**/****
starring Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Russell Crowe
screenplay by David S. Goyer
directed by Zack Snyder
by Walter Chaw Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel is 44 beautifully constructed trailers strung together in the world’s most expensive promo reel; at this point in his career, it’s fair to wonder who it is Snyder’s still trying to impress. Shapeless, structure-less, the movie aspires towards nostalgic, grandiloquent, patriotic pastiche but succeeds only in being disjointed, muted, and frustrating. Take the casting of Kevin Costner as Superman’s terrestrial dad, Jonathan Kent. Perfect, right? But he’s reduced to a fantastic scene where he reveals his adopted son’s alien origin that is fantastic solely because Costner is not only magnificent when he’s allowed to be in his wheelhouse (baseball player, cowboy, farmer), but also because there’s a certain weight in the wrinkles on Costner’s face and the grey at his temples. He’s the embodiment of a specific brand of nostalgia all by himself, and the potential for him to be the spiritual centre of a soulless film isn’t merely squandered, it’s aggressively squandered. The Superman mythos at its best is about fathers and sons–the hero (Henry Cavill, playing Supes as Wolverine) has, after all, lost two fathers, orphaned twice in a strange land and compared visually and thematically to Christ in every incarnation. (“The last son of Krypton,” n’est-ce pas?) It’s a powerful theme, one that explains the enduring popularity of the character when wags have correctly identified that there are no real, viable external threats to someone who’s essentially all-powerful. The Jesus story is meaningless if Jesus never thought of Himself as merely a man carrying a terrible burden. Consider the elevation of Watchmen‘s Dr. Manhattan to inscrutable WMD, or The Incredibles‘ Mr. Incredible’s near-ruin in the role of family man. No, Superman’s weakness is existential. I fear that Snyder–a director who seems to abhor difference and adore surfaces in his pictures–is exactly the wrong person to explore the irony of an immaculate conception tortured in the role of outsider.
Perhaps understanding his miscasting, Snyder abandons any intimations of depth about an hour in in favour of soul-deadening cataracts of destruction. Man of Steel is midway between Gattaca and that old PlayStation 2 game War of the Monsters: It’s one part dangerous pseudo-science/philo-policy, one part boom-boom. There’s a moment where a woman crawls out of the wreckage of Metropolis with an expression of exhaustion and exasperation that precisely captures the aspect by then of the picture’s abused audience. Film by film, Snyder approaches the exact artistic, if not necessarily subtextual, ethos of Michael Bay. More’s the pity, as there are moments in each of Snyder’s movies of real iconographic power: Dr. Manhattan in Vietnam, the first ten minutes of Dawn of the Dead, even the stray composition in Sucker Punch.
It’s possible that it’s this very promise that calls into harsh relief the lightness of the connective tissue in Man of Steel; it feels like Snyder has attempted to address any flat spots by getting rid of them altogether. Charted on a graph, the rises and falls in action in Man of Steel would look like a mouthful of jagged teeth. It’s exhausting, dada even, a series of vignettes that flashes back to Superman’s childhood saving schoolbuses then forward to a hirsute loner engaged in the Deadliest Catch before Ice Road Trucking in search of enlightenment of some kind. Would that it had instead relied on Russell Crowe (as his alien father) and Costner to be the signposts for Superman’s irritating decency instead of the far more disturbing suggestion that the wellspring of all goodness is God (in the thwarting, sort of, of Kryptonian Eugenics) and Country (in Superman’s reassurance to a nervous American military that “I’m from Kansas! You don’t get more American”–yes, tell that to Thomas Frank), conveyed in the visual shorthand of linen on clotheslines and Old Glory flapping in that same sepia wind.
