Man of Steel (2013)

One of the most prominent selling points behind the new Superman reboot Man of Steel was the involvement of Christopher Nolan, the writer/director who just recently wrapped up one of the most respected superhero trilogies of all time. However, tackling Batman and Superman are two completely different challenges. It’s one thing to add the Nolan touch to the story of a regular man using his surroundings to become something greater. It’s another thing entirely when you’re dealing with a near-invincible alien who has the gift of flight and can pick up tanks with his pinky finger. Man of Steel is not a Christopher Nolan film—it was directed by Zack Snyder, of course—but it’s quite blatantly an attempt at expanding the Nolan brand. The deadly serious tone and the stirringly epic Hans Zimmer score are all in place, and they even hold the title card until the end, as is Nolan's wont.

Perhaps as a result, the final product certainly has the cadence of a great superhero movie, but just about none of the anything else. In his career so far, Snyder has shown a real aptitude for visual flair, and Man of Steel is most always a lot of fun to look at. The problem is whenever he has to deal with actual substance, and time and again he’s been all too eager to run the opposite direction and get to the next “cool” moment. One of Man of Steel’s greatest flaws is that it is cripplingly uncomfortable with letting a moment breathe, and it isn’t long before we are once again bombarded with music, sound effects and explosions. It may be viscerally exciting, but the longer it rumbles along the more obvious it becomes that the movie doesn’t have anything new or compelling to offer. It stays at full volume the whole time, and it all comes together in a disappointingly standard “let’s blow up a city!” climax.

One other problem, and I’ll address it more fully in a moment, is that Man of Steel focuses much more on where Superman came from rather than his actual time as, you know, Superman. The film begins on the planet Krypton, where Jor-El (Russell Crowe) and his wife Lara (Ayelet Zurer) have just given birth to their baby Kal-El. A rebellion begins, led by General Zod (Michael Shannon), and Jor-El decides that the only way to save his child is to ship him off to Earth to save the species. Zod and his crew are cast off from Krypton, but while they’re floating away the planet collapses in on itself. That leaves Kal-El and the Zod Squad as the only remaining members of the species. Zod begins his journey to find Kal-El, who it turns out has been adopted (more or less) by Kansas farmers Jonathan and Martha Kent (Kevin Costner and Diane Lane). Going by the name Clark, the young alien boy grows up to be played by Henry Cavill, and he's a man on a quest to figure out where he came from and what he’s supposed to do with his life.

Particularly in its first half, Man of Steel moves through a mile of plot a minute. We learn so much about where Clark came from and his pre-Superman days that we never really get a great sense of his relationship with Earth and the human race. Considering where the plot goes in the final act, this is a problem. I don’t wish to be too explicit about what happens, but suffice to say that the movie wants Clark to make some monumental choice between Earth and his native species. If you can find that internal conflict anywhere in the text of this movie, you’re a far more perceptive viewer than I. Journalist Lois Lane (Amy Adams) is probably the best representative of the human side, and that’s just because Clark saves her life a few times and then they fall in love. Frankly, it would be slightly more convincing if Clark/Kal-El just up and decided to hand Earth over to the Zod Squad. The movie devotes so much of its time to Clark's origins that any real argument for the Earth side drifts into the background. The human beings in Man of Steel don’t always make the best case for Superman to save them.

As for the lack of internal conflict, I put much more of that on the material/Snyder than on Cavill, who makes for a fine Superman. He’s got the look and physique, and there’s definitely some charisma there. I’m just not sure this movie used him to his full potential, but I guess there’s always Man of Steel 2: Rhymin’ and Steelin’ for that. Really, everyone involved on the acting front showed up and did their job quite well, with the standout being Kevin Costner as Jonathan Kent. There’s more emotion and humanity in each of his scenes than the entire third act of the movie, which eventually just settles for the superficial thrills rather than anything character-driven. Costner’s scenes deal with Clark Kent the person. Everything else deals with Clark Kent the suit-wearing, high-flying, hard-punching god man.

I’ve long maintained that Zack Snyder is, strictly speaking, a talented filmmaker on a technical level. While I complained about “superficial thrills” in the last paragraph, I can’t deny that he’s actually pretty good at creating those thrills. And yet, each time I sit down to watch a Snyder film I’m disappointed by the absolute disregard for the content of the project he’s making. The flashback-heavy structure of Man of Steel almost seems specifically designed to keep us focused on Snyder’s gift for “wow” moments. If this movie played out in chronological order, he would have been forced to hold our attention over many scenes of dialogue and pesky things like human emotion. Most audiences can only ingest empty calories for so long before they start to look for something more substantive, and in the case of Man of Steel there’s not too much to be found. It’s a standard issue comic book movie in the guise of something more profound.

Grade: C+

P.S.- Can we please be done with origin stories? Thanks.