In our world exists a wanderer. He forges his credentials and tries to keep a low profile, but he cannot help but save people. His story becomes the stuff of urban legends. He has super strength and appears completely indestructible. This man, a great looking, incredibly well built, soft spoken stranger has eluded the press his entire life until he saves a reporter by the name of Lois Lane (Amy Adams). Lane goes on the hunt until she finds out what she can about this man. Eventually they have a meeting and this wanderer opens up and trusts someone for the first time since his parents. This man, Clark Kent (Henry Cavill), is not from our world. He is from another far off world called Krypton. His parents sent him here after they realized their world was going to be destroyed and their race on the verge of being wiped out. His Kryptonian father, Jor El (Russell Crowe) imprints Clark's being with the the entire unborn population of Krypton with the hope that eventually Clark will restart the Kryptonian race on Earth. However, there is a hiccup. General Zod (Michael Shannon) was created for one reason, to keep Krypton going, to keep it safe and after a military coup does not work out, Zod and his people are sent to the phantom zone only to escape and come looking on earth for the Kryptonian boy thirty years later. Clark, who has trust issues due to his Earthly father, Jonathon (Kevin Costner) constantly telling him to hide his powers because humanity would not treat him well, is not sure what to do when Zod threatens to destroy Earth completely. Can Clark, trust humanity with his abilities or will they try and hunt him down and destroy him because of what he might become at some point. Humanity's xenophobic fears of the unknown often drive us to do stupid hurtful things and Clark has been trained to be fearful of his own safety.
From its dazzling, whirlwind, loud prologue all the way through its insane destruction of EVERYTHING, Man of Steel is certainly not your Grandfather's Superman. From the start I was hyper aware that this was not going to be the kind of Superman I was used to. I have never seen such a focus on Krypton before. And what a cool world they build with Krypton. It was industrial like whoa, and that turned out to be their downfall. We see that Jor El and Zod were friends at one time, and both are doing what they think is right to preserve the race. Jor El, a scientist, prefers starting over, and Zod, prefers taking control and trying to salvage what they have. Their confrontation in the prologue sets up a much more violent world for Superman. It also gives a much more well rounded idea of past from Clark, or Kal El as he was going to be known on Krypton. Kal El was the first natural birth in centuries. He was the first Kryptonian born with the choice to be whatever he wanted. Of course, he grows up not knowing this because he was a newborn when he was sent to Earth and found by Jonathon and Martha Kent who raise him like their own son. Told through a series of flashbacks we see Clark's upbringing throughout the film. These flashbacks are going to be unsettling for hardcore Superman fans because Jonathon's personality is different. Here Jonathon is afraid and wants Clark to hide his powers. He even told Clark he should have let a young boy die to protect himself. It is hard to fault Superman later, when he does some unSuperman type things because Jonathon raised him to be a bit afraid of the world, not to embrace it. Here we have the Superman for our times. The kind of Superman whose moral center becomes just a smidge muddled. Jonathon's fears have not stopped Clark from doing good works throughout his travels as he attempts to find out about his home world, but they raise an interesting point about the fear mongering times we live in now. Snyder and Nolan are clearly out to make Superman relevant, something I was unsure of before I went in. They succeeded in taking the classic Superhero and making him fit our times, but is that a good thing?
