So, this little thing called Man Of Steel is out now and it seems to be impressing people. As Multiversity Comics’ resident “Superman guy”, it seems it’s come down to me to break down what I thought of this new reimagining of the seminal superhero.
First, though, if you just want to know whether or not the film is worth seeing, head here instead. This is not what you want to be reading if you are still deciding whether or not to part with your cash over the film. No, if you’re here, you should have already seen the film, preferably, because I will be breaking it down a lot more extensively.
Consider this your SPOILER WARNING.
Okay, with that out of the way, let’s get to it.
Superman is a character that means more to people all around the world than almost any other fictional character. I personally know people who are here today because of Superman and, in a way, I am too. The legacy and inspirational reach of Superman is almost unmatched. That’s why, ever since that first hand-held footage from the Man Of Steel panel at last year’s SDCC, this film has been one of the most anticipated and important films of this year. It’s surprisingly hard to overstate Superman’s importance as a character.
At the time of writing this I have seen Man Of Steel twice, and if I were to give one of those terrible one-sentence review summaries, it would be this: good, not great, but it’s heart is in the right place.
This is a film that had a lot stacked against it; ever since Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy made it big as the seminal DC film series of the 21st century, it seems that it’s become more and more popular to write off Superman as a hero. “Boring,” they call him. “Unrelatable”. It became the cool thing to hate on Superman. It was then tasked to screenwriter David S. Goyer and director Zack Snyder to create a new story that would re-imagine Superman for the 21st century, stripping away all prior continuity, and presenting the character in a new light to make him ‘cool’ again.
Did they succeed? In short, yes. The film is good and presents an interesting study of a character that many people have found hard to grasp. But, I want to take a lot at where it stumbles.
Man Of Steel works as a film in two distinct halves. For the first hour or so, up until what Zack Snyder dubbed the Battle Of Smallville happens, the film focuses on Clark’s developmental journey as a character and slowly shows the pieces sliding into place until he is Superman. From the first frame onwards, Snyder makes it clear that this is a chronicle of the life of Kal-El and that we will see his journey towards adulthood — and, ultimately, towards becoming Superman. It’s a great journey to watch and structured really well as Snyder explores Clark as an adult having lost his way, and gives the audience more context to him growing up in Smallville thanks to flashbacks. It gives a more well-rounded view of Clark than simply having a montage of Clark growing up; the flashbacks give context to Clark’s emotions and thinking and really clues the audience into how he feels. Really well done on the part of Goyer and Snyder for giving the audience a reason to connect with him.
Where the film stumbles, though, is the switch between halves as the Battle Of Smallville sheds itself of the need to show Clark’s journey and instead shows utter devastation in the wake of the other Kryptonians. In the aftermath of Superman Returns, disappointed fans cried out all over the internet that they wanted to see Superman punch something. Well, Zack Snyder delivered that in spades here. Boy, does Superman punch. And punch. And punch some more. Every major conflict in the film’s third act comes to blows with Kryptonian strength. This wouldn’t be a bad thing in moderation (I still stand by that The Matrix Revolutions‘ one superhuman fight was the benchmark for this film to beat because it took three films to build to that fight and thus made it matter), but the film loses all sense of moderation. It loses sense of most of what it wanted to accomplish, actually, opting instead to try and one-up the superhero films that came before it in how much devastation can be shown on film.
Continued belowObviously Superman is a character who has incredible, inhuman physical strength. Obviously there’s some catharsis in watching him beat the living hell out of someone with that strength; however, Superman’s physical strength is not what defines him for me — his strength of character does. Superman has lasted this long because he has become the steadfast yardstick of morality that is there to show us the way in dark times. In a post-9/11 world where terror exists on every news-screen and around every corner there waits someone to mug us, Superman needs to become even more of a shining example.
Here, even though it seems that those involved had the best of intentions, the film misses it’s mark.
We rarely get to see Superman actually save someone on screen. We never see Superman reassure anyone in the face of Zod’s terror. We never once see him become the example Jor-El said he would be. Instead, we get to see him punch Zod through a building. And while that’s a cool visual spectacle, that’s where this film slips from promising to disappointing. It trips at that last hurdle and instead of making a third act that could define Superman for generations to come, it becomes another punch-fest. The film loses the connection to Superman it was leading up to for the first hour of the film by never really being able to show him protecting the people he says he loves so much.
The biggest problem with the climax of the film (other than the Big Problem, which I’ll come to) comes down to writing. More specifically, how the climactic battle is structured. You see, while the trailers posited that Zod was going to threaten Metropolis and, surely, Superman would then swoop in to save the day, it plays out very differently in the final product. Largely because, for the most part, Superman isn’t even in Metropolis while it’s being utterly devastated by Zod’s ship. No, while the buildings of Metropolis crush untold hundreds of people to death, Snyder and Goyer have Superman on the other side of the planet punching a big robot.
