I'm a first-time poster to the site, but a long time viewer. I was 7 years old when I read my first Superman comic book. My Dad bought me the issue (which number or series I couldn’t tell you) that followed Jonathan Kent on his journey through the afterlife after suffering from a heart attack around the same time as his adopted alien son was killed at the hands of Doomsday. I literally knew nothing of Superman at that point in my life. I recognized the symbol and I think I knew what it meant, but for the most part I just liked the idea of comic books. Of SUPERHEROES. Because that’s what kids identify with. That’s what they want to be. They want powers. They want to be larger than life.
Harkening back to my first experience with a Superman book, the thing that I remember really grabbing on to about Clark Kent/Kal-El/Superman was the relationship with his father. This movie reminded me of my first comic book. In that book, Jonathan and Clark had both died (obviously they both came back to life later on, so death as it always is in comics was not a finality). Clark had somewhat given up it seemed or was ready to move on, and the book displayed his alien side taking over, shrouded in a death parade of Kryptonian robes and colors. But Jonathan found him and fought for him, pulling him back to the land of the living. Later on, Clark’s revival is left up to a mix of Jonathan’s efforts and the work of the Eradicator Superman, who placed Clark in a Kryptonian Matrix of a sort that supposedly helped bring him back to life. The writers basically left it up to the reader to decide which had the biggest hand in bringing him back: belief or science.
Superman has always been a gigantic metaphor. He’s a symbol. A Christ-like figure. A product of science and a being who defies logic. He’s a lot of things. A big thing Man of Steel does is play up those metaphors. He’s a symbol of belief, a man who defies logic, and a descendant of science.
The movie begins on Krypton, which I must say, has never been as fully realized as it is in this movie. It looks like an actual alien world, or at least what our imaginations might lead us to believe an alien world could look like. A lot of talk has already shot across the web about what happens there, and if you’ve seen the movie, you obviously already know. Zod (Michael Shannon) and Jor-El (Russel Crowe) are at odds. In fact, Zod is at odds with the entirety of Krypton. The civilization is dying, and bred to protect his world and his race, he feels it is his duty to protect Krypton by whatever means necessary. Zod is a character that I never fully understood from the original Superman movies. I didn’t really care about him. He was just some guy from Krypton to me. And he had powers. And he was evil because, well, he just was. This Zod has motivation. He has a depth to him. You feel bad for him. But mostly, you understand him. And that’s what a good villain is.
A fight escalates between both Jor-El and Zod (and not just a battle of words – a bare knuckle brawl essentially) over something Jor-El has stolen from Krypton. A codex containing all of the bloodlines of Kryptonians since the beginning of their civilization. Jor-El hides this codex within his own son and sends him on his way. In a way, I didn’t want to leave Krypton, because it was so full of depth and weight, and I actually felt bad for Jor-El and Lara as they sent their only son off into the lonely darkness of space. If there was any character on krypton I wanted to see more of, it was Lara. She wasn’t given a great amount of screen time, but the times she was on screen (especially after Kal-El is sent into the bowels of space) she gave off a strength and grace that you imagine a Superman should possess. And possess that he does, or should I say, Henry Cavill does.
Cut to earth. Clark is a wanderer. A misfit. A freak. At least that’s what he’s told. He doesn’t belong anywhere, and he knows he never will unless he finds out the truth of where he comes from. So begins the search or the quest we are all sent on with Clark. We flash back and forth from the present time to his childhood in Kansas, hidden within the confines of a Smallville farm. To his experiences with his abilities – how they overwhelm him and frighten others (even his adopted parents). We can all imagine how wonderful and awesome it would be to possess Superman’s powers, especially being shown the kind of man he is on the comic book pages that he typically resides in. Writers and artists make his powers cool. Who the hell wouldn’t want to fly? Who wouldn’t want to have heat vision? To bend steel in their bare hands? To run faster than anyone or anything on the planet? But Man of Steel displays these powers in a different fashion. Rarely, and possibly never in all of my experiences of the many previous incarnations of the character in a vast cornucopia of mediums, have I been scared to have Superman’s powers. Snyder and Co. made me terrified to learn how to control such power. To live everyday knowing one false move, one lapse in control could kill or harm someone or something you love dearly. This is what Clark lives with. And that scared the crap out of me. I knew how the story went. I knew Superman would eventually save the day and be a hero. But I was frightened for him throughout the journey. I was scared someone would find out about him. Scared that he might accidently hurt someone. This is what we see him experience.
A lot of critics have thus far said that the fun or the lightheartedness has been taken out of Superman in Man of Steel. And it has in a sense. It’s not goofy. Clark doesn’t trip over things or bumble about like a goofball. Part of this is because he hasn’t made that identity up yet. Which obviously lends to a more serious tone. But that’s just it. For the first time in a long time, Superman has been taken seriously in this film. Honestly, I grew up with a Clark Kent that wasn’t the goofy, bumbling disguise that most people typically identify him with. I grew up with John Byrne’s Clark Kent. A confident reporter who is taken as seriously in the newsroom as he is when he’s flying around saving people in his super disguise. And while I love that interpretation, the more realistic Clark Kent that stemmed out of the John Byrne days, this movie takes the two ideas about the “Clark Kent” disguise and disposes of them for the 2 hour and 20 minute run time. We don’t yet really have an idea of what Clark will be and I think that is a good thing for this film. It leaves us yearning for more from the character. Because everyone has an opinion about Clark Kent. Is he the disguise or the man?
