Viewed in
2013
Formats
Movie theater.
Premise
Henry Cavill stars in the Zack Snyder reboot of Superman.
Loved
Battle of Smallville.
Liked
Hans Zimmer earwormy score, strong performances.
Disliked
On-the-nose symbolisms, the inconsistent themes of morality.
Hated
Disturbing 9/11 visual references.
Thoughts
Well, it was definitely epic.
Director Zack Snyder's CGI eye candy was in full effect, making a lot of the action sequences breath-taking and kinetic. Even though he used the handheld shaky cam style while characters fought at subsonic speeds, Snyder managed to make these potentially chaotic sequences very lucid, very easy to follow.
My favorite part was the middle section. The combination of strong performances, Snyder's visual flair, and Hans Zimmer's thrilling score really gave Kal-El's identity/morality issues and his superhuman rescues a great emotional punch. Obviously, the battle in Smallville harkened to Superman II, but was way more memorable, not just because of updated technology and sensibilities, but because the stakes were so much higher.
As I mentioned, the cast was very strong. Cavill was convincing in the soul-searching brooding way, as there wasn't much Clark Kent-ish scenes for him. Michael Shannon was good. Not as memorable as Terence Stamp, but pulled off the menacing act well. As for the rest, I really liked Russell Crowe and Diane Lane, but Kevin Costner and Amy Adams really stood out. None of them upstaged Cavill, yet all still were able to bring the emotional thunder in their (what I call) "earn your paycheck" scenes.
Some of the updating of story and sensibilities was nice. I loved that the film makers never bothered with the "will Lois know that Clark and Superman are the same?" angle, which put Adams' talent to better use. More Russell Crowe was a good move as well, allowing the Kryptonian father-son dynamic to be better spread throughout the movie. I found the jailbreak scene with Lois and Jor-El's avatar to be thrilling.
Now much of the nerd rage was that Superman was not a boy scout. But I kind of knew that he was going to be (Christopher) Nolan-ized. I found it interesting that they pushed him further than they were able to with Batman (and Cavill's reaction to the last act's resolution was fantastically layered). I wasn't outraged, granted I'm not the biggest Supes fan, I just accepted it for what it was. Like anything else pop culture, the pendulum will swing in movie franchises, whether it's Batman or James Bond. They will vacillate, between gritty/morally ambiguous and clean-cut/good vs evil, incarnation to incarnation.
What bugged me more was the non-stop 9/11 imagery as Metropolis got extirpated. Yes, they're not the first blockbuster to do disaster-porn, but it's an annoying trend. Not only was I reaching a critical mass, but it didn't serve the story. It perverted the blatant Jesus allegories, contradicted the realistic grittiness (by not addressing the collateral loss of life), and it forced a useless Laurence Fishburne survival subplot upon us that killed momentum.
Oh, did I mention allegories? Look, I'm an agnostic with minimal bible knowledge, but you could really make a drinking game out of the on-the-nose Jesus references (I suggest something light for every mention of the number 33). Symbolism much?
I'll always be a bigger fan of the more cheerful Christopher Reeve movies, despite their dated cheesiness. But if you like comic book action spectacles with a darker edge, Man of Steel was a strong beginning to the Henry Cavill era.
