Super-Cember Day #4: Man of Steel (2013)

(Originally posted December 4th, 2017)

Day four of Cine-cember, and I'm finally presented with a challenge. This is probably the most difficult review to write so far, and I'm somewhat torn about what to think here. In any case, this morning I watched Man of Steel (2013), starring Henry Cavill as Kal-El/Clark Kent/Superman, Amy Adams as Lois Lane, Michael Shannon as General Zod, Diane Lane as Martha Kent and Russell Crowe as Jor-El.

Man of Steel (2013)

I've had quite a lot of exposure to Superman over the years. I've seen the Christopher Reeve movies and Superman Returns, starring Brandon Routh. And I'm a big fan of the show Supergirl, which features Superman in the second season. Suffice it to say, I've seen the Kryptonian's story done to death, and, unfortunately, this interpretation was one of the weakest I've seen. That's not to say it's all bad, far from it, and that's what makes this review so hard to write. I didn't have to go searching for things I liked, but it also wasn't hard to see things I hated.

Supergirl

Henry Cavill is one of the best things this movie has going for it. His acting as amazing, and he's what lifts this movie to greater heights for me. Superman is an intrinsically boring character, so I was surprised to see how invested I was in Kal-El's character growth over the movie. And, matching him with Zod was a great choice for this story. I was also shocked to find myself interested in Zod's arc in this movie, as he transforms from a general looking to save his people to a psychopath determined to kill everyone on the planet, even once all hope is lost. Michael Shannon, despite one or two odd choices, does a great job here as well.

Henry Cavill as Superman

But, one of the things I was most relieved about is how the movie uses Lois Lane. Not only is Amy Adams a great pick for the role, and she does well with it, but she actually does things other than be saved by Superman. Sure, she gets saved a few times in the movie, but even before she needs to be rescued the first time, we see her chasing a story and using her journalistic abilities to great effect. I'm glad they let her uncover Clark's identity early on, as opposed to leaving it a secret to be exposed to her later. We're not just told how good she is, we get to see it as well. Coming off the back of Spider-Man, and even Batman at the beginning of the month, this was a huge plus for this film.

Amy Adams as Lois Lane

Are there problems? Yes, absolutely there are. For one thing, the pacing is beyond awkward. We start on Krypton, then cut to Clark as an adult, then we get a 90-second scene with him as a child, then some more of adult Clark, we then cut across to Lois, then back to Clark, then we get a scene with teenage Clark, then back to adult, then Lois, then Clark, then Lois AND Clark, then we get a Lois montage, then Lois and Clark again, then another flashback to adult Clark but not current Clark. That's all in the first hour of the movie. Then the main threat comes in, but there's still 80 minutes left in the movie! There was a better way to tell this story, and I felt like the script could have used a bit of a tidy-up before filming began.

Krypton

However, one of the biggest issues with this movie is, well, to put it bluntly, it's the entire plot. Oh my God, I could write paragraphs upon paragraphs of all the plot inconsistencies in this mess of a script. And, again, I didn't go looking for things to hate, these were things I noticed on my first watch of this movie. There are some serious issues here, and it begins on Krypton. Yes, the opening set-piece on Krypton was gorgeous, but why do the council sentence Zod and his forces to exile off-planet when the planet's due to explode any second? I get that the council didn't quite believe Jor-El, but they knew something was coming, it was why they evacuated their citizens underground. If they'd just left Zod on-world, he would have been blown up and the entire movie doesn't happen. Right from the start I was finding issues with the plot, and they just kept on coming.

Michael Shannon as General Zod

For example, let's talk about when Pa Kent suggested Clark should have let a bus full of children drown? I get that he doesn't want Clark's identity revealed for his own safety, but he basically comes right out and says 'You should have let those kids die'. That is not a moral stance you want your parental role models to have. Also, Zod's plan makes zero sense. He tries to terraform Earth to make it suitable for Kryptonian life, but why did it have to be Earth? It wasn't the first planet they visited, the movie straight up shows them visiting other worlds, and nothing suggests that Earth was the most suitable planet for the plan to work. Yes, the codex was there, but the terraforming began once they'd figured out the codex was now a part of Kal-El's DNA. They state that they don't need him alive to extract them, but they never confirm if the extraction process would kill Clark or not. If it wouldn't, I'm sure he would be more than happy to give up the codex in exchange for the safety of planet Earth. Zod wasn't on a vendetta against the planet at that point; I'm sure he would have been more than happy to comply.

Kevin Costner as Jonathan Kent

I'm not even finished talking about the plot-holes yet. Why did Zod insist on bringing Lois onboard their ship when Kal-El surrenders himself? Yes, the scan her brain, but they scan his too. The only reason she's up there is so she can get Jor-El's consciousness onto the ship so she and Clark can escape. Zod himself doesn't have reason to need Lois up there. Once she is, however, there's even more problems. We see the spaceship has a Kryptonian atmosphere and it has a visible effect on Kal-El once he boards. They give Lois a helmet so she can breathe fine. But they clearly show that the gravity is also Kryptonian-like, yet Lois doesn't experience any gravitational discomfort. At first, I assumed it was another effect of the helmet, but later we see Kryptonians wearing the helmets on the Earth, and they're able to jump around like there was no gravity, so clearly the helmets do nothing to counteract the gravitational difference. So why doesn't Lois feel the effects of Krypton's gravity like Clark does when he's onboard Zod's ship?

Russell Crowe as Jor-El

Furthermore, why does Superman give himself up in the first place? He reaches that decision after talking to some priest once he hears that Zod wants him to turn himself in. But, instead of going to some church for answers, why doesn't he seek advice from Jor-El? You know, the one that knows everything about Zod and how to stop him? He clearly knows about the Phantom Drives, that's how Lois comes up with that plan later in the movie: she hears it from Jor-El. So, if Kal-El had rushed off to the ship with Jor-El's consciousness immediately, he could have prepared the phantom drive and neutralised the threat immediately, without any civilian casualties.

Henry Cavill as Jesus

Speaking of civilian casualties, you better believe I'm going to talk about this. Superman causes nearly as much destruction as Zod does in this movie. The fight in Smallville is practically instigated by Kal-El. He flies Zod through several buildings before Zod's forces even start their attack. Once their in Smallville, and then later in Metropolis, he makes no attempt to draw the fight away from the innocent civilians, and as a result, Michael Bay levels of property damage and incidental death occur. Late in the film, someone says of Superman, "He saved us" as they are surrounded by rubble and debris from what used to be the bustling center of Metropolis. A little ironic, and don't think that's what they were going for.

"He saved us"

And, finally, I do need to talk about that infamous scene where Superman snaps Zod's neck. Unlike much of the internet, I really didn't have a problem with that scene, I thought it was a really powerful moment for Kal-El's character. It demonstrated how far he was willing to go to save the people of Earth, and that includes killing the last of his kind. Furthermore, we see the effect it has on him immediately after he does it: he's angry, distraught, saddened and relieved all at the same time. It's such an emotional moment, and it made me wish the whole movie was like that. Yes, there were moments prior to that one where Clark questions who he is, but they never felt as real as this moment did. Maybe if this scene had a better build-up over the course of the movie, more people might have been okay with it. For me, it was the one moment that felt real.

Superman's reaction to breaking Zod's neck

Overall, Man of Steel (2013) was a mixed bag, sadly with more bad than good. The things that are good are great, but as a package, I probably wouldn't want to watch it again. I didn't even mention ALL of the plot-holes and inconsistencies I noticed in my first watch. That's how flawed this movie is. 4/10.

Tomorrow: I revisit the world of mutants with X2: X-Men United.