MAN OF STEEL – The Review

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s Superman – making his flight back into the multiplex after a 7-year absence. Zack Snyder’s MAN OF STEEL is an improvement over Brian Singer’s SUPERMAN RETURNS (2006) which is never mentioned in discussions of great super-hero movies and Henry Cavill, this strapping young fella starring, makes Brandon Routh from the earlier film look downright womanly by comparison. Snyder has a distinctive vision to bring to the story and his “franchise reboot” at least feels like something other than a naked grab for dollars. It’s big and dark and eager to please, and it frequently succeeds, but despite its best intentions, it’s over-serious and overlong and not as much fun as it should be. MAN OF STEEL is a good movie but seldom ascends to the heights of 1978’s SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE, still the best big-screen interpretation of the character created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster eighty years ago.

MAN OF STEEL opens with Jor-El (Russell Crowe) and Lara Lor-Van (Ayelet Zurer) celebrating the birth of Kal-El, the first naturally born child in centuries on the dying planet Krypton. Rebellious General Zod (Michael Shannon) desires to take over power, battling and ultimately killing Jor-El (don’t worry – he’ll come back later to spiritually counsel his son). Just before Krypton implodes, baby Kal-El is rocketed away while the captured Zod and his goons are frozen eternally, to be thawed out later by the planet’s destruction. Kal-El reaches Earth and, as we’re shown is a series of flashbacks, is raised by upright Kansas farmers Jonathan and Martha Kent (Kevin Costner and Diane Lane). They teach him to conceal his special powers as he grows because they know the human race would never accept him. The adult Clark Kent meets Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Lois Lane while she’s on assignment in Canada to report an object trapped in ice which turns out to be the spaceship that contains the remains of General Zod. Lois begins an investigation of Clark, sparring with her editor Perry White (Laurence Fishburne), and eventually teams up with Superman to defeat Zod’s plan to replace humanity with the last of the Kryptonians.

MAN OF STEEL does what it does pretty well. The scenes where young Clark is baffled and traumatized by his special powers – the x-ray vision he initially can’t control or the heat beams that shoot from his eyes – provide good drama. The action sequences in the first half – an oil rig fire, a school bus accident, a tornado – are punchy and engaging, setting my hopes high. Unfortunately, when the action movies to Metropolis for the film’s finale, it feels like they handed the directorial reigns over to Michael Bay with massive big-scale effects sequences that may feed your inner 10-year-old’s appetite for destruction but seem dutiful instead of exhilarating. Since Zod’s a Krytonian, a foe of comparable strength, we get endless scenes of hero and villain smashing and sailing faster than speeding bullets through crumbling skyscrapers in a climactic battle that doesn’t know when to stop (thousands of Metropolites must perish in this climax but we never see them). It’s always been the more earth-bound quality of the Superman legend that made the comic-book fantasy soar, so to turn the climax into a Transformers retread is a disappointment. I wasn’t wanting, or expecting camp but MAN OF STEEL lacks a sense of humor. Snyder is unable to avoid the common comic-book adaptation trap of gloomy self-seriousness. Early in the film Lois Lane (Amy Adams) tells Clark Kent, who’s helping her unload her camera equipment to “be careful with those bags. They’re heavy”. It’s a funny line, but I was kept waiting for more like it.

Henry Cavill makes for a fine, rugged, muscular hero, combining correctly chiseled features with a likable soulfulness and humanity. He does a funny riff on the merit of handcuffs, but I mostly wished he would lighten up, or at least smile more. Amy Adams is less successful, turning Lois Lane into a relatively anonymous presence who makes little impact on the screen. She also seems miscast and, unless there was a cougar reference I missed, too old for the role (Ms Adams is in fact nine years older than Cavill) though we’re reminded several times that Clark Kent’s age is 33 (one of many Jesus references in the film – for more go HERE). A somber Michael Shannon lends gravity as a determined Zod, a military man born and bred to save his race. His is a complex and at times sympathetic villain and I did not miss Lex Luthor at all (though I did miss Jimmy Olsen – wtf?).

Visually, MAN OF STEEL is undeniably impressive. No expense has been spared bringing Snyder’s vision to the screen – it’s the hugest, loudest, smashiest film of the summer but too much of it is overkill, from the CGI destruction to Hans Zimmer’s bombastic score. MAN OF STEEL is not in the same league as the best men-in-tights adaptions. It’s well worth a look, but I think the more you dial down your expectations, the more you’ll enjoy it.

3 of 5 Stars