I feel conflicted about the new Superman movie by Zack Snyder, Man of Steel, which I’ll get into further detail below. There is so much to really connect with during this movie, and there is a lot that just doesn’t feel quite as good as you hoped for. There is so much thrown at this movie that you’d expect to be engrossed for the entire (slightly bloated) run time, and that’s not quite the case.
Snyder’s rendition of Superman tells the tale of how Krypton doomed itself and Jor-El (Russell Crowe) sends his newborn son to Earth to keep him safe. In the midst of all this, General Zod (Michael Shannon) tries to throw a coup and lands himself in a spaceship prison while all of Krypton blows up (well, that worked out for him....) Flash forward 33 years, and the Kryptonion Kal-El (now known as Clark Kent) is running from job to job in order to keep his unique powers hidden...until one day Earth needs him to reveal himself.
Now onto what worked and what did not....
On one hand, I loved the scenes set in Smallville that show Clark Kent’s budding powers, his desire and obligation to help those in peril, and his relationship with his adoptive parents (Kevin Costner and Diane Lane) and how they shape him. But, the problem is that these scenes are peppered in sporadically, in attempt to create a non-linear story (thanks, Christopher Nolan), and I feel like they’d have more weight if the story was told in a more linear fashion. The scenes with Costner and Lane are just so downright moving that I wish we got more of an origin story than just a mere peppering of their stories.
On the other hand, Lois Lane (Amy Adams) just does not work for me in this movie. I liked that she was strong and determined like all Lois Lanes should be, but I couldn’t quite grasp her romance with our Man of Steel (Henry Cavill). It made zero sense. Plus, all of her cohorts at the Daily Planet are pretty wasted here too. I feel like they filmed more scenes but were left on the cutting room floor.
Also, Cavill, who realllllllly looks the part, is just sorta ho-hum. Where is his great sense of wit and humor he had in The Tudors? I get that Superman is sorta one-dimensional, and Cavill DOES bring out a little bit of Superman’s torment at having to enact violence on his enemies, but the little kids playing Clark Kent were much more emotive than he.
Of course, I adore Michael Shannon, and I do buy him as a villain hell-bent on destroying earth, but the real weight of his menace didn’t really hit me until the very end of the film. There are several battle scenes in the climax of Man of Steel, and the ones that really work are when it’s just mano-y-mano instead of Superman versus some weird tentacle machine thing (which will really send you back to the days of the Matrix).
On a whole, the emotional weight from the Kent family was enough for me to feel engrossed, but the tediousness of the Man of Steel definitely weighs on you towards the end. The spectacle of it all isn’t quite grand enough, even though it desperately tries by throwing SO MUCH CGI in your face, and the film is definitely bogged down by its 3-D.
So, go in looking for a Pretty Greatman, maybe just not a Super one.
--Darcie Duttweiler
Snyder’s rendition of Superman tells the tale of how Krypton doomed itself and Jor-El (Russell Crowe) sends his newborn son to Earth to keep him safe. In the midst of all this, General Zod (Michael Shannon) tries to throw a coup and lands himself in a spaceship prison while all of Krypton blows up (well, that worked out for him....) Flash forward 33 years, and the Kryptonion Kal-El (now known as Clark Kent) is running from job to job in order to keep his unique powers hidden...until one day Earth needs him to reveal himself.
Now onto what worked and what did not....
On one hand, I loved the scenes set in Smallville that show Clark Kent’s budding powers, his desire and obligation to help those in peril, and his relationship with his adoptive parents (Kevin Costner and Diane Lane) and how they shape him. But, the problem is that these scenes are peppered in sporadically, in attempt to create a non-linear story (thanks, Christopher Nolan), and I feel like they’d have more weight if the story was told in a more linear fashion. The scenes with Costner and Lane are just so downright moving that I wish we got more of an origin story than just a mere peppering of their stories.
On the other hand, Lois Lane (Amy Adams) just does not work for me in this movie. I liked that she was strong and determined like all Lois Lanes should be, but I couldn’t quite grasp her romance with our Man of Steel (Henry Cavill). It made zero sense. Plus, all of her cohorts at the Daily Planet are pretty wasted here too. I feel like they filmed more scenes but were left on the cutting room floor.
Also, Cavill, who realllllllly looks the part, is just sorta ho-hum. Where is his great sense of wit and humor he had in The Tudors? I get that Superman is sorta one-dimensional, and Cavill DOES bring out a little bit of Superman’s torment at having to enact violence on his enemies, but the little kids playing Clark Kent were much more emotive than he.
Of course, I adore Michael Shannon, and I do buy him as a villain hell-bent on destroying earth, but the real weight of his menace didn’t really hit me until the very end of the film. There are several battle scenes in the climax of Man of Steel, and the ones that really work are when it’s just mano-y-mano instead of Superman versus some weird tentacle machine thing (which will really send you back to the days of the Matrix).
On a whole, the emotional weight from the Kent family was enough for me to feel engrossed, but the tediousness of the Man of Steel definitely weighs on you towards the end. The spectacle of it all isn’t quite grand enough, even though it desperately tries by throwing SO MUCH CGI in your face, and the film is definitely bogged down by its 3-D.
So, go in looking for a Pretty Greatman, maybe just not a Super one.
--Darcie Duttweiler
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