Lois Lane: Amy Adams
General Zod: Michael Shannon
Martha Kent: Diane Lane
Jor-El: Russell Crowe
Jonathan Kent: Kevin Costner
Perry White: Laurence Fishburne
Colonel Nathan Hardy: Christopher Meloni
Dr. Emil Hamilton: Richard Schiff
General Swanwick: Harry Lennix
Foara-Ul: Antje Traue
Lara Lor-Van: Ayelet Zurer
Warner Bros. Pictures
presents a film directed by Zach Snyder. Written by David S. Goyer and
Christopher Nolan. Based on the DC Comics characters created by Jerry Siegel
and Joe Shuster. Running time: 143
min. Rated PG-13 (for intense sequences of sci-fi violence, action and
destruction, and for some language).
I’ve written a lot recently
about homage and purists and different takes on original concepts. This is
because the reboot has become the new sequel for Hollywood. For every sequel
that is made, it seems another franchise is being overhauled and approached
from completely different points of views these days. Much of that is due to
the success of Christopher Nolan’s “Dark Knight” trilogy, which saw a total
revamp of the already successful—at least at the box office—Batman franchise.
Nolan’s take on Batman abandoned all the film sources that had come before, and
reworked the superhero from the ground up. The Nolan produced “Man of Steel”
attempts to do the same thing with the once popular Superman franchise, and
somehow it all goes terribly wrong.
It has the notion of
reinvention right. It takes this somewhat silly notion of a man who can fly and
stop bullets with his chest, and tries to place him into a realistic context,
where—while still fantasy—he is imagined to exist in a universe very much like
the one we currently inhabit, with the same fears and reactions that we might
bring to such a phenomenon were he to appear in our world. In doing so, the
filmmakers completely lose sight of just what makes Superman the iconic
American symbol that he is. He might say he grew up in Kansas, but it doesn’t
feel like he did.
The whole thing gets started
on the wrong foot by concentrating far too much on the mythology of Superman’s
home planet of Krypton and foregoing most of the hero’s all-American childhood
upbringing. Krypton is a fascinating world, and I can see a movie being made
about the world imagined here that would be astonishing and entertaining, but
then that’s not this movie. We meet Jor-El arguing to the elders of the planet
that they’ve wasted the planet’s resources and there may only be weeks left for
life on Krypton. He’s interrupted by the violent entrance of General Zod, the
planet’s military protector, who has decided a coup is his only option left to
defend the planet against the folly of its elders. With the destruction of the
planet imminent, it seems too little too late on both men’s parts.
Nevertheless, Jor-El has his
own plan to save the heritage of Krypton by sending his newborn son to the
planet Earth with all of Krypton’s secrets and knowledge in tow. Meanwhile
Zod’s coup is stopped, and he and his minions are sentenced the Phantom Zone
for their treason against the state. I’m a little foggy on the parameters of
the Phantom Zone. Then Krypton goes kabluey.
Normally, for a superhero
story, the audience is introduced to the hero, and the people that surround him
in the context of where most of his story will take place before the structure
wanders into his backstory. This is because we need to know the world in which
the story will exist before we learn what shaped that world. The now is more important than the then in a fantasy setting. We need to
know who Superman is, what drives him, and how he affects his current world
before we start adding weight to his story by diving deeply into an origin that
happens before he is even born. Otherwise, we have nothing on which to hang our
own personal emotions. Superman is never allowed to build any sort of meaning
or purpose in our world before his former world imposes itself on him and us.
We are given some background
on Supes through flashbacks to his childhood as Clark Kent, which mostly
consist of his adoptive human father, Jonathan Kent, insisting that he not
reveal how different he is to other people because they won’t understand. His
lessons about how people will fear what they don’t understand are good insight
into the themes of alienation in this story. He seems to carry his purpose a
little too far when he suggests that Clark should’ve let a busload of kids die
in an accident just to protect his secret. That doesn’t seem to be the type of wholesome
lesson he should be learning to shape him into the hero of our age. Ultimately,
Jonathan’s fate and final lesson is an exercise in utter stupidity, rather than
the heroism intended by the filmmakers.
Daily Planet reporter Lois
Lane discovers Clark’s alien powers when she bullies her way into a top-secret
military archeological dig where a Kryptonian spacecraft has been discovered in
the arctic. She begs her editor, Perry White, to run her story on a muscle-bound
alien living among us, but he’ll have none of it. Lois tracks Clark down again,
and after he tells her the story of his father’s death, she decides to keep his
secret. Huh? Why? What a non-position for Lois Lane to take. This isn’t a
top-notch reporter; this is a girlfriend in waiting, which is the last thing
Lois should be.
Clark and Lois keep his
secret until an alien spacecraft is discovered orbiting Earth’s atmosphere. It
is the banished General Zod, who has tracked down Clark to exact his revenge on
the elders of Krypton and terraform the Earth to build a new Krypton. All of
this concentration on Krypton has its foundations laid by all the focus on the
true alien nature of Clark. Now, the Earth is essentially being invaded by the
same alien race as Clark and the people are really still completely unaware of
Clark’s existence. Where is Clark’s connection with the human race supposed to
be founded? Why should any people care about what happens to Clark? It seems to
me, Superman’s story is much more poignant when the people come to love him before
the issues of his alien ancestry become a point of contention. That presents a
much more interesting study on the nature of people and could be used as a
launching point for a severe alienation of the hero.
But here I am trying to
interject Superman themes that are never even contemplated by director Zach
Snyder and screenwriter David S. Goyer. That is precisely my problem with this
movie. Superman isn’t just an alien; he’s also an American. Without one, the
other is less significant. This film only concentrates on his alien nature.
Even in that area it destroys great story potential by so quickly introducing
more aliens from the very same planet into the mix. Superman’s dilemma is more
powerful if he actually gets a chance to think he’s truly alone before he
discovers his place in the world.
In fact, “Man of Steel”
plays more like an alien invasion movie than a comic book superhero movie. All
of the threat to the people of Earth comes from outside. None of the human
characters are given much development, which makes it difficult to empathize with
their plight. All the audience is given is Superman’s perspective; and since
he’s never treated as one of us, we don’t feel the weight of what is happening
to the planet. Instead we’re given action sequence after action sequence where invincible
beings from another world dole out punishment on each other to little or no
effect. The only things they damage are structures and geography. This might as
well be a “Transformers” movie for all of the human connection to be found in
it. The action only serves to show how cool the CGI effects can be. Someone
called it “CGI porn”, and that’s about right. After a while, it becomes
tiresome.
One and a half stars is
probably the lowest rating I’ve ever given to such a well-produced film as “Man
of Steel”. Many will disagree with me. It is a total reinvention of the
mythology of Superman, but at what cost? The reboot of the “Star Trek”
franchise has come under fire for some of its plundering of previously
successful elements in the former series, but the reinvention is successful
because its entire premise is built on the notion that these characters are all
the exact same people we’ve already come to know. It’s just their circumstances
that have changed.
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