I finally got around to seeing Man of Steel, after listening to my friends either love or hate it – but be too polite to actually tell me any spoilers.
I’d been looking forward to it; the trailers looked promising, albeit a bit misleading , but I was looking forward to Zack Snyder’s step into the big leagues. My opinion of Snyder as a director has been mixed. As an adapter of other creator’s style (the over the top romanticism of Frank Miller for 300, the dry realism of Moore and Gibbons’ Watchmen) I’ve found him to be a chameleon style wise (admittedly I haven’t seen examples that are “purely his” (I’ve heard very mixed things about Sucker Punch but have yet to see it)). So, beyond the craftsmanship, I had not gotten a feel for his artistic style. The only signature I’ve seen in his work is what I’m calling a ‘snap-shot’, an action scene briefly stopping or moving into slow motion before going back to regular speed. When done right it feels like the figures have a burst of power . Other than this (and an occasional fondness for sepia filters) I really haven’t noticed anything that would enable me to identify a Snyder film on sight.
Before I get into some of the nitpicking I need to address my biggest concern over this movie; the collateral damage . Yes….there is a lot of it. I’ve read the complete Miracleman by Alan Moore, I know exactly what a no holds barred Superhero fight could look like, and I’m sure that everybody wants an epic battle worthy of Superman but some of the damage was ridiculous – I almost thought Superman was aiming for buildings when tackling other Kryptonians. To make matters worse it was implausible how Metropolis reacted to the disaster. It felt like watching a classic Godzilla movie where there was massive destruction and implied loss of human life (I can logically assume millions of people died, but since I didn’t see any bodies I can assume the average resident of Metropolis shares Laurence Fishburne’s ability to outrun collapsing skyscrapers too.) Outside of the blast zone the city was not only unaffected but was also seemingly unaware – I didn’t see anything resembling an evacuation during the final showdown. (Let’s not even talk about how quickly Metropolis seemed to recover at the end of movie)
Now that we’ve gotten over that bump it’s safe to look at the rest of the film on its merits . On the whole I liked it, though I can’t say I’m sure I know why. For the most part I liked all of the performances, especially Laurence Fishburne as Perry White and Michael Shannon as General Zod. The affects and design were spectacular. I especially liked the scenes in Krypton, which were stunning. There was a good portrayal of the hero’s journey, but, again, while I certainly think it’s useful for a writer to be familiar with the works of Joseph Campbell I do not think The Hero with a Thousand Faces should be used as a checklist .
All in all I enjoyed it. Yes, my suspension of disbelief was strained past belief. A lot of the science fiction bits didn’t make sense and a lot more of them were just plain stupid, with plot holes bigger than the portal to the phantom zone . One last thing: the most impressive thing about the original Superman movie was not believing a man could fly… it was believing the disguise worked. In this movie when we finally see Clark Kent in the newsroom he looks like Superman with glasses.
Though, admittedly, it was funny how Lois pretended to be “fooled completely.”
