Man Of Steel (2013)

It has been a long time, sorry about that i guess i got a little disillusioned with blogging. But i'm back to vent about a movie i saw upon it's release here in Australia: Man Of Steel

I didn't HATE the movie, it was fairly well acted and the effects were generally good. But the script... David S Goyer is a great screenwriter when he wants to be, The Dark Knight trilogy proves this. But he also wrote Ghost Rider: The Spirit of Vengeance and Blade: Trinity. I'd say his talents are falling a lot closer to Ghost Rider than it is to Christopher Nolan's trilogy when it comes to this film.

Okay, since i like to start positively when writing here's what i liked about the movie:
 - The cast was well selected
 - The acting was good
 - The flashbacks to Clark's childhood are well done
 - Kevin Costner can still pull out a good performance
 - Zack Snyder's action directing was fine (if a bit generic)
 - the overall look of the suit works well for this interpretation of Superman

All those things are what kept me in the cinema (that and i didn't want to waste $10), but they're not what I wanted from a Superman movie. I wanted Superman in all his glory.

Here are my problems with the film: Henry Cavill (as good an actor as he is) is really given a dull character to play in MOS, Clark feels like a regular brooding loner who you'll find in just about any other action movie that has come out recently. But he's SUPERMAN. Make him dark and brooding if you want but don't take away his personality just so he can seem tragic or something. Superman already has these elements in his story, why not just allow him to have a personality that reacts to these things rather than have one that is solely based on them? Here the Clark and Superman character feels oddly false and uninteresting. Something i have never associated with Superman. Supporting characters aren't really as interesting as they should be, particularly Amy Adams' Lois. I was very happy about Adams' casting but she isn't given a lot to do.

The story. Zod and company come down to Earth, now i've seen this in Superman II but that's not my complaint, i love Superman II and i love Zod, but there have been 5 previous Superman movies (four Christopher Reeve movies and Superman Returns which i hope to review at some point), most had Lex, one had Zod. Why not have a character that has not been seen on screen yet? If MOS wants to distance itself from it's predecessors - and everything about the film suggests that it does - why bring in a character that has been ingrained in pop culture as much as Zod, previously portrayed by the woefully under-appreciated Terrence Stamp? Bring in Brainiac or Bizarro, people haven't seen them in live action yet. I like Michael Shannon as Zod, in fact i'd put him next to Costner as the best performance in the film, but he can't save a script that has already doused itself in familiarity.

Taken on it's own merits the story isn't so bad, but the script is. There are logical flaws that i could accept if this film were't taking itself so seriously, such as the fact that Zod wanted Lois Lane brought aboard the ship even though he has no real reason to want her, any information she has Superman has. It's pointless, they could 'read' his thoughts anyway. there was no need for her and seemed like just a contrivance to get Lois to do action-y stuff. The additions to Clark's backstory felt convoluted, i understand that they were trying to show that he was truly alone as a Kryptonian, but giving him (spoiler?) the DNA codex/baby making eggs of his people just stretched it too far. Add into that that Jor-el's motives for doing such a thing aren't really cleared up.

I like Zack Snyder sometimes. I like his remake of Dawn of The Dead (although i still prefer Romero's)  and i think Watchmen might, visually at least, be his masterpiece. He can make some great movies. But he's also made Sucker Punch. The guy isn't consistent and his obsession with CGI and explosions really gets out of hand here and the action over powers any sense of story. It's overlong, it feels inconsequential and eventually i just got bored with it. Superman fighting Zod is nice and it looks okay, but how do they expect me to care when the characters are so dull?

The structure of the film needs work. the reason the trailers got us so excited is because everything felt as though it was in chronological order, we went on a journey with Clark. Here we get flashes back to a world we haven't connected with.

The visual style of the film is unappealing. The colour has obviously been desaturated in post-production which makes the movie feel at a lot less realistic (since they're trying to ground this is in dark, gritty reality this is not a good thing) and frankly makes it look silly. Snyder's use of shot composition and editing needs work as well, the action editing really isn't flash.

Overall, those who were disappointed with Superman Returns will enjoy it, personally i liked Returns but that's just me. This movie really looked amazing, and i thought it would surpass Returns and every other movie about Supes. Boy was I wrong, Batman Vs Superman doesn't sound as appealing as it once did. But could the studio do me a small favour? Rename it World's Finest, it sounds like a proper movie then and not a fan video on Youtube.

Overall i'm giving this a 6/10. It's solid action movie but it could have and should have been a lot more than just a dour, hopeless (the S may stand for hope but the movie doesn't really SHOW us hope, just tells us about it) and action overloaded mess.

I also reviewed this on YouTube (say pretty much the same stuff, but hey if you're curious):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sh5GjbZTPQ