'Man Of Steel' Review
Man Of Steel is probably one of the most divisive films in recent memory, with critics either hailing it as a masterpiece or labelling it to be a sloppy mess, and the audience's just as evenly split. I'll admit I lie more in the middle ground, as there are elements in Man Of Steel I would consider brilliant and there are portions of the film that irked me, and I feel most problems were with the creative team and not the performances or the technical aspects.
For one, the film has this bleak, dreary, grayscale filter applied for a majority of the lengthy 2 hours and 23 minute runtime that honestly looks like it was ran through some filter on Instagram. Now there is technically "color" in the film of course, but most of the sets, environments, and costumes are in a darker gray, black, or blue color palette that makes the film all the more bleak and dreary. That's another point of discussion altogether, the film attempts to emulate Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy and it's not all too surprising since Nolan produced the project.
Now, I don't mind Warner Bros. trying to emulate their previous success with the Dark Knight Trilogy, which also helps to differ their comic book cinematic universe from Marvel's, but I don't think that everything needs to be so dark and gritty. I think a happy medium of both a dark and light tone would probably work better but Warner Bros. certainly know how to execute a darker, gritty film, and Man Of Steel is that exactly.
Man Of Steel is visually a masterpiece. This is large part to director, Zack Snyder, whose talents mostly lie with visual iconography and not the actual story itself. The cinematography feels very natural and when combined with the editing makes for a smooth viewing experience doing justice to the visual iconography Snyder brilliantly imagined. The film's visual effects are a mixed bag in my opinion. The effects for Superman's powers at times can look very fake, but for the most part seem quite authentic and are well realized. When Superman first gets his suit and flies around for a bit, the effects are remarkable and the cinematography adds to the authenticity incorporating some shaky-cam and gorgeous shots both behind and in front of Superman.
However, there is one brief moment where it is apparently clear a green screen is being utilized. In this brief moment, Superman's flight just seems mismatched with the background and there's a lighting issue where Superman looks darker than the surrounding brighter lighting and it annoys me every time I watch the film. I feel the effects for Superman's strength, heat vision, and X-Ray vision are handled exceptionally well and the sound mixing and editing are also well executed throughout. In particular, Superman's super-hearing and the Krypton technology sound effects are two of the best showcases of the excellent sound design.
One odd sound design choice though was that the weapon utilized by the Kryptonians to attempt to harvest the Earth for a new generation of Kryptonians, the World Engine, sounds like a dub-step cannon. Amidst the subject of sounds, I feel that I must comment on Hans Zimmer's fantastic score. Zimmer manages to create this grand, epic score that seems to be a perfect embodiment of the ideals of Superman but expressed in music.
The performances across the board are quite exceptional, and I have to say that both young actors portraying the younger Clark Kent, Dylan Sprayberry and Cooper Timberline, impressed me in their brief screen time. Henry Cavill makes for a very capable lead as Kal-El (Superman), although he's no Christopher Reeves, but he certainly fills all the requirements I think an actor needs to portray Superman. One thing I think he does remarkably well is his facial emoting, where he really sells that he's struggling or frustrated when using his powers and whatnot. Unfortunately, the film doesn't make time to explore the duality and pressures of balancing his normal life as Clark Kent and his super heroics as Superman but that's one element I can't wait to see explored in these future DC films, whether it be Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice or Justice League.
Amy Adams makes for a solid Lois Lane and actually does quite a bit to drive the story, but unfortunately at times becomes too much of the damsel in distress trope because of her willingness to plunge herself into danger. Aside from those little nitpicks, Lois comes across as a strong, developed female character, whose purpose isn't purely to be a love interest.
Russell Crowe and Kevin Costner both make for great father figures to Kal-El/Clark Kent as Jor-El and Jonathan Kent respectively and you can instantly feel their connection to Kal-El due to the incredible chemistry they have with Cavill and the gravitas of both actors. Diane Lane serves as Kal-El's mother figure as Martha Kent and is terrific in that capacity but she is very much a supporting character that's relegated to a few scenes sprinkled throughout. Laurence Fishburne gets to play Perry White, and I think he was terrific in the small capacity used.
Meanwhile for our antagonists, we have Michael Shannon, who makes for a great villain as General Zod. At times he seems a bit over the top and chews the scenery, not that that's necessarily a bad thing though. I liked that he had a genuinely believable motive and like most great villains believed what he was doing was just. Antje Traue is truly awesome as Zod's lieutenant, Faora, who kicks a lot of butt and is honestly everything the character Captain Phasma should have been in Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens.
In summary, I think that Zack Snyder certainly presents a film that's very much style over substance, as the first half of the film is phenomenal but it finds itself in a sticky situation with it's grand finale that I will discuss in great detail soon. The scenes that I enjoyed watching were primarily in the first half of the film when Superman is actually saving people or the flashbacks where he's adjusting to life on Earth. I really like how the film stays primarily in the present day and jumps back to flashbacks to fill in for some crucial parts of Superman's origin story instead of wasting an hour on a young Kal-El growing up on Earth. The story is quite lacking in some moments towards the end and there are creative decisions made regarding Superman that seem out of character for the Son of Krypton that I personally see as an abundance of issues.
The action sequences are all grand and epic in scale but while they are quite awesome, I have a number of issues with a few in particular. One really small nit-pick is that these fights use the most blatant, obvious product placement although I don't see how Kryptonians destroying a Sears would convince anyone to shop there? The fights between Superman and the Kryptonians feature copious amounts of collateral damage, that just seems way too excessive. I understand that two people with these powers would destroy tons of property but the fight between Superman and Zod almost levels Metropolis.
What annoyed me to no end regarding this was that throughout the fight, Superman rarely makes any attempts to stop Zod from destroying any buildings or save any civilians, but rather actually even pushed Zod into some of these buildings. This was amidst a fight where buildings were collapsing. I feel that this interpretation of Superman was pretty reckless and there was tons of collateral damage as a result. The one time Superman did save people during this fight was when he snaps Zod's neck to prevent him from using heat vision to kill people. So yes, Zod's death was a necessary evil but it seems even more out character for Superman to kill someone, regardless of what they've done or plan to do, but this version of the hero clearly doesn't take much issue with cracking necks. The screenwriters should have avoiding putting the character of Superman, whose supposed to have a higher morality, in a position where he's forced to kill his villain. In fact, it's kinda hard to even call this interpretation a true hero and I think that is the film's biggest problem.
Now to sum all of this up, if someone came and asked me to give a one-word review of Man Of Steel, I'd have to say that it's "meh." It's not great, but it certainly isn't terrible either, it's honestly just okay and I feel that Warner Bros. shouldn't accept something that's passable if they ever hope to truly compete with Marvel's Cinematic Universe.
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