In Man of Steel, Zack Snyder focuses on Superman. It’s his journey. Disguises be damned for the time being. We want to know who the hell Kal-El is and where he comes from, and in finding that out, we will also find out which person he chooses to be and who he chooses to protect. Will he be a lost Kryptonian found who embraces his genetic roots and people, or the orphaned alien boy who was raised to respect and embrace humanity? And ultimately he chooses both in a sense. He chooses to honor his parents. All of them. He wears the symbol of the house of El, but he also holds onto the values and nurture that Jonathan and Martha Kent have raised him with. He chooses to be his own man essentially. And Henry Cavill IS Superman. He wears the “S”. It doesn’t wear him. While we don’t know what the future holds for his portrayal of newsroom Clark Kent, we do get a nice wink of where it might go, and the way Cavill devoted himself to the role (training, accent, and just general presence) makes me hopeful that his Clark Kent in future outings (fingers crossed) will be one that does not copy Christopher Reeves’ version of the character, but something more faithful to the New 52 or John Byrne versions of that part of the character. Because sure, the bumbling Clark Kent is funny on film, but that’s just it. He’s a cartoon. And this movie makes me believe that Snyder and Goyer will not go the route of what’s been done and rehashed over and over again. Give me a Clark Kent with some depth and some sarcasm – a living, breathing human being.
I read in another review that this movie really hinges on the idea of sacrifice, which I suppose you could go a big leap and a bound and say that goes back to the Christ metaphor. Really, I think this movie is more so about the sacrifice a parent makes for a child. Just like that first comic book I ever got my hands on, Jonathan saves Clark in this movie. He doesn’t bring him back from the dead or push him out of the way of a kryptonite blast, but he does sacrifice himself for his son, just as Jor-El does on Krypton. And Costner kills it in the movie. He is Jonathan Kent. He’s not just the embodiment of a father figure; he also embodies a lot of the real qualities I see every day from hard-working, blue collar people. He’s a little rough around the edges, but he’s also fair and honest. He is the Kansas farmer. He tells young Clark the way it is and the simple truth of things and tells him, “You have to decide what kind of man YOU want to be.” While I think David Goyer could have come up with a better reason for Jonathan to sacrifice himself (SPOILER – He goes back for the dog during the tornado and motions to Clark to not expose himself or try to save him when a twister bears down on him during a flashback sequence. The dog? He couldn’t have gone back and saved a small child or a human at least? I love dogs too, but choosing between the dog or living? Really? This is seriously my only criticism about the film.) Long story short, Clark’s fathers both sacrifice themselves to allow him to become his own man. They both allow him to be great. Which is what a parent should do. Teach and guide, but also know when to let go……………………the dog? Really?
Amy Adams is a great Lois Lane. She just is. She’s sexy and tough and just exactly what you might imagine a character like that is supposed to look like and be in the modern world. Her chemistry with Cavill is fantastic and probably the only thing I wanted more of was their interaction with one another. Obviously this is an action movie and it definitely delivers on that end. Never has any Superman movie or TV show ever had this much action that looked this good. Shovel the 9/11 comparisons for half a second people. And by people, I mean critics. Did someone throw a Kryptonian into the twin towers? No. Pick up a comic book with Superman on the cover and read it. Things blow up. Buildings get destroyed. It’s a fantasy movie with a fantasy character. Not a metaphor for terrorism. Stop reading between the lines when there aren’t any. And the city is Metropolis. It doesn’t even exist in reality. It’s not like they destroyed New York (Avengers…………..which I loved too). I didn’t hear anybody griping about 9/11 when Marvel brought their fun gang to the party. Anyway, the visual effects are over the top and Snyderesque and just fantastic. I can honestly say I’ve never seen Superman or any character fly the way Superman flies in this movie, looping and shooting in and out of things, bombing all over the place and just kicking it up as fast as he wants to go. Heat vision is shot like molten lead through Superman’s and Zod’s eyes. Superhuman bodies are flung and punched through buildings like you’ve never seen before. The final showdown between Zod and Supes delivers in every way imaginable. And not just in the action sequences portion of it, but also within the emotional resonance of the moment and the choices those characters make at the very end. Because every action has a consequence. And a lot of fans and moviegoers will be divided by the end of the battle. I found myself mouthing, “Oh no. Don’t do it Zod. No, Superman, don’t give in! Does he even have a choice? Can he find a way….” and that’s about all I’ll give away. Because the moment is worth seeing yourself. It turns the notion of victory on its head and just makes you keep wondering what should of, would of, or could have happened. Superman saves the day, but he does so at a cost, and that is also something that makes this movie different. The world isn’t perfect, and neither is Superman or Man of Steel for that matter. And finally someone was brave enough to let us see that on film. We get to see a flawed character making his first steps to figuring out the man he wants to become and the perfection he is striving towards. Will he ever be perfect? Probably not. But no one is. But we can try to be. We can want to be. And we can hope to be better.
For me, a longtime Superman and comics fan, Man of Steel was the movie we’ve all been waiting for, especially if you love comic books and love when they are done well. This is a comic book movie done well and taken seriously. It’s not Batman Begins lite, but it’s also not a buddy comedy, which we got plenty of that in Iron Man 3 (which I liked, but didn’t love). This is a movie that is smart and that challenges the moviegoer. It challenges you not about the serious reality of our world or current issues, but about what it might be like to be someone who literally has the fate of the world resting on their everyday choices. To be someone that can change the course of mighty rivers, to use a phrase. It challenges the viewer to take a comic book character seriously for a change. To really think about what it might be like to be this person and to have to make these choices. There is a burden to this Superman, and while it is a heavy one, I find it a welcome one.
Post comments or questions and let me know what you think. Hopefully this review gives you an idea of what the movie is about, but also how to approach watching it. Thanks and go see it!