SPOILERS BELOW
Life can turn out kind of funny sometimes. I was planning on writing a post the week before 'Man of Steel' came out explaining why I thought it could be the greatest superhero movie ever made. I was planning on highlighting the major hints within the three trailers that suggested that this was going to be a special film, and one that really captured what makes Superman the greatest superhero. But then I saw the Rotten Tomatoes score. At the time, it was in the mid 70% area. Now, 70% is not bad by any means, but it certainly is not fantastic. The film wasn't coming out for a few days so I knew that the score would change, and I hoped it would get higher. However, in my heart I knew that these scores usually just get lower. And it did. Right now 'Man of Steel' is rocking a 56% on Rotten Tomatoes and an 8.0 on IMDb. No one should actually ever take either of these websites' scores seriously, and I certainly didn't. I went to the midnight premier of 'Man of Steel' with some friends of mine and have spent the days since thinking over the movie and deciding how I feel about it. This is how I feel about it.
'Man of Steel' is not the greatest Superhero movie ever made. Unfortunately, 'The Dark Knight' still holds that title and I doubt 'The Wolverine' will dethrone it. So it goes. 'Man of Steel' is also not the worst of the bunch, it lies somewhere in the middle.
The reason why I thought 'Man of Steel' could be the greatest film of its genre was because the trailers to it were just so gosh darn good. Trailer 3, in particular, is one of the greatest trailers I have ever seen. What I love about these trailers, and what I thought it was saying the film would focus on, is that they highlight the dilemma of being the Man of Tomorrow. One sees a conflicted Clark Kent in both is youth and young adulthood. There is a moment where his adopted father, Johnathon Kent, tells him that it may have been better if he allowed a bus of kids to die. I was really looking forward to watching Kal-el go on a spiritual journey of sorts trying to decide his purpose on Earth. Unfortunately, while the final film does contain these great moments from the trailer, they are not much longer than how they were presented within the trailer. The result, is a film whose pace for the first 100 minutes is way too fast and jumps around way too much and as a result, lacks focus and an effective arc.
Since most people are familiar with Superman's origin story, the filmmakers decided to tell the story in non-chronological order, opting to show moments of his childhood through flashbacks. I understand why they did this, but I just think it was really ineffective. 'Batman Begins' used a similar technique but the key difference is that Bruce Wayne's primary story was more interesting. In 'Man of Steel', Superman's story outside of the flashbacks is really thin and uninteresting. He's kind of just meandering about. One of my friends and I both agreed in saying that the film felt like a series of trailers that lead up to a 45 minutes action scene.
If the film had been told in chronological order, and if more time was spent focusing on his upbringing on Earth, then I think 'Man of Steel' could have been much better. The 1978 film is featured in Roger Ebert's Great Movies collection and he opens his article on the film with, "The first time we see Superman in his red, blue and yellow uniform is nearly an hour into 'Superman.'" Now, to be honest, I have no idea how long it was into the movie until we so Clark Kent don the uniform, but because of the non-chronological order, as well as other things, it felt too soon. The trailers made me think that 'Man of Steel' was going to be a long movie, or it at least needed to be long if it were to be good. 143 minutes certainly isn't short, but I honestly think a good origin film for Superman should be near 3 hours. I think so much of what makes his character great is that he grew up in Smallville, Kansas and his morals were molded by two Earthlings rather than Kryptonians. In the 78 film we see Clark grow up with his adopted parents and we witness him grow and learn responsibility and how he stands compared to the rest of the human race. We don't see that as much in 'Man of Steel'. There is not enough Kansas in the film and too much destroying Metropolis. I can't really recall what the story really was of Clark in the present time period before Zod shows up but I remember thinking that it felt like just an excuse for a lot of future action rather than standing on its own feet.
The music was solid but it sounded a bit too redundant to me. Too much drum rolling. It is not better than John Williams score. I'm sorry fan boys, but it's not.
Many complained that the final action scene was too long and I partially agree. A 45 minute battle isn't necessarily a bad thing. The Battle of Minas Tirith lasts longer and essentially half of The Return of the King consists of massive battles. The difference? The Lord of the Rings had two previous films of character development and back story to engage the audience and make them care about what happens. As I have gotten older I have become bored with actions scenes more easily. I have realized that action scenes are simply boring without a strong narrative to support them. There is a part in 'Man of Steel' when a woman is stuck under some rubble and a building is about to fall on her. This goes on for kind of a while and the whole time I was thinking, "who is this person? Why should I care if she dies vs. the thousands who are dying in these buildings?" We don't even have much of a connection with Lois Lane or Superman so much of the action is simply eye candy. But there are parts that are simply delicious, especially the super speed moments. Also, another problem with the action is that it pretty much all comes at the end. There aren't micro action scenes that build to the final battle. There are two action scenes in the beginning, kind of a story, then 45 minutes with royal rumbling. In the original movie you see Superman appear in Metropolis multiple times saving people and whatnot before his final encounter with Luthor. Which leads me to...
Superman doesn't save anybody! Except for Lois Lane...twice. I saw something on reddit saying that the cost of the damage to Metropolis would be about $700 billion. Now imagine the casualties, and we didn't see Superman saving anyone! What is the point of being a hero if you don't save people? Now compare that to this awesome scene in 'Spider-man 2'.
A friend of mine pointed out that if Zod had been good-ish then his character and the movie would have been much better. I completely agree. If Superman had actually been divided morally between which side to be one the film would have certainly been more interesting. I also think that another interesting direction the film could have gone in is if the Kryptonians by their nature was evil, and that Jor-el was an outlier or something. Then it would have been the fact that Superman was raised on Earth that made him a hero. Just a thought.
Overall, the film was decent and entertaining but could have been SO much better. The pace was too fast and not enough time was spent on the characters. Clark Kent became Superman too fast and his relationship with Lois Lane developed WAY too fast and we never get a sense of development in anyone. This is a movie that can benefit greatly from an extended director's cut and/or a fan edit. There is a better movie in there somewhere. If you left the film feeling disappointed then I would recommend reading 'Superman For All Seasons', it should make you feel better. I do recommend it to anyone who is a fan Superhero movies, or big budget action movies in general. I will see it again, although on video, but I look forward to giving it another look. I think the 78 film is still better but I think 'Man of Steel' is better than 'Iron Man 3' and 'The Dark Knight Rises'. Iron Man was kind of stupid and Batman was just a mess in terms of structure.
'Man of Steel' was not the film I was hoping for, but that just means I will have to make the Superman movie of my dreams on my own.
In summary:
1. Pace was too fast
2. Should have been in chronological order
3. We should have seen Clark Kent develop into Superman
4. Action was ok
5. Superman should have saved people
6. Lane love too fast
7. Was still entertaining
Johnathon Kent's death was retarded.
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