It was the 2013 cinematic return of the spandex-clad Christ metaphor with dreamy good-looks and abs of steel that make Hugh Jackman look out of shape. Granted it was a very divisive return to the big screen but in this review-rewind we need to ask the big question: was Zack Snyder's take on the Man Of Steel up to its metal?
Well, yes and no. There is a lot of good in this film, but also, there's a lot of criticism that at times can be warranted.
The story itself is a straight-forward Superman origin story, you know the one: the last son of Krypton is sent to earth, became a fisherman, worked in a few bars, saved a bunch of kids in a school bus as a child, didn't save his dad from a tornado as a teenager, finds his space-dad in a spaceship hidden under the ice and dons a perfectly tailored spandex suit despite it being made for him centuries before he arrived on Earth... Ok so maybe it wasn't so straight-forward.
The film does a lot of stuff really well. The origin elements of the film have all the strength and validity of Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins. Sure some people may complain that we spent too long on Krypton, but if you want to do a like for like comparison with the classic Richard Donner original we actually spend more time on Krypton back in 1978 than we did in 2013.
Although some may complain about Amy Adams, at least we were given an age-appropriate Lois Lane for once and the film made the bold choice to have her discover his secret identity before he even had a secret identity. This makes her a far more accomplished character than previous incarnations which couldn't see the forest through the f*cking glasses.
Another great element to the film is its commitment to the theme of steel. From opening title cards, to the Kryptonian technology, to the costumes, to the colour-grading to Hans Zimmer's steel-drumming score.
But is the film perfect? Oh definitely not. The second half of the film is where you really feel like Christopher Nolan's influence went off to make The Dark Knight Rises and Zack Snyder went full-Snyder (and you should never go full-Snyder.) In the usual Snyder fair of style over substance we are inundated with some amazingly beautiful visuals and sequences that I've always wanted to see in a Superman movie. But honestly, it went on for too long, I didn't know I'd get bored of watching buildings fall down. Naturally in a world filled with Avengers, Transformers and the normal benign blockbuster destruction, Superman had to step it up, but maybe it just stepped it up too much.
Now as a comic book fan, I don't have an issue with Superman killing Zod, I know a lot of fanboys are up in arms about this scene and say that Superman would never do this, but they seem to be so quick to forget that Superman did the same thing in Superman II, and back then Superman had de-powered Zod before throwing him off a cliff. So I really have no issue with Superman killing because it has happened in the past and it worked for the conflict that was presented.
Of course getting back to the whole "style vs substance" thing, you can say what you will, but two super-powered dudes throwing themselves through buildings certainly looks cool, but a lot of people probably died in the process and for me, that's easily my biggest gripe about this movie: Superman makes no effort to save anybody, unless you're in the army, Hell, Superman even saves Lois Lane one time while she's wearing army fatigues. Surely amongst all of this choreography of carnage Snyder could have included one of Superman's core values and shown him trying to save people in between fighting Zod. Ultimately I feel that this all boils down to Snyder pulling a Michael Bay and thinking "this will look cool" without thinking through the repercussions. There's nothing wrong with that, but he needs to own it instead of constantly defending this choice, because believe me, he was not thinking straight when he went "full-Snyder"
So despite these complaints, I feel the Man Of Steel made some great steps towards establishing a shiny new franchise, even though there may have been a few missteps along the way. Will Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice make up for these missteps or just create a whole new hot-mess to deal with? Only time will tell.
Man Of Steel gets Three out of Five Stars (or Three out of Five complex dreams about a shirtless Henry Cavill that I probably need to talk to my wife about)
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