Directed by: Zack Snyder
Rating: ★½
A year ago, I wrote an article explaining why I thought the new Superman reboot Man of Steel would probably suck. After Superman Returns, The Green Lantern and other DC movie messes (with the exception of Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy) the odds were against our scantily clad superhero.
 |
| Oh Superman... what's the matter with your modern movies? |
And after waiting a long time to see whether my prediction would be right or wrong, it filled me with great sadness to discover that I was correct in my assumptions.
Man of Steelsucks.
It isn’t the worst movie of all time or anything; it’s just bland, boring, soulless and stupid. And here are my reasons for why it fails so spectacularly.
1) Because it isn’t The Dark Knight, but it wants to be
Man of Steeltries its very best to be ‘gritty’ and ‘dark’ like The Dark Knight, but completely fails. This is mainly because the lacklustre back story is unable to create an authentic character for Superman (Cavill): he’s just dull and perfect and his ‘daddy issues’ are poorly executed and jaw droppingly unbelievable. Which leads me on to my next point:
 |
| 'Angst-y' moments include Superman choosing not to beat up several bullies... that's as dark as it gets |
2) Because it includes one of the dumbest deaths in the history of cinema
Jonathan Kent’s (Cosner) death is without a doubt one of the stupidest most horribly pointless deaths I’ve ever seen in any movie. Would anybody really run into a tornado to save a bloody dog?? I don’t think so. But it gets worst when he doesn’t allow his son to save him, therefore commits suicide for absolutely no real reason at all except to make a senseless point that adds absolutely nothing to the plot or story except for some tacked on and hugely forced ‘emotional’ moment for the audience. This is an example of terrible, lazy scriptwriting at its very worst.
3) Because no one is given any character development
Hardly anyone is given a personality or character and if they are they are so wholly two dimensional that we really don’t care about them. Batman Begins spent almost the entire running time developing and establishing who Batman is. The same can be said of Raimi’s Spider-Man. In Man of Steel, Mary Sue Superman is so dry and underdeveloped that the movie isn’t really about him at all as the supporting characters try their hardest to prop up the titular Man of Steel, but sadly fail. Lois Lane (Adams) is given some sort of character to begin with, and even though she gets one good scene with a hologram, quickly falls into ‘love interest’ territory by having to repeatedly be saved by the real hero.
 |
| Poor Lois. She just can't win in a man's world... |
4) Because it is crammed full of aliens
Aliens, aliens, aliens. Like Thor, Man of Steel tries to establish an authentic and believable alien world that Jor-El (Crowe), Superman’s father, inhabits. And to be honest, they do succeed at this: the opening fifteen minutes are probably the film’s best and most thrilling moments. But once we come to Earth, the alien invasion is never ending, and everything is about aliens. Which, fair enough, makes sense because it would be boring if Superman just had to stop an earthquake again. But there’s something not quite right about loads of spaceships and ray guns and alien villains… it was odd. Maybe it was strange because not enough time was spent on how the characters dealt with this-
5) Because it is a CGI overload
Loads and loads of CGI action sequences. And I mean loads. They must have spent a fortune on the CGI. And don’t get me wrong- it looked fantastic. But because there was no real plot, and the action scenes were just so insanely over the top and ridiculously unnecessary, they became tedious very quickly, because they were pointless. There was no real tension: we knew Superman would save the day, we knew nothing bad would happen to him because he’s perfect. And because the film spent such little time on character development, I didn’t really care if anyone died. Although, I have to say that I did really like the moment with Perry White (Fishburne) and his colleagues trapped in the building- this was the only point in the movie in which you actually cared about anyone, and it worked really well.
 |
| Lawrence Fishburne as Perry White, gets the movie's most poignant moment... |
6) Because the ending makes no sense
The explanation they gave for how they ‘saved the day’ was so incredibly ham-fisted and convoluted it just showed how lazily written most of the script was. ‘If we do this then I will cause a black-hole or something’ is a solution so poorly justified that it seems as if it was just crow-barred in at the last minute. And because the characters and alien technology weren’t explained properly, it was hard to understand what the hell they were on about.