That’s the exact moment the climax of the film, which otherwise had me enthralled from minute one, lost me completely. If you make a Superman film and the climax of that film has the character nowhere near where people are dying, you’ve lost me. The entire section where Jenny (not-Olsen) is trapped under rubble I found myself wondering with every passing second “Why isn’t Superman saving her?” It would be the perfect moment for him to get there and lift the rubble off of her, take her hand and fly her off to safety. But, alas, the film instead cuts back to him punching the big robot until it falls down. For a film that spent over an hour creating this complex look at a character that has remained largely aloof in the past 10-15 years, the payoff is just so underwhelming because it never lets him become the symbol they were building him up to be.
I don’t want this to come off as a “this is how I would have wrote Man Of Steel” article, but the film’s climax would have been much more emotional and more engaging if Superman had been allowed to save someone. Superman having to stop Zod’s ship in Metropolis while trying to save people from toppling buildings would have made his actions that end the film much more realised. Superman is on the other side of the world while people are dying and, to me, that made him feel almost useless. What’s the point of him if he can’t save the people of Metropolis who are dying because of Zod?
To have a character like Superman feel useless in his own film, nevermind a film that was meant to reinvigorate the character, is honestly a crime. It’s clear those involved had their heart in the right place and they know what makes a good Superman moment, but they just couldn’t follow through in making the end of the film feel like a great Superman moment.
Which, finally, brings me to the Big Problem of the film.The one scene anyone who has seen it is talking about. If you made it this far without having seen the film, turn back now.
Continued belowAre they gone? Ok, so…
Superman kills Zod.
Having to type that sentence just made me tear up in a mixture of anger and disappointment, I have to say. I’m going to put away my paraded love for Superman and I’m going to pretend that I’m not wearing a Superman shirt as I write this, and I will say I can almost appreciate where the film is coming from with this scene. I can almost appreciate that Zod forced Superman’s hand by putting people in danger and likely wanted to die because he had no people to serve. I can almost appreciate the way that Superman was genuinely emotionally distraught afterwards, mirroring his reaction to Jonathan Kent’s death earlier in the film. And I can almost appreciate the fact that it forced a conclusion to the story like Hollywood and most audiences wanted as opposed to letting Zod drift in the Phantom Zone until he next attacks.
However, for the end of Superman’s first film in this new series that was set to bring a whole new generation to the character, having him straight up murder the villain is, at best, laziness on the part of Goyer and Snyder — and, at worst, a betrayal of the character that they worked so hard to get right. The scene walks a fine line between working within the context of the film and ruining the film and it only barely errs on the side of working for me (I know it’s ruined the film for many) thanks to the fact that Superman is clearly shown as being distraught after the fact. It feels to me like the first half of this film and the latter half of this film are from two completely different films; it feels like the opening of the first film in a trilogy and the ending of the third film in a trilogy were arc welded together in the middle. It just feels like there should have been more build up to Superman’s actions to make them mean more.
Man Of Steel is not a bad film. Overall, it works more than it doesn’t and it gets the character pretty spot on for my tastes. However, there is still that whiff of Warner Bros. being ashamed of making a story about a guy who wants to save the world. Snyder and Goyer clearly get why Superman has lasted for so long, but other than lifting scenes almost wholesale from previous works, they have a hard time trying to find a cohesive vision for their film. The first hour or so of the film still holds up after two viewings, but after that halfway mark things start to slip more and more. I honestly hope that the planned sequel does pan out, unlike the proposed sequel to Returns which was dropped to make way for this, so that the team can take what they got right here and make an even better film with it.
And if anyone from Warner Bros. out there is reading this, I’d like to share my shortlist of what I’d like to see in a sequel:
- A more pro-active Superman: Superman was entirely reactive in this film and was never allowed the chance to act on his own or even attempt to save those in trouble. There was a good enough reason in the film for it, I understand, but I’d like to see that change in a sequel. Even if it’s just one scene of Superman saving a cat out of a tree.
- Metropolis: This film spends a lot of time developing Clark into the reporter we will likely see him become in the next film. If that’s the case, you need to make Metropolis feel alive and like it’s own city. I don’t want just not-New York again. I want to feel like Metropolis is a fully realised city and I want to see why Clark chose there and not somewhere else and I want to see him protect it with all his might.
- Breathe: There was a lot going on in Man Of Steel. There was just so much to cover that only a few of the scenes are given time to slow down and breathe. I know there was a lot to go through, but one scene with Clark just sitting down to talk with Martha or Lois or anyone wouldn’t hurt. The quiet scenes in the first half of Man Of Steel are where the film works best; give me more of those and make them the focus instead of all the punching. Continued below
- Consequences: Ok, so Superman killed Zod. You made it happen, don’t go back on it. But make it matter. Make it affect Superman and how he acts and how he reacts to whatever villain you have next. Make it haunt him. Make it a mistake he needs to rectify in order to believe in himself as a hero. Just don’t pull a Star Trek Into Darkness and have Clark go through the exact same character arc.
And, honestly, that’s it.
Overall, Man Of Steel is an A for effort and a B- for execution. This isn’t a bad film; in fact it’s a very good film, but there are the makings of a great film hidden under the surface here. You have the shot to do a second chapter before reaching for that coveted Justice League and I want you to take and use what you learned here to make a fully realised Superman film that is the best we’ve ever seen.
A Wonder Woman film wouldn’t hurt in the meantime.