Begin this time around with an extended battle sequence on the doomed planet of Krypton, where top scientist Jor-El (Crowe) wages a 1950s ideological war against top soldier General Zod (Michael Shannon–wasted). Zod wants to stage a coup; Jor-El wants to send his child-of-love-not-pods to another world, knowing that his people have strip-mined their own to collapse. Yes, Man of Steel is inches away from becoming the Captain Planet movie nobody wanted, or the Superman IV redux everyone fears. Zod is exiled to the Phantom Zone for his crimes along with hench-supervillains not-Ursa Faora-Ul (Antje Traue) and not-Non (some eight-foot CGI guy), meaning that although Krypton goes bang, they’ve been spared to torment the prodigal (Cavill) in exile on our modest Earth. Part of the tension here is that Jor-El believes that an Aldous Huxley-an genetically-engineered future is not conducive to free will, while Zod believes that boom, crash, opera. Also, Zod wants to terraform Earth into an exact replica of Krypton because was engineered to be pro patria and all that–or pro planeta, as the case may be. But what is the measure of sin when Superman himself is every bit the jingoistic, nationalistic demagogue that Zod is? All of it’s complicated besides, because if you don’t do a good job of establishing that there’s a nurture element to Superman’s morality through his dual tutelage by Jonathan Kent and the ghost of Jor-El, then all you have left is the uncomfortable realization that Zod is right: goodness and right are birthrights of being American. When this Superman, in disguise as Wolverine, defends the honour of a diner waitress by stoically accepting a pitcher of beer over his perfect ebony locks, is that a product of his upbringing, or his genetics?
All heady stuff, and all stuff that Man of Steel overlooks in favour of dedicating a solid hour of its distended 145-minute running time to punching. The highlight of this section is Faora-Ul’s just-awesome demolition of a battalion of United States servicemen; the lowlight is the showdown between Supes and Zod, which ends with the literal levelling of city blocks–Man of Steel joins Star Trek Into Darkness on this summer’s unexpected blockbuster roster of too-late 9/11 post-mortems. What the picture does, Chronicle and Cloverfield already did, and did better. Snyder does offer a quick shot of a young Superman reading Plato’s The Republic as a mild sop to character-development snobs, yet it lands with no greater impact than one of Tom Cruise’s clones reading Macauley’s Lays of Ancient Rome in Oblivion. Better to have Supes reading Nietzsche…or Juvenal, what with all the “bread and circus.”
Oh, and there’s a Lois Lane, Girl Reporter character (Amy Adams) who spouts tough talk (“Now, if we’re done measuring dicks…”) while falling in perfunctory love with a cipher in nubby tights who says stuff like, “Where I come from, this symbol means HOPE!” Adams is wasted, needless to say, as is Crowe, as is Shannon. I would say that Diane Lane as a dizzy Ma Kent and Laurence Fishburne as surprise affirmative action DAILY PLANET editor Perry White are wasted, too, but it’s hard to say that about Lane or Fishburne anymore. Sufficed to say they’re not good, and it’s hard to tell if that’s because they’re not given anything to do or because there’s nothing they can do with the nothing they’re given. Costner emerges as the hero of the piece, for what it’s worth, though his reward is a silly and too-soon screen death. I guess what I would say definitively is that Man of Steel answers the complaint about Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns being too thoughtful and measured in as loud and pandering a way as possible. Bring on the sequel, this one’s gonna make a fortune.
Man, this reads like a lot worse than a 2-star review. And I was arbitrarily harboring high hopes for this one as “Watchable Movie of Summer 2013.”
For what it’s worth, the question of how Superman shaves was addressed in the comics. He uses a hand mirror to reflect his eye lasers to shave his super facial hair.
*adjusts pocket protector*
Somewhere in an alternate universe, they greenlit a blockbuster adaptation of Mark Millar’s ‘Red Son’ or Kim Newman’s ‘Ubermensch!’. Either of which I’d rush to see. Just not this.
Zack Snyder movies have the same problem as Michael Bay movies; his ‘style-over-everything’ overkill approach works great for trailers and clips but drawn out to feature length, they become brutal sensory assaults (headache-inducing at 60 minutes, nausea-inducing at 90 minutes, and concussion-coma-inducing at anything over 2 hours).
There’s a great 45-minute version of Watchmen, an enjoyable 30-minute version of 300, and a good-enough 10-minute version of Sucker Punch. But in their full-length uncut forms, they’re almost interminable.
Really good review, but I was wondering if maybe Walter or anybody reading from the sidelines would care to elaborate on this passage:
“I fear that Snyder–a director who seems to abhor difference and adore surfaces in his pictures–is exactly the wrong person to explore the irony of an immaculate conception tortured in the role of outsider.”
I get where this is coming from as a counterpoint to Superman Returns (where someone who very much understands the role of outsider in several different ways directed the film), but it’s not necessarily an accusation that I’m ready to hurl at Snyder based on his own body of work. 300, sure, even Dawn of the Dead. But Watchmen and Sucker Punch seem a little harder to tar with that brush, at least as far as I can see.
