Man Of Steel - Review

Almost everyone on the planet must have heard abut Superman. The "S" logo on his chest is the most recognizable symbol after the Christian cross. He sort of represents what everyone wants to be :fly, have super-speed ,invulnerable etc. But for those of us who are not so familiar with his story ,let me give a little recap without the risk of spoilers .
Jor-El sent his newly born son Karl El along with the Codex on a one way trip to Earth because Krypton was facing a pending cataclysmic destruction. Meanwhile, General Zod who is the movie's antagonist wants the Codex (the base genetic material that Kryptonians are engineered from ) in order to rebuild Krypton on another planet. Zod's rebellion was crushed. He along with his minions were placed in the phantom zone as punishment for their crimes. I really liked seeing Krypton as it once was. Teeming with life. It was sad watching it explode to smithereens.

Before going further,let's place this movie in context. The first Superman movies with Christopher Reeves, made Superhero movie genre a force on the big screen. Things turned a bit sour with the Superman III movie and went from bad to worse in Superman IV. WarnerBro saw the writing on the wall and decided to pull the plug on further Superman movies. It was later persuaded by the success of Marvel's Xmen and co and commissioned  a new movie titled Superman Returns with former Xmen director Bryan Singer at its helm. That installment gathered mixed reviews from critics and fans alike. A few of the criticisms were that fans were tired of seeing Superman lift things or they had seen too much of Lex Luthor . Fans wanted to see Supes battle his equal Mano-a-mano.And in the era of special effects, it would be a sight to behold, they enthused.

After living under the shadow of the Batman , whose movies have been a commercial and critical success, WarnerBros thought it expedient to bring in the man who made it possible to apply his midas touch to the Superman franchise. Chris Nolan went about trying to infuse a bit of realism into Superman . Some of the causalities were the underpants ,followed by the substitution of spandex with a more armor like material. The "S" symbol was also redesigned.

Mark Snyder of 300 fame was brought in as the director. A man who is renown for great action sequences. But for all Synder's dexterity as a director , retelling the story of Superman will pose a very steep challenge.Even with the success of the Nolan Batman's trilogy, DC  trying to start off its own cinematic universe ala Marvel had failed miserable with Green lantern. A lot of expectations were placed on this movie to kick start such a universe.

Also,the stoic nature of the hero makes it difficult for the audience to relate to. You see unlike Spider-man who has real life issues or Batman who can be hurt , the attributes of Superman, his invulnerability et al has somehow become an Achilles's heel .  A trend also seen in the comics followed by drop in sales. Usually a distant second to Batman titles. I was curious to see how Zynder transforms the character to one the audience cares about?After all ,his predecessor  had tried unsuccessfully to bring a more human element to the character but that came off as too gloomy.

(Spoiler Alert)
Anyway back to the movie.The director spares us from watching about 30 mins of familiar origin story by using flashbacks to narrate the Clark Kent's journey on Earth. A journey to find who he is and his purpose. While this was going, Zod and his crew had broken out of their prison and plotted their course towards Earth to retrieve the Codex.

Zod announces himself to the world in a spectacular fashion . Challenging the world leaders to give him ,Karl- El or face annihilation. The human forces obliged and hand Superman over to him. Protagonist and Antagonist come face to face for the first time in the movie. Zod explains his plan to rebuild Krypton on Earth. Karl-El finds out that Zod's plans is with a proviso, he intends to restore Krypton on Earth without it's Aborigines. This plot seems a tad similar to Transformers: Dark of the Moon.

This ultimately set the stage for the big showdown.The visual effects really shine and at the same time felt overused. At times, it felt like one was watching a senseless video game. Credit to Zynder though who went a step above the Wachowski brothers ala Matrix Reloaded ,in making a more sensible duel between two invulnerable characters.

A few other things about the movie to note were the arguably drab performance of Amy Adams as Superman's main squeeze. The romance scenes with Superman felt forced. It just didn't flow naturally. Maybe it is because Lois Lane knows that Clark Kent is Superman.Then again that is a departure from previous storyline between the two. That twist was probably added to avoid the pain of explaining how Louis Lane does not recognize Superman from Kent's bespectacled disguise.

Also the movie desperately needed some humor just a tiny bit.

What Karl-El lacks in charisma of say an IronMan, he makes up with big punching action.

One might get lost in all the punching and collapsing debris till Superman snaps General Zod's neck. Yeah you heard me, Superman KILLED Zod!

I read Superman comics as a boy and it always empashied this goody too shoes theme of Superman not being able to kill.But here in this movie, he did. 

Some cry hypocrisy to those who are bashing Zynder while overlooking the fact that in the Christopher Reeves Superman II, Supes "killed" a powerless Zod by nudging him into a bottomless pit.Maybe Superman should have gone in between the heat vision and the people.

Then outwit Zod in someway like Neo did Agent Smith.

If fans have any issues with this movie, it would be this scene. It also seems ironic that Zod - a son of Krypton made invulnerable under our yellow Sun could die the way he did especially after getting smashed through buildings and surviving without a scratch.

The movie was littered with depictions of Superman as an analogy to Jesus Christ . There was even a marketing drive aimed at actually communicating that message to the Church.
One scene in particular was where Jor-El told Superman to go and save them and he then flew out of the spaceship in a cross like position.  Another one was in Clark Kent sitting in church next to an image of Jesus.

Some Christians vehemently oppose such comparison and stayed away from the movie for that reason.We know controversy sells so it probably had a net opposite effect on others to go watch the movie.I don't think that comparison exists even though there were attempts made in the movie for the following reasons.

Firstly and most importantly, Nobody prays to Superman .
Secondly, Jesus Christ is the Prince of peace while Superman violently broke Zod's neck while smashing various buildings and so on. Don't be a killjoy,it's just a movie.Come on.

Anyway this movie looks like a promising start to DC cinematic universe.Though I wonder how the Nolan's Dark Knight realism ties into the fantasy world that this Superman lives in, with it all culminating in a Justice League Movie sometime in the future.



Rating 6/10.

by Chinedu Efoagui