Man of Steel (2013)

USA, Canada, UK; 143min

Drama, Romance

Director: Zack Snyder

Writers: David S. Goyer, Christopher Nolan 
Stars: Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon

After reboots of almost every commonly known superhero movie we didn’t had to wait long for a new Superman although the last one was only 7 years ago. Creative minds behind Man of Steel were the same that gave us The Dark Knight trilogy, Christopher Nolan and David S. Goyer, while Zack Snyder (300, Watchmen) got to visualize it.

Approach was very similar as the one in The Dark Knight trilogy so it’s hard not to occasionally compare two of them. Main idea is to show what Superman would be in real world just like it was with latest Batman. That, of course, implies much darker, both story and visualization of Superman than before.

Nolan and Goyer gave us new perspectives on few things, such as how he came by his costume and what the S on it means, he’s relationship with Lois and we get completely new, action packed, look at the Jor-El presented by Russell Crowe.

 In movie’s prologue we see happenings at Krypton just before its demise. We are for the first time introduced with Krypton's politics, military and history in an action packed sequence in witch General Zod (Michael Shannon), Krypton's military ruler, tries to overthrow the government which led the planet to its inevitable destruction while Jor-El (Russell Crowe) is trying to save his newborn son by sending him away from decaying planet.

After the prologue movie continues with 33 years old Clark Kent who wanders around the Earth and occasionally saves people until he finds old Kryptonian space ship who’s activation attracts General Zod and his men while the Clark’s youth is shown in flashbacks which are somewhat connected with happenings in real time.

Screenwriting is far from being special in any way but it’s a solid origin story of a 75 years old comic book. There’s a big impression that Goyer’s motto was: If you’re stuck just do it like in Batman, what isn’t all bad, we all liked Batman but we don’t want the same thing over and over again. It’s not only Batman, there’s even a little bit of Avatar and Transformers in this. To be short, it looks like mishmash of everything that was successful recently.

The great thing in this Superman story is that Superman isn’t all nice guy, while Zod isn’t embodiment of evil. Superman actually kills people here, both indirectly and directly and he just watches some of them die while Zod just does his job. Both Henry Cavill as Superman and Michael Shannon as General Zod earned their paycheck. Shannon’s Zod is definitely best one on screen ever while there will be a big number of fans that will think the same for Cavill’s Superman.

Amy Adams as Lois Lane is a very good. This was the third time that she tried to embody her and she made sure that she will be Lois for at least one more time which was very hard since Lois was terribly written. It looks like whole movie was written without her and at the end somebody said: We have to have Lois Lane in this!, so Goyer just inserted her randomly in the scenes. There is so much boredom, coincidence and stupidity and so little logic and sense in scenes that include Lois that the one has to ask did they really forgot about her and inserted her later or does Goyer and Nolan hate her so much. But that’s still nothing compared to the tornado scene which makes almost every man watching it to feel ashamed on behalf of writers.

Although there is only one group of Supermen’s nemesis there are few big battles with another few minor conflicts which are all nicely done but it made movie unnecessarily long which will cause polarization between viewers since the part of them who will not like the movie will hate it more because of endless action while the other part will enjoy in it.

Nolan and Goyer should have spent more time in developing deeper story and characters instead of playing with easter eggs. There’s even a short scene dedicated to producer Jon Peters which will be one of the best parts of movie for all those familiar with his ideas for never filmed Superman reboot with Nicholas Cage.

 

On the other hand Zack Snyder did his job almost flawless. Main battle sequence is pornography for action lovers. Visual effects are top of the class, just like complete scenery and music by, one and only, Hans Zimmer. I was kind of happily expecting random slow motions scenes from Snyder but I guess it wasn’t compatible with realistic approach that Nolan and Goyer imagined.

There is a great amount of CGI but the good thing is that they tried to film everything they could without it, on real sets, so it didn’t end like 300 as some were afraid.

Man of steel is very good origin reboot, nice start of potentially great trilogy and, despite bad acceptance among critics, hit among the fans. Screenwriting could have been much better and I expect great improvement in sequel while it’s hard to make visually better one I’ll be modest and expect the same level on that.

Although the movie has deeper context, even the religious one, it’s in the first place for superhero and action lovers or as we’re used to say, it’s blockbuster and in that genre it scores pretty high.