Man of Steel - Review

MAN OF STEEL is an unbearable horror experience. It creates discomfort so easily that the opening five minutes can give you a SCANNERS-level headache, waiting to explode all over the rest of the audience. Unfortunately, the next five minutes of stupid errors and severe misjudgments will set it off. This continuous vicious cycle of mental pain and temporary explosive relief is all thanks to the unbelievable failure in the creative department. Director Zack Snyder once again proves why he shouldn't be sitting in the high chair of big CGI-infused blockbusters because he can't wring any vibrant, human emotion into the frame. Plus, he has David S. Goyer doing script duty, who proceeds to write one of the most heinous, aggravating, depressive superhero stories ever brought to the screen. It's the type of movie script that should come with a free cup of hemlock with every copy. Instead of soaring through the sky, making us believe in the power and hope of a hero, MAN OF STEEL scrounges Christopher Nolan's dustbin, tacks on scene after scene of clinical depression, and spews it through the horrific machinations of DC Comics and Warner Bros.


The ever descending value of the picture starts off with the extremely protracted backstory of Krypton. Jor-El (Russell Crowe) and Lara Lor-Van (Ayelet Zurer) have given birth to the first human child of the planet. The rest of the Kryptonian civilization were seemingly bred through artificial means, who later grow up to be highly bored politicians, soldiers, and scientists. Leaving the bedside of his wife and new son, Jor-El travels to speak to the planet's council, to once again mention all of the giant explosions that are literally outside their window. The heads don't care about these grave threats to the planet because a mediocre director told them to be drained of every expression and not to take precedence over the DUNE-influenced production design. General Zod (Michael Shannon) blasts his way through the chambers to enact a military coup. Zod asks his pal Jor-El to side with him through stilted dialogue, but Jor-El says "psyche!" and flees on his dragon-thingy, in order to steal a MacGuffin trinket that is imprinted with all of Krypton's DNA. The MacGuffin is sent off with his kid in a rocket, so Zod stabs Jor-El. Even though he and his crew assassinated a ton of people and the planet is literally about to explode, the surviving council have the audacity to ship off the evil perpetrators to live free in the Phantom Zone. Surely, they won't break out. Lara lets off some vapid lines and Krypton finally blows up. You know, when Grant Morrison had to re-tell the origins of Superman in one of his books, it consisted of just four panels and four words. He didn't need this pathetically epic prologue of stupidity.


The movie continues with an adult Clark Kent (Henry Cavill) jumping from job to job, never able to keep one because of publicly using his powers, until he sneaks through a private U.S. military operation in the Arctic. He locates and enters an alien spacecraft embedded in the ice, where he encounters his future super-suit and an A.I. program of his biological father. He also eventually meets up with Lois Lane (Amy Adams), who somehow spotted him as a spec through her ultra-maxi-definition camera. Don't let the cold weather fool you; these two actors clearly have no chemistry with each other, thanks more so to the contrived flirting skills of Goyer and the flat direction of Snyder. Lois tries to push her story of the world's first superhuman only to find no love with editor Perry White (Laurence Fishburne). That is until Zod and his buddies show up around Earth, broadcasting a cryptic video message that they want their disguised brother to return to them or they will annihilate the planet. Because movies, stories, books and television are seemingly shallow in this world, Kent and the military agree to this, only for Zod to say "psyche!" and get ready to terraform Earth as their new Krypton.


I would say super-heroics are then in order, which does happen but in a series of unfortunate events, but as scripted by Goyer, he wants to hold back on actually having any kind of fun. Clark spends the majority of time not using his powers for good because of all of the flashbacks where he was brought up by the absolute worst Pa Kent ever. That isn't a crack at Kevin Costner's acting talent but at how the character is written by Goyer. Pa Kent shames Clark extensively from ever using his powers in public, despite the fact that he's called a freak by everyone else in Smallville, regardless of his own actions. For instance, a young Clark saves his fellow classmates from drowning inside a bus at one point, only for the next scene to feature a parent screaming at the Kents about how dare Clark saves her son. This mean-spirited paternal nature climaxes with one of the most laughably crappy farewell scenes to ever take seriously. To make matters worse, it's not like we can sympathize with Clark either. His adult version is an empty-headed dullard with no forward planning or concept of other people's feelings. The biggest, absolute pure "walk-out" moment of the feature is when he visits Ma Kent (Diane Lane) for the first time in a long while, beams a wide smile and tells her how happy he is to find out about his real biological family. What a super-dick.


So the script is toilet-paper, stained with the brown ideas and lines of a screenwriting chump. How about the action? Well, if you wanted to experience 9/11 all over again in the form of film, this is worthy for you, you sick bastard. The concluding chapters all involve Metropolis suffering catastrophic casualties: Buildings are demolished and fall down on people running away in panic; the terraforming device causes citizens and debris to rise up in the air, slam hard back down to the ground, and repeats endlessly; and Superman and Zod engage in further destruction by clashing at other sites all over the city. Never in a long, long while have I ever felt so utterly sick and appalled by CGI effects and the people who crafted and devised them. Once you add the clanging sound mix to it, it becomes even more unbearable than a screening of FUNNY GAMES. Shame on, Zack Snyder.


I only have two things that I can praise about in this abomination, and they both go to the acting department. While all of the mains and the first set of supporting players all suffer, Fishburne and Antje Traue were able to make things work. Fishburne's Perry White was the only character truly likable. I was cheering for him in the finale, when he bravely tries to save his fellow colleagues from the Zod and Superman-helped demolition job. Traue, on the other hand, was the one actor to actually bring enjoyment with their role. She makes Faora-Ul, Zod's right-hand woman, a badass villainess and a worthy adversary for Supes. However, because she's a woman, and Nolan wasn't fawn of strong women in his works, that means her designated counterpart is Lois. Goyer, you are desperately trying to make me loathe you more.


The very best thing about MAN OF STEEL is evident in its title. The movie routinely and stubbornly doesn't want to call the main character Superman. I'm very overjoyed by this decision. So, Snyder and Goyer, you can have your angst-ridden hero who refuses to stand out and actually save some lives. You can have your egregious view of Smallville. You can have your rampant product placement of IHOPs and fancy electronics. You can have your world of ennui. I'll just take my Superman, the one created by Siegel and Shuster and expanded further by many dreamers and believers in humanity, and go home.



FINAL REVIEW: 1 / 5