7) Because it is putridly sappy
Man of Steel was cheese-tastic. The sappy sequences were so heavily force-fed to the audience that I felt I was being suffocated with sentiment. ‘He’s one of us’. Bring me a bucket: I need to puke.
 |
| Superman: one of us!! |
8) Because director Zach Snyder does the same thing over and over again
The directing was, for the most part, very good. The CGI action scenes were fabulous to look at, even though they were mind numbingly boring, but seriously how many times can you have fake camera flare and quick ‘zoom-ins’ to action? I don’t dislike these directorial decisions generally, but I do when they are used over and over again throughout the same bloody movie.
9) Because, in this movie, Superman sucks
Unsurprisingly, Superman is perfect. He gets badly beaten by General Zod’s (Shannon) sidekicks but yet still somehow manages to find the strength to save the day. Even though he’s pretty weak compared to the villains and he is at a disadvantage when he takes on the terraforming machine, he still manages to dig deep and find the strength to succeed. I feel the vomit making a reappearance…
 |
| Zodd could be a good villain, but is two dimensional and boring |
10) Because I was right to begin with
My original article, entitled Why Man of Steel Will Probably Suck correctly predicted several key points including:
- That Man of Steel would be slow paced and awkwardly boring just like Superman Returns.
- That Superman as a character would suck because he is perfect, infallible, unstoppable and indestructible and that the writers wouldn’t take him in a new direction or give him angst.
- That Henry Cavill wouldn’t be good. He may look the part but he can’t deliver anything else.
- That because films at the moment suck as they aren’t innovative, Man of Steel would be a victim of our ‘standardised’ times.
- That DC films generally suck compared to Marvel ones.
- And that even though The Dark Knight Rises proved to be both critically and commercially successful, writers Nolan and Goyer certainly couldn’t save Man of Steel from banality.
 |
| Who should be punished for this mess?? |
In all fairness, Man of Steel wasn’t entirely bad. I really enjoyed some bits of it. The opening fifteen minutes were very good. Metropolis being destroyed was pretty spectacular. All of the supporting cast, in particular Amy Adams and Russell Crowe, gave great performances and worked with what they were given to the very best of their ability.
Regardless of these positives, Man of Steel is still a two and a half hour movie that cycles between washed out blue and grey tinted emo flashbacks and absurdly over indulgent in-your-face CGI action scenes that, ironically, fails spectacularly at being either emotional or exciting. It is ultimately a soulless blockbuster made for 12 year old boys that has absolutely no substance.
 |
| "Blue-grey tints are so over-used you say?" |
There is no real depth because there are no credible or endearing characters- and the ones who are most likeable or developed (Lois and Jor-El) get nothing to do except stand around and pad out the running time. The plot is weak (even though there were some good moments of originality but these are never really developed) and the script is poorly written- I will never get over the sacrifice his father makes for a bloody dog!!
 |
| Russell Crowe is actually really good and gets all the best bits as Jor-El |
I must confess that after that outpouring of criticism, I am devastated.
I have never been so upset to be proven right before. I almost want to watch it again, just to see if I was right to dislike it. Denial can be a pretty strong emotion- it can lead to self-harm.
When I left the cinema, I felt very emotional, as if I had just broken up with someone. Why can’t anyone make Superman good? If Christopher Nolan and David S. Goyer, who, by the way, have separately made two of my favourite films of all time can’t save him: who the hell can?
But worse- what does this say about the future of cinema? Is Hollywood destined to linger in a bland, standardised cookie cutter purgatory that churns out the same thing year after year? But I’m to blame too- because I paid to see Man of Steel, therefore encouraging Hollywood in thinking that this is the kind of stuff audiences want to see.
Because, after all, it ain’t about originality: it’s about making a profit.
0 Yorumlar