Superman is popular because of the ideal he represents. He goes out of his way to protect everyone, so when the third act comes all of the destruction comes with it, it is tough to take. Superman and Zod's army first wreck havoc all over Smallville Kansas with Clark not once thinking of all of the people in the way. he fights with reckless abandon and there was not a moment during the entire third act where I felt comfortable watching Superman be a part of the possible death of so many people as he threw bad guys into building filled with people. The Superman I am used to always does what he can to protect all people, including taking his fights away from people. Smallville essentially gets leveled during a brutal precursor to the finale. That being said, the action in the film is fantastic. I did find myself missing Snyder's signature speed-ramping, but I thought the action was pretty clean for a mostly CGIed fight. This massive scale attack was a response to The Avengers climax, clearly. If General Zod really poses that much of a threat, the destruction must be bigger and badder. Who knows how many years it would take for Smallville to get back together. However, that is nothing compared to what happens to Metropolis in the climax. Zod is trying to change the atmosphere of Earth and he starts with Metropolis. I cannot explain the "science" behind it because I do not understand, but it was like Zod was sending shock waves through metropolis causing it to collapse on itself. Clark is on the other side of the planet trying to stop the machine while the military is trying to stop Zod, but all that happens is the complete depressing destruction of this New York like city and probably the death of thousands of people. Once that machine gets stopped there is still the matter of ending Zod's terrorizing causing even more insane building collapses. All the while Clark and Zod are flying through these building beating the living crap out of each other without Clark ever thinking to try and take the action away from the highly populated area.
What does this really leave us with, though, as a movie? The performances are strong, especially Clark's two fathers. Michael Shannon always makes a menacing figure on screen and Cavill certainly looks phenomenal in the Superman costume. Amy Adams does strong work as Lois Lane, even if I felt she was used in a weird way. The introduction to the Clark/Lois dynamic we are used to has been thrown completely out the window and I am curious to see that build as the series surely continues. I found the story to be rich and layered, if incredibly divisive, but the dialog was clunky, as is often the case in a Snyder film. I found Snyder's direction to be spot on as the pacing of the film was well done and he caught some wonderful shots. The score is properly epic, and the CGI images were all wonderful and the desolation of the two cities was rightfully haunting, especially the smashed up Metropolis layered in smoke, dust as they are colored in gun metal greys like a post-apocalyptic film. By all rights, this is a very good movie. It is well crafted and entertaining. It is the movie we would get if Superman did come crash landing on Earth in a Regan era America. It has fear and a morally compromised Superman. He is not an anti-hero by any stretch of the imagination, but there is a sense that even Superman has to occasionally break his code in order to save the world. It is inherently pessimistic and that is weird for a Superman movie. When I leave a Superman film, I think I am supposed to want to fly off and save the world. When I left this Superman movie, I wondered if I could get out of Davis before it was rightfully crushed. I am still battling with my own feelings on Man of Steel, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. Christopher Nolan and Zack Snyder found a way to make Man of Steel a darker Superman movie without making Superman an anti-hero. They found a way to make this movie fit the world they started with The Dark Knight trilogy and are hoping to continue with the Justice League characters stuff. They are making very serious superhero movies which is not a bad thing, it is just a different thing. it is one of those things that takes time to adjust to. However, it makes sense. If they were creating a Superman for today's generation, a generation that is terrified of the unknown and a generation that feels inherently pessimistic, this is the Superman we would get.
When I was teaching last spring and we started talking about Beowulf and superheroes, we spent a great deal of time charting superheroes through the ages and how they change as our world changes. We talked about when certain heroes were introduced to fiction and how they evolve, especially Batman. I wrote a whole essay in college charting the Batman villains through the ages and how they changed as America changed. This change feels incredibly present in Man of Steel. It presents a military as cautious of what we do not know because that is the world we live in. We are automatically afraid of something unknown. Of course we would be afraid of a dude flying around shooting heat out of his eyes, even more so because he looks like we do. Man of Steel presents this idea in a very real way, and it shows us that the unknown can be trusted, to a point. We are still afraid of anything that is more powerful than we are, even if they are on our side right now because we have no idea what will happen in the future. He could turn on us. In helping us he destroyed two cities, imagine if he was not helping us!? In a post 9/11 world this is going to always be a fear. I was in a whole class of students who said horror movies did not scare them because they grew up in a world where 9/11 happened and they saw REAL horror. This is a generalization, but they are afraid and they want heroes who are a little unorthodox and this Superman provides as much of that as Superman can.
Last thought, how weird is the image of seeing Superman in handcuffs? I was not expecting it to be so jarring, but it was.
Final Grade: B
No comments:
Post a Comment