Interesting to see the hundreds of dutiful studio plants posting on IMDB and other social media sites to defend this mess of a movie – – and mostly incoherently.
I saw the Man of Steel the early screening tonight. I don’t see where the hatred is coming from for this film or why so many are trying to derail it. It’s a bit choppy at first in its execution, but once it gets going it becomes a speeding bullet of a movie. This is what the Superman fans wanted and Snyder delivers. Forget what the critics are saying and those whining about a weak story and too much action. It’s a pure adrenaline rush. It’s intense and sometimes grim and gritty. It has emotion, humor and the action is epic and just plain bad-ass. It’s a thrill ride from beginning to end. The whole cast is excellent. Amy Adams interpretation of Lois Lane is the best ever put on film. Henry Cavill is great and plays the role with a quiet conviction and sly wit and charm. And of course there’s Michael Shannon as Zod. He definitely delivers in the role of the villain. In my ways you could call him a “Beautiful Monster.” Russell Crowe, Kevin Costner and Laurence Fishburne play their roles perfectly. You’ve never seen a Superman movie like this. I’m sold and can’t wait for the next one because the possibilities are endless. In the end “Man of Steel” is about making a choice, and hopefully you’ll choose to go see it for yourself.
I’m sorry but this was really a mess of a movie. Its near empty and you long at some point in the movie to jump up on your seat and scream at the top of your lungs “Go Superman!” But you wait for it and wait and you never become attached to Superman or Clark Kent. You never really feel for him. The Superman here does not inspire. They’ve made such a visually assaulting movie that lacks any heart.
I haven’t seen this movie yet, but I’d just like to register how much I hate the use of massive carnage as a way to add gravitas to superhero stories. I thought “52” was mostly very good, but when Black Adam levels an entire country to get revenge on Captain Marvel and friends you have to groan at how much certain people have lost sight of the pulpy, fun origins of the superhero story.
It was brilliant in Watchmen, but Watchmen was a singular work of genius. Generally speaking, if your story has villains who shoot lasers out of their eyes, come up with a more clever way of upping the stakes than the act of slaughtering of millions of people.
007(Connery and Moore) was dashing & suave and Superman(Reeves) was pretty & endearing.
Daniel Craig as 007 and Cavill as Superman are just beefcake.
I just watched it. I have to agree with the reviewer here, however my criticism is even more scathing. Snyder seems unable or unwilling to structure his films in the right manner or in any intelligent manner. Man of steel jumps about from flashback to backstory to present tense and it is all so rushed the viewer gets lost,confused and irritated along with it. The writer and director have criminally neglected the incredible actors they had at their disposal. Russell Crowe will be privately humiliated by this picture(he will never say so in public until money isn’t an issue anymore-maybe a few years down the line)because it is a turkey.
PS: Also note how much Snyder & Goyer have stolen from Prometheus & Avatar in the films Kryptonian themes!
I actually did notice the similarities to Prometheus, among about half a dozen other films. I came up with a list in my head of everything Man of Steel had lifted from during the movie, but, as is the way, have forgotten most of them by now (two days later).
As for its bizarre narrative structure, I can only assume that the blame falls on David Goyer, who figured it worked so well with Batman Begins that he might as well try it again, only without Nolan’s touch it just seems craven and perfunctory, as does most of this movie. I’ve never been one to chastise writers for taking superheroes too seriously, but I found myself viscerally angry at the death and destruction in this film. Any arguments for zeitgeist have long since past, and taking advantage of psychic wounds in order to up the stakes in your stupid reboot are, frankly, an outrage to me. I also found it inappropriate yet inevitable that literally the only joke in the film came when Lois and Superman return to Metropolis to find it looking like Syria (“they say it’s all downhill after the first kiss, gahyuk! What is this, a funeral?”) It’s beautiful to look at, just like all Zack Snyder films, but just like all Zack Snyder films the only thing it manages to accomplish is wash over the audience in waves of stylish incoherent nothingness.
This review correctly identifies most of the problems with “Man of Steel,” but “pandering”? If only.
Dreadful movie. Chaw is 100% on the money except that he gave it 2 stars. They got Superman right in the late 70’s w/ the first 2 Christopher Reeve movies and should have stopped there. Every sequel or reboot is worse than the last.
I thought Man of Steel was the best Superman movie to date, personally. The Reeves versions were so god-awfully cheesy that I am unwilling to accept any argument for them unless the person arguing explicitly states nostalgia as the motivation.