¨You just
have to decide what kind of man you want to grow up to be, Clark. Whoever that
man is, he´s going to change the world.¨
There is no
doubt in my mind that Man of Steel is a far more superior movie than its predecessor:
Superman Returns. The franchise has gotten a positive reboot with director Zack
Snyder at the helm and Christopher Nolan as one of the producers. I know this isn’t
a perfect film, I thought it had several flaws, but compared to Superman
Returns this is a masterpiece. What surprises me is that even though most
critics acknowledge the fact that this is a superior film, in Rotten Tomatoes this
film was only recommended by 57% of critics, compared to the 75% that
recommended Superman Returns. For those of us who have seen both movies we know
that is a tremendous flaw and most critics would agree that they gave too much
anticipated love to Superman Returns which was a really mediocre movie. I can
understand why they disliked this film because I think the film suffers from an
action overdose. There is just way too much action in this film and it grows
repetitive and tiresome. Snyder goes overboard with the action sequences and
there is just way too much destruction that goes unaccounted for. I mean the
entire city of Metropolis gets completely destroyed in this film and there are
far too many 9/11 references here. That is the major issue I had with this
film. Other than that I thought the movie had a great cast. Henry Cavill made
for an exciting and near perfect Superman, Amy Adams nailed her role as Lois
Lane, and Michael Shannon was a convincing villain as General Zod. Besides the
cast, I also thought the flashback scenes involving the young Clark Kent were
the strongest moments of the film. It was those quiet moments that I enjoyed
more than all the loud action scenes in which Clark Kent was struggling to find
his new identity. Those scenes worked really well for me and I thought Kevin
Costner and Diane Lane were wonderful playing his Earth parents. I wasn’t a big
fan of the opening sequence in Krypton, but thought Russell Crowe also was
convincing as Jor-El.
The film
opens in Krypton where we see Jor-El (Russell Crowe) help his wife give birth
to his son, Kal-El, the first natural birth in the planet in a long time. The
planet is at the verge of being extinct and Jor-El finds hope in his son,
although General Zod (Michael Shannon) has different plans for his people.
Despite Zod´s efforts to stop Jor-El, he manages to send his son to Earth where
he can survive. At Earth he is adopted by Jonathan (Kevin Costner) and Martha
(Diane Lane) who find him in their field in Kansas. The film centers on Clark
(Henry Cavill) as he struggles to find meaning and purpose for his life. With the
help of his parents he begins to deal with his powers, but is reminded that he
should use these abilities as little as possible because the world isn’t prepared
for someone like him. The scenes involving Clark´s childhood and his upbringing
with his parents is told through a series of flashbacks as we see a much more
mature Clark searching for the meaning of his existence in one place after
another. He finally finds some answers when an ancient craft from Krypton is
located on Earth and that is when he also runs into journalist, Louis Lane (Amy
Adams) who discovers Clark isn’t a regular human being. His secret life is
shattered when General Zod makes a theatrical entrance in his spaceship along
with his crew and asks mankind to surrender the alien. Of course Zod has other
intentions for the planet and doesn’t really settle for Kal-El. This is where
the battle and destruction on Earth begins, and Clark Kent ironically remains
the only hope for mankind.
Man of Steel
delivers and fans of blockbuster action films will love this film. I thought
the action sequences suffered from too much overload and repetitiveness. The
scenes are extremely exaggerated and they grew tiresome after a while. I loved
most of the film, but the last 45 minutes took a toll on me and made me enjoy
this film less and less. That doesn’t mean I didn’t like this and of course I
would rather sit through this than watch Superman Returns again (a film that
critics seem to have enjoyed more). The problem is that after so many great
superhero films, Man of Steel does fall short to other films like The Dark
Knight or even Iron Man. It is probably at the same level as Thor, but I wouldn’t
say this is a great superhero film because it is inferior to the bar that the Batman
franchise set. I even think Iron Man 3 was a better movie than this, but Man of
Steel did have its moments and I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of people
really like this blockbuster film considering the excellent cast and the
wonderful performance from Henry Cavill as the new Superman.
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