by Vadakin. I hate Man of Steel. Hate it. I need to get that statement out of the way. I need you to know going in to this so-called review that I can't stand this movie. Man of Steel broke my heart and I want to rip its throat out. That's not what Superman would do of course but screw it, the guy in this movie isn't Superman, so it doesn't matter.
This isn't a review. This is a rant. If you liked Man of Steel and have heard the arguments before, you may as well leave now. Because I'm not capable of looking at this movie in isolation. I'm not capable of putting aside 75 years of Superman history to enjoy this movie. For me, this isn't a Superman movie. Others have been critical but have given the film a fair score because despite the issues, they felt it was a solid film. I won't even go that far. If you're still here, what you're about to read is basically a fanboy rant on why Man of Steel fails to live up to the big red S on the main character's chest. And yes there will be spoilers.
A lot has been made of the third act of the movie. That's where most complaints are directed, but the problems start long before that. They start right at the beginning of the movie, on Krypton. Now the Krypton sequence is, in my view, the most successful sequence of the movie. But it gets to the heart of what's wrong with this movie. The very first scene shows Kal-El being born. Nothing wrong there. But then we learn that Kal-El is the first natural birth in centuries. So what's wrong with that? Well this little change, and change is the operative word here, embodies an attitude by the filmmakers that goes through the whole film. Suddenly it's not enough for Kal-El to be the child of the one man who can save his life. Kal-El has to be special. He has to be a saviour on Krypton. In essence, a common Hollywood trope – the chosen one. He isn't just the last son of Krypton, he's now the key to preserving the Kryptonian people. Now some of you may be wondering why I have a problem with this. And the answer is, if Krypton hadn't blown up, if Kal-El had been raised on Krypton, he wouldn't have been anything special. He might have taken after his father and become a noted scientist, but there would have been nothing about him that separated him from everyone else. It's a small but important change because the rest of the movie depends on it. Kal-El should be ordinary. He should only become special when he comes to Earth.
But that's a change I can forgive. It's typical Hollywood, taking its cue from Joseph Campbell. The problem is, the changes don't stop there. Every little thing is tweaked to a point that it makes me wonder if Goyer and Snyder even like Superman. They seem to want to change everything about him. They don't want him to be idealistic, they don't want him to have a happy childhood. They don't want him to do the impossible. It's also telling that the approach to the film echoed Batman Begins, not just in the flashbacks, but in the need to explain everything. Superman's powers used to come from gravity. Then that was changed to the sun. Now it's both, plus the air he breathes apparently. Everything is over-explained. Why does Superman wear a cape? Because Kryptonians wear capes. Where does the suit come from? It's environmental space armor. What is the Fortress of Solitude? An ancient colony ship that for some reason contains a genesis chamber even though artificial population control wasn't introduced until the Kryptonians started abandoning the colonies. Oops. Plot hole. David Goyer admitted to sidestepping the glasses issue...my response, what issue? A point was made about having Lois figure out Clark's identity. After all, what kind of journalist would she be if she didn't? She'd be a moron, right? But wouldn't that make the whole world morons? Why isn't it enough to accept that glasses just work in that world? Not that it matters since Lois appears incapable of keeping his secret. By the time we get to the disaster porn and killer Superman in the third act, I didn't recognise the person in the red cape. That wasn't Superman.
It's like the filmmakers are ashamed. For all of Snyder's talk about respecting the mythos and about Superman being the “king daddy” of superheroes, he and Goyer seem ashamed to be working on a Superman movie. They approached this film with the point of view that Superman is broken and needs to be fixed. It needs to be darker and grittier. Superman needs to be miserable and full of angst and guilt. Have these guys not read a comic? In their pig-headed attempt to make a Superman movie that had never been seen before, they forgot to make a Superman movie. They even came out and said that the reason Superman kills Zod is to give him his aversion to killing. Once again they tried to over explain it. I mean, how ridiculous is that? He doesn't kill because he tried it once and didn't like it? How about letting Superman do the impossible and find another way? How about letting Superman live up to the ideals he's supposed to represent? How about letting Clark Kent simply grow up as a good person who decides not to kill because he believes there are other ways to solve our problems? But I'll get back to this.
If you're ashamed of Superman being an idealist. If you can't stand that the Kents taught Clark to be a human being, giving him all of our best qualities and none of our worst, if even the name of the character causes you to roll your eyes, this is the movie for you. The name “Superman” is treated as a joke. Twice. That says everything you need to know about the approach for this film. Snyder and Goyer weren't content to make a Superman movie. They didn't want to make a Superman movie. And they didn't make a Superman movie. If they can't accept a character that's been around for 75 years then they shouldn't have been making the movie.
So now we come to the first big “screw you” of the movie – Jonathan Kent. This is the worst Jonathan Kent I've seen in a Superman adaptation. Now, Costner is alright. He does what he can with the material. But man, the character he plays is a dick. When young Clark saves a bus full of school children, is Jonathan proud of his son's heroism? Heck no. He suggests it was better to let the kids die. He goes on and on about how the world will fear Clark and that he has to wait until the world is ready. Newsflash, Mr. Kent. The world can never be ready for the appearance of Superman. Once again, Snyder and Goyer completely missed the point.
You see, the Kents are a huge part of the Superman mythos. They are proxies for the human race and it is through them that Kal-El learns about humanity and what it means to be human. They have this child who can do extraordinary things and what they do is they give Clark his humanity. They not only teach him to be human, they teach him to be the best human being he can be because they know that he could destroy the world or he could save it. They are the reason Superman not only cares for humanity, but believes in humanity. But in this film, that's not the case. In this film, Clark is taught to be afraid of human beings. He's taught to fear what would happen if they find out about him. He's bullied in school, his dad gives him a lecture and suggests that he shouldn't use his powers for good.
Now some of you will make the argument that what Jonathan was doing was teaching Clark to look at the bigger picture. That because Clark will someday change the world, he has to wait for the right time, even if that means putting his own desire to help people aside. Well that's just bull. Instead of admonishing Clark, Jonathan should be praising him for saving those kids. Instead of making Clark afraid of himself, he should be teaching Clark that it's OK to be yourself. The message of this movie is weird.
But let's come at this from another perspective. What if Clark wasn't super-powered? What if he was gay? What if a father told his gay son that he has to hide who he is because the world will reject him? I wonder how that would go down with the audience. The movie makes a point of giving Clark a miserable childhood. It turns him into Bruce Banner, an outsider with no real connection to the human race because he's been warned by his father to stay far away from us. And then Jonathan gets swept away by a tornado, with Clark allowing his own father to die.
I've seen this movie twice and I've come to the conclusion that Clark Kent becomes Superman in spite of the Kents, not because of them. It's made clear in the film that Clark just can't stop himself from saving people, despite Jonathan's warnings to the contrary. He's 33 when he becomes Superman (again with the Christ metaphors? Yeesh), which meant he's spent at least a decade wandering around, looking for UFO's and secretly helping people. It makes me think that if he hadn't overheard those two soldiers talking in the bar, he would have never become Superman. Because once again it falls to Jor-El to tell Clark Kent what his destiny is. We've seen this in Superman The Movie, in Smallville and now in Man of Steel. Of course it would have been nice, having been told he's going to be a beacon of hope and inspire the world, if he had actually become that. Oh well, maybe in the sequel. You know, for all the talk of Snyder making a movie as if there'd never been a Superman movie, he sure does follow a lot of the same story beats.
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