of The
Tudors and also in the Immortals. Don’t
both watching Immortals; your welcome.
Anyway, Cavill looked the part and acted the part. His tone was strong but kind. The interrogation scene and the final scene
with General Swanwick I thought were a perfect performance of what Superman
would have said and how he would have said it. I look forward to seeing what
Cavill can do later in the franchise.
#2 Krypton
For over 30 years the planet Krypton has been portrayed as
an ice planet inhabited by crystal fortresses.
This Kryton is full of life and not a crystal in sight. Jor-El is pretty
bad ass for a guy who was bred just to be a scientist, but he does what needs to
be done instead of just being all talk. We get to see the politics of the world
as well as a civil war. We see a world
that is about to explode because they have an unstable core by using up all
their natural resources, which of course is a wink to all the hippies watching.
We mainly see a world not unlike our own, but older, and could possibly be
Earth one day. My only dislike is the use of the yellow sun instead of a red
sun. Kal gets powers on Earth not
because it’s a different sun, but because it’s a newer sun; lame.
The science of adapting to Earth's atmosphere and gravitational pull also adds a sense of sci-fi believability in the film. Probably my favorite part of the Krypton plot is that
normally Kal flies off just as the planet explodes. In Man of Steel he leaves
the planet some time before it explodes.
These little twists help make it interesting to fanboys like myself and
keeps things fresh. Well done.
#1 Lois Lane
It took Lois Lane decades to find out that Clark Kent was
Superman. But when Amy Adams plays the
character she finds out in like a few weeks.
Lois is a great investigative journalist so to not make the audience
think she’s stupid she tracks down her hero after he saves her the first time
and has it all figured out before he even makes his first public
appearance. At the end of the film Lois
meets the newest member of The Daily Planet, Clark Kent. Then there is this look between them that
lets us know that nothing will be like we know it was. Lois knows who Clark is and for the rest of
the franchise she will know. He will not
have to hide it from her, and their total relationship is fresher than all the buildings being re-built around Metropolis.
If I had one complaint about the character it’s why she’s in
it so much. Why does Zod want Lois to go
to his ship? He just sends her to a
holding cell. Was he waiting to anal
probe her? And then Lois is on the plane
with Colonel Hardy, but why? Yes, she
knows how to use the phantom bomb, but she's a civilian and how hard is it to stick the key in the
hole? She doesn’t even know how to do
it right and Dr. Hamilton has to fix it.
Oh, and General Swanwick? If they
would have changed him to General Lane it would have served Swanwick’s purpose
and also given you more character depth with Lois. Seriously Warner Bros, I’m on Twitter, look
me up!
So, I feel that Man of Steel wasn’t even close to beating
the magic of Superman:The Movie in my eyes, but in no way was as bad as
Superman III. With all the elements such
as directing and casting I knew what this film could potentially be and
therefore was not too surprised when it didn’t live up to what I wanted it to
be. But it seems to have lived-up to
what Warner Bros wanted. It’s already
made a butt-load of money and a sequel may come out by next year. DC has finally jump started what Marvel did
back in 2008 with Iron Man. A Justice
League movie will be out before we know it.
Personally I’m still trying to decide it that’s a good thing or not.
I thought this film may be like Superman: Earth One and it’s
pretty much what it is. I didn’t like
Superman: Earth One, but I did like Superman: Earth One: Vol. 2 if you get what
I’m saying. So maybe there is a bit of “hope”
in this film after all.
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