Man of Steel: Gritty, Serious & Great! (mostly)

Zack Snyder and Christopher Nolan's modern take on Superman has been one of the more hotly anticipated films of the past year.  The more we saw of it, the more excited we got—Kevin Costner is Supes' dad!  Amy Adams is Lois Lane!  The red underwear is gone!!!  Now it's been released, and I'd say the audience and critical reaction has been slightly mixed; reviews, while not horrible, seem to harbor irritation at the "gritty" take and the pure lack of humor and charm.

First off, about the humor—Man of Steel does indeed follow the recent blockbuster trend in making everything as overly serious as possible.  Whether or not this is the appropriate action to take is something else entirely.  See, I loved the last two Star Trek films because, while not perfect, they had a great sense of fun and light-hearted comedy about them amidst all that chaos and action. Man of Steel has next to none of that. But at the end of the day we've already seen light-hearted Superman played with a wink and a smile…in 5 previous movies…and most of them we hated.  So I say, let's bring on a new perspective!

Man of Steel is a hugely enjoyable summer flick.  It's overlong with pretensions of grandeur, but there was something almost comforting about this movie. It must be the paradox of having something so clearly bloated on gargantuan pomposity also express the desperate transparent desire to please the world. I had a blast for most of Man of Steel—Superman (Henry Cavill) is laced with a good amount of mopey apprehension and heroic bravery, the music by Hans Zimmer is so overpowering the speakers almost exploded in the theatre, and the special effects and (the numerous) action scenes are top-notch.

Steel takes a slightly different approach to the man in blue tights in terms of it being more a sci-fi adventure flick than a traditional superhero origin story.  The film opens on Krypton where Superman's father (played rather wonderfully by Russell Crowe) battles the evil General Zod (Michael Shannon) as the planet is being destroyed. This opening passage is so spectacular in its visual CGI wizardry that it almost casts a pall on the rest of the film for taking place on Earth, where the visuals tend to lean toward a typical Roland Emmerich disaster film.

The rest of Clark Kent's origin story is mostly told through flashbacks as we see him grow from a confused kid to a morose and secretive man who must eventually take on the mantle of a superhero and save the world from Zod.  The going back and forth from present to past is occasionally clunky—there are times Snyder clearly doesn't know where to accurately put a flashback for the best emotional effect, so he just sorta tosses it in there. This lumbering quality is a shame, because some of the film's best scenes are with Kent as a child, and he has several fantastic scenes with Kevin Costner, playing his surrogate father.

It's ironic that the movie's strongest moments are often the most quiet and reflective ones.  In 2006, Bryan Singer tried to reboot the franchise with Superman Returns, and we all bitched and complained about it having only one action scene, and basically being the most boring summer tentpole ever. And now here we are seven years later, and possibly my biggest complaint of Man of Steel is that it might have TOO MUCH action—the level of destruction in the climactic sequence is so large, with at least millions of lives being destroyed, that it kinda makes an amusing coda involving Kent getting a fancy newspaper job pretty irrelevant.

But despite having almost too much slam-and-bang, Man of Steel's action scenes are quite fantastic.  This is the Superman most of us have long wanted to see—the guy who can laser-eye an enemy into the ground and bash a huge robot to China and fly around smashing Zod into a hundred different buildings.  There's no mistaking Snyder's love of these scenes; he attacks them with relish (and about 10 billion snap-zoom's).

The screenplay by David S. Goyer (Blade 3, Batman Begins) is more than adequate.  If you were expecting to be wowed in the same way that we were with his and Nolan's famous Batman trilogy, you'll be disappointed—but in terms of pure story construction, the script for Man of Steel is actually better than any of those (and less filled with mind-boggling plot holes).

 Sure, there is still the occasional dumb moment, like how Crowe can re-appear as a helpful alien ghost in some scenes, but is completely helpless the next. And the screenplay has its share of lame dialogue…to place "What the eff is wrong with you" in a dramatic film is pretty embarrassing (because, literally—he says "eff."  Not "fuck," but…"eff."  And this guy’s a military general.  R. Lee Ermey would eat his face for breakfast). And perhaps a slightly more delicate hand at the director and writer chair for the next installment would be a good idea. 

Despite all that, Man of Steel is large-scale fun, and it's easily the closest I've ever come to sympathizing with the most un-relatable superhero around.  Lord knows it ain't perfect, and it takes its operatic, overly-ambitious qualities to the max (I don't think I can stomach anymore "the world isn’t ready for you" and "you must give hope to the world" speeches), but it has also re-invigorated a dormant franchise with new life, power, and excitement. Man of Steel is an unqualified success—one of the biggest action films I've witnessed that didn't completely sacrifice it's brain in the process.  See it on the big screen while you can (in glorious 2D, if you also can).

Oh, and there’s one last thing I wanna mention—this movie has the most ridiculous, blatant, and distracting use of product placement I've ever seen.  One of the best action scenes in the film is sadly tarnished by almost all of it taking place in front of a very obvious Sears and IHOP.  And then there's the U-Haul's and Budweiser's and Nikon's, all taking center stage, often at the most ludicrous times. I read earlier that the film paid for almost half its massive budget through product placement. If that was the only way to get the film made, then I guess it was worth it…maybe. Sadly, this movie often felt like it had sold its soul to corporate America—and in a very patriotic movie about hope, this quality instilled me with a lot of the opposite.