Man of Steel – 2013
Dir: Zack Snyder
A modest 3 popcorns (because it looked good)
Man of Steel
almost proves that among the cavalcade of heroes, superheroes and mutants
that are flooding cinema at the moment, there is no longer a place for the
original Superman.
I would not have thought that Superman could be muscled out
of existence by other characters with less substance in their story, yet Man of Steels lacking script does just
that – by trying too hard to be just “like the others”.
As the script focuses so much of its story on the fact that
Superman is an alien sent to earth to save it, the organic “real-world-ness”
feel that worked so well for Batman,
seems to fall flat here. The script clearly wants to tell the story of how Kal-El
is an alien and as such, must come stop an alien force from destroying the
planet, yet the narrative seems to get confused in trying to drive a story
about how Clark (and Kal-El) is really a man, trapped in an alien’s body.
What works for the film is its heart, captured in the
sensibilities of Kal’s adoptive father Jonathan (Kevin Costner). As a kind of
origin story that this film attempts to be, I found myself actually longing for
more of the back story where Kal/Clark are learning about who he is and how he
must harness not only his abilities, but the struggle between right and wrong
and his longing for acceptance. Unfortunately, Zack needs to learn a thing or
two about how to use flashbacks in a way that does not disrupt a films flow as
many of the flashbacks felt thrown in for “good measure”.
Whilst the film is admirable in parts, its weak script and
often corny dialogue rob it of the small steps it makes in forging a strong and
rewarding plot. It jumps around uneasily and much of what happens is there for
the spectacle and even the interactions between characters feel forced and over
the top. And when you’re left wondering why all of a sudden Lois and Superman
kiss, you know deep in your heart there is more missing here than meets the
eye.
The script is a labor, literally from its opening scenes,
and needed the elements of what makes humanity great to contrast against the
dreary, broken world which Clark inhabits. There was no humor and where
one-liners and quips from Alfred made Batman more digestible, there was very
little to break the often relentless barrage of drama, yelling, anger and
fighting. We needed to see that humanity was worth saving. In the end, when the
choice has to be made, it feels like Superman/Clark/Kal-El is only saving us
because he was told too.
The reality is that there is nothing new here and in a
burgeoning world of super-hero cinema, the hope it has of moving as far from
the Lycra-clad world of Richard Donner’s originals and even Bryan Singers “remake/re imagining”
does not give it enough punch to actually stand alone and apart from all the
rest. At some points this film mistakes
itself for Transformers and even Avengers and it’s because “we've seen it all
before”, the third act becomes a long, building-smashing, ground-destroying, punching,
exploding cacophony of very little substance.
And then when you least expect it, the last 5 minutes reveal
what you wanted all along and didn't get causing you to throw your box of
popcorn at the screen (this may have just been me).
