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With nothing more then an Origin story to be told, director Zach Snyder makes Man of Steel perhaps the most impressive visual film yet out of any comic book adaptation but the lack of unpredictability leads Man of Steel into familiar territory.
After Kal-El is sent to earth as a baby from his dying home planet of Krypton, he is taken in by Martha and Jonathan Kent. The Kent’s help him hide his secrets from the rest of the world but ultimately know one day he will have to reveal himself. This day comes when General Zod threatens human existence unless Kal-El gives himself up.
Man of Steel has a surprising amount of action right from the start, which is a typical Zach Snyder trait. The problem is there always needs to be substance before there is action strewn about the screen. The opening of this film too me was just too much to start with. Opening with a nice quiet picturesque scene at the Kent farm and a crashing spaceship would have been nice, then flashback to what happened on the planet Krypton.
The film does redeem itself rather quickly as the scenes of Clark travelling are rather well shot and realistic. These scenes completely capture what it is like to be an outsider and how lonely the world was for Clark Kent because of the secret he was holding in all these years. These scenes are distant for a reason, which is the perfect way to introduce the powers of Superman. He helps people, leaves to never be heard from again. These were probably my favourite scenes from the movie, because they held an important key to Superman’s character, his humanity.
Enter Lois Lane, who ties the entire film together really. She meets Clark during an expedition to the glaciers where the two of them are aboard a kryptonian ship. She writes about it for the Daily Planet but everyone dismisses it. So naturally she digs deeper and begins to learn the true story of Clark Kent. This was perhaps the part of the movie that I dislike the most. It was reliant on the same back story we had already heard, it featured no forward progress to the plot and was just an excuse to have more scenes featuring the iconic character of Lois Lane. Amy Adams did a great job portraying the feisty attitude of Lane, but at times during the middle act nothing seemed to happen that was valuable to the end result. At least not until General Zod re-appeared.
Michael Shannon. Let me say that again. Michael Shannon. What an amazing villainous portrayal and such a fun one to watch. His ruthlessness and entire design was to stop at no cost to save Krypton. Watching every ounce of sanity drop from this character was fantastic and Shannon becomes the heart and soul of this film. His fine acting is accentuated by the character’s inability to feel empathy and compassion for anything but the greater good of Krypton. When Shannon was on the screen, the scene itself was five times better because of his presence.
Shout-out to Lawrence Fishburne’s portrayal of Perry White and how he used the performance to pay respects to long time legendary CBS reporter on 60 minutes Ed Bradley. Fishburne’s character of White even had his ear pierced paying homage to the late great reporter.
With all that being said and my wishy-washy feelings towards this reboot of the Superman franchise, there is potential that the sequels be more game changing a little less formulaic then this.
8/10
