It's a train, It's bullet... It's a dud?

 

Man of Steel

D. Zack Snyder (2013)

Maybe I’m a little late jumping on this bandwagon. But as I watched Man of Steel for the third time last night I was struck by the bad writing, the random use of time, and the overbearing fight scenes. Don’t get me wrong here- I am a complete guy’s movie sort of a girl. Give me fast cars, big explosives, lots of fire, stunts that don’t seem real, two people slugging it out, pour a lil’ blood over it all for some fun, and I’m good-I’m happy. 

I think there is something intrinsically hard about doing an origin movie when anyone who has been alive for at least the past fifteen years probably already has a good idea of how most of the superheroes came to be. Superman’s story isn’t one of those mysterious ones that most people don’t know. Batman- he was rich, his parents were killed. Spiderman- bit by a radioactive spider. Green Lantern- chosen as a successor by a dying alien, given a ring. Superman- sent to earth by alien parents for survival. Admittedly there have also been a lot of superhero movies in the past few decades. So once again, it’s something we’ve seen before even if it didn’t come with all those nifty special effects. And in this case, Man of Steel, was relying heavily on these special effects. 

But let’s just take a moment here and talk a little bit about how they decided to construct and deconstruct time in the movie. I’m all for nonlinear time sequences but it has to a) make sense and b) use it for some greater purpose. Which, I really don’t see why time had to nonlinear in the movie. We open at the beginning with Jor-El and General Zod. And we get to find what’s going on in their world and that Jor-El and Faora-Ul had just had the first live brith in centuries due to population control. And we get some really some awesome fight scenes. Go Russel Crowe! So we wrap up Cal-El/Clark Kent/Supermans time with his parents and he’s sent to Earth and we watch the destruction of his planet. Then time goes all crazy. We meet him when he’s older and some gypsy wanderer in our world searching for a place to stay. Then we’re back in his childhood. Then we’re saving people with adult Clark. And then we’re watching angst-y childhood moments. And we’re back to adult Clark. This goes back and forth, back and forth for the better part of an hour. And during this time we get to meet Lois, and the Kents, and some major figures in the movie like Colonel Nathan Hardy. And then time settles into this nice little package with Clark coming back to his mom (earth mom, Diane Lane) and suddenly all hell breaks loose. And time becomes linear again. I mean really, what was the point of the non-linear sequences? I get you just want to hit the major developmental moments of his young life, but were they really needed? If they were, go do a movie about that. Spiderman has done it like four times. 

Now let’s take a moment to talk about the writing. Specifically I want to look at the relationship between Lois Lane and Clark Kent. I love Lois Lane. She was one of my favorite superhero love interests growing up. She was smart, sassy, great at her career, had a real my-way-or-the-highway sort of attitude. And better yet, she had this ridiculously hot superhero that was head over heels in love with her and at the same time a just as good looking journalist (she just wasn’t currently aware they were on and the same). Lois in Man of Steel still had that personality and fire. She was willing to protect Clark’s identity-an almost complete stranger to her (have to point out this does not follow the comics at all). Overall, I believed that part. It was the simpering and googley eyed moments between the two that made me so frustrated. We get them sitting or standing awkwardly staring at each other several times throughout the movie as the director tries to foster some deeper connection between the two. When in reality, the two maybe spent all of an hour together in the larger idea of the movie- ten minutes here, five minutes there saving her, twenty minutes there, another five minutes saving her. There was never really anything in the movie to create a romantic relationship between the two. And yet it felt like the director and writers just kept trying to ram it in there, and it just wasn’t there. And that was even more apparent when two good actors who are playing their character quite well can’t even give us the romance to believe in. I go back to my earlier statement of ‘staring awkwardly’ that’s what their characters were good at doing with each other. 

And for my final piece of unhappiness let’s take a moment to talk about all the fight scenes and how half of them should have been replaced with plot and dialogue instead. Like I said, I love me some good actions sequences. Mm-hmm! And un-doubtly there were some really good ones in here. But really, they should have left off that very last fight scene between Superman and General Zod. Whereas I applaud them for making sure to tie up all their loose ends (good job there since most movies don’t). I still think it was needed. Give us a thirty second clip of Zod dying, finish with Colonel Hardy’s sacrifice, get in that kiss from Lois and wrap it up. The movie could have, should have, and would have been better if it had ended right there. Instead we get another fifteen minutes of Superman and Zod slugging it out. Was this necessary? I really don’t think so. I got to see a small Kansas hometown destroyed with great special effects, superman doing plenty of fighting and saving of Lois during the attack. On top of when Clark was trying to find himself and some great special effects there. I really didn’t need anymore. Am I the only one? Maybe.

 The fight scenes were superb, the special effects divine, the acting quite well. Although I will say the best actor was probably General Zod and Nathan Hardy even Jonathon Kent instead of any of the other leads. However, Henry Cavill, this was one of his first big roles. I have seen him in several movies and TV shows over the years and drooled over those eyes. He’s a great actor and I think he did an amazing job with what he was given to work with. Just overall, I was left with feeling unsatisfied by the end. I wanted more from the movie and the acting. And I wanted less. I wanted less special effects and dramatic fight scenes. Give me more feeling, give me more connection, give me more. If you’re going to show his childhood, make it meaningful. If you’re going to give him a love interest, give them the time to make it believable. If you’re going to give him fight scene after fight scene, make sure each of them has a greater purpose.

Overall, the movie left me wanting. I waited almost two years for this movie. From the time I heard Henry Cavill had signed on I was enthusiastically excited to see this movie. And this isn’t to say that I won’t go and see the second or am against a second. I want there to be a second movie. I hope there will be a second movie. That way they can fix the mistakes of the first and give us more from this superb Clark Kent.

So to end this I hold my mug out to Russell Crow, Kevin Costner, Christopher Meloni, Michael Shannon and even Henry Cavill for the job they did. And say- next time boys. 

-Phoenix.