'Man of Steel' Review - This is not your father's Superman

Man of Steel isn’t really a movie. It’s an experience. Even from the very beginning as Lara-El goes through the violent process of birthing Kal-El the movie never gives the audience a chance to rest.

Directed by Zack Snyder, the comic adaptation “guru”, Man of Steel is a movie that wants to be about Clark Kent/Superman/Kal-El (Henry Cavill) discovering himself. Portrayed as a loner who never fit in, Clark ends up finding out who his people really are and what happened to them. After General Zod (Michael Shannon) threatens to destroy Earth if the human race doesn’t give up Clark he is thrust into the spotlight and must deal with the world knowing he exists.

And while this story sounds like it could be an interesting take on the Superman story, it never really delivers. In fact, if there’s not a fight going on the movie becomes utterly bogged down through exposition, always talking about the past. It is clear that Snyder and Christopher Nolan (Batman Trilogy) are trying to transfer the real worldization – as much as they can with a story about an alien civilization coming to earth – that Nolan is so well known for from his take on Batman. Every single last aspect of this movie has a purpose and, unfortunately, they are all painstakingly explained to the audience through monologues. And unless it is the “computerized” Jor-El (Russell Crowe) explaining to Clark, Zod, or Lois – in an unintentionally hilarious escape – there is no need for so much explanation in the movie. The movie feels incredibly dumbed down because of this. It feels like the writers were more interested in setting up the backstory and rules for these worlds and people rather than telling an actual story.

When the characters aren’t explaining the importance of everything or exactly what went on in the past, they are spouting trite and stilted one-liners of inspiration or emotional reaction. Most of the inspirational one-liners feel like they have appeared on one of those inspiration rocks at one time or another. In fact, the movie’s dialogue is actually more characters talking at each other than talking with each other.

And using the term character may be a bit of a misnomer. There is nary a three-dimensional character to be found in this film. Instead, every person that appears in this film is basically an archetype in its purest form – more parts of a mathematical equation than anything. Since the story is about Clark trying to discover himself it would make sense that his character would grow into the suit by the end of the movie. Instead, loner Clark all of a sudden transforms when he puts on the Superman suit, becoming less loner and more smug. He feels immediately comfortable once he puts the suit on, which happens all too abruptly. Lois is tough and fearless but is completely lacking an arc. While it is an interesting take to have such seminal superhero characters be so archetypal the movie feels hollow.

Where the story lacked, however, the action scenes and art direction flourished. Every time a fight happened relatively close, or basically when it wasn’t just two specs destroying every skyscraper in sight, dripped with superpowers. It can be hard to really show off Superman’s powers but Man of Steel did an excellent job. Snyder made the decision to not slow down the powers of the Kryptonians in order for the fight scenes to be easily followed and his decision paid off. Each fight was frenetic and intense with every punch crammed with otherworldly power. It actually felt like super powerful aliens fighting each other. Although, battles would lose momentum when they became more about destroying the Manhattropolis skyline or Smallville’s Main Street.

The designs for everything Kryptonian were also very nice. They felt different but not too alien. Seeing how Jor-El interacted with the wildlife on Krypton showed how important nature once was on the planet, which was mirrored with the Kryptonian ship and armor designs.

Snyder’s trademark comic cell cinematography was also present, although was quite jarring at times. It seemed that a majority of shots from the film, especially when not in a battle sequence, were close-ups. This felt like a ploy to make the movie feel like a more personal affair but often felt out of place. To further the personal feel, Snyder shot the movie in almost all handheld, shaky cam (think Friday Night Lights the TV show). The style is known to have originated from reality TV shows and thus is meant to make the movie feel more grounded in reality, which makes sense in planning but not in practice. Although the handheld camera did make the movie feel like it was constantly on the move. Last was Snyder’s decision for quick camera zooms from the same angle. These were very jarring and took the audience out of the movie, although it did seem like they may have helped trained the audience’s eye for the quick moving fight scenes.

Man of Steel jumped off the screen to create a movie going experience that felt more like an amusement park ride as the audience was sucked into the battles as opposed to just watching them. Those expecting or hoping for the depth and storytelling of the most recent Batman movies will not be pleased. Man of Steel is definitely worth a watch, especially on the big screen, but it is more of an introduction to how Superman works on earth in order to set up sequels as opposed to a movie that can stand on its own.