REVIEW -- Man of Steel (2013)

Man of Steel marks the return of Superman to the silver screen in the wake of Christopher Nolan's highly successful Batman trilogy. After last summer's blockbuster hit, The Avengers, Warner Brothers sought to recreate that Marvel Comics' success by creating a shared cinematic using DC Universe's own heroes with Man of Steel paving the way towards an inevitable Justice League crossover, featuring DC Comics' greatest heroes banded together much like the Avengers.

Does Man of Steel deliver or does it need to fade out of existence like the planet Krypton? Read on to find out.

The Plot: (FULL Spoilers)

The planet Krypton faces imminent destruction due to an unstable core, and its ruling council is under the threat of rebel General Zod (Michael Shannon) and his followers. Scientist Jor-El (Russel Crowe) and his wife Lara (Ayelet Zurer)  secretly imprint a genetic codex into their newborn son's Kal-El's cells and launch him on a spacecraft to Earth to preserve the Kryptonian race. After Zod murders Jor-El, he and his followers are banished to the Phantom Zone, but manage to escape when Krypton explodes. The infant Kal-El lands on Earth in Smallville, Kansas, where he is discovered by couple Jonathan and Martha Kent (Kevin Costner and Diane Lane), who name him Clark and raise him as their adopted son.

Clark's Kryptonian physiology affords him superhuman abilities on Earth. Young Clark gradually learns to hone the abilities that initially cause him confusion and discomfort. Jonathan reveals to a teenage Clark that he is an alien, and advises him to not utilize his powers publicly, fearing that society would reject him. After Jonathan's death, an adult Clark (Henry Caville) spends the next several years living a nomadic lifestyle, working different jobs under false names to cover his tracks and hide his identity. He eventually discovers a Kryptonian scout ship with technology that allows him to communicate with the consciousness of Jor-El in the form of a hologram. Lois Lane (Amy Adams), a young journalist from the Daily Planet, also discovers the ship while pursuing a story, and is rescued by Clark when she is injured. Lois's editor Perry White (Laurence Fishburne) rejects her story of a "superhuman" rescuer, so she traces Clark back to Smallville with the intention of writing an exposé. After hearing his story, she decides not to reveal his secret.

Detecting the scout ship, Zod travels to Earth where he demands that Kal-El surrender to him, or humanity will suffer the consequences. Clark agrees to surrender to the U.S. military, who hand Lois and Clark over to Zod's second-in-command, Faora (Antje Traue). Zod reveals that he intends to use a terraforming "world engine" to transform Earth into a Krypton-like planet, to eradicate the human population, and to use the codex to repopulate the planet with genetically-engineered Kryptonians. After Clark and Lois escape the ship, Clark defeats Faora and another of Zod's henchmen in Smallville, convincing the military that he is on their side. Zod deploys the world engine and initiates the terraforming in Metropolis and over the Indian Ocean.

Clark, now dubbed "Superman", stops the world engine in the Indian Ocean. The military uses the spacecraft that brought Superman to Earth in an aerial strike to create a portal that returns Zod's ship and his crew to the Phantom Zone. Only Zod remains, and he and Superman engage each other. After a battle, Superman is forced to kill Zod to save a group of innocent civilians that Zod attempts to murder. Superman decides to blend into the normal world by wearing eyeglasses and resuming his identity as Clark Kent. He is hired by White to work as a reporter for the Daily Planet.

The Verdict: 

I'm in a rather good mood tonight after seeing this as I happened to get in free as I forgot I still had a gift card from my birthday for the theaters here that I have never used. Thank goodness that I didn't have to drop $12-20 on a damn film here tonight.

Anywho... For the most part Man of Steel serves as the best Superman film that has graced the silver screen in over the last two decades. Those of you who know me personally know that I have been VERY skeptical of this film since it's initial trailer last summer during The Dark Knight Rises. I am relieved to see that Zack Snyder has delivered here since not everyone did not seem to appreciate and love Sucker Punch and Watchmen as much I as did.

In terms of acting, Henry Caville (Clark Kent/Superman) really is a natural fit as Superman as Christopher Reeve was back in the original Superman films. I'm sure many female fans will be oogling him for the months to come. Amy Adams truly left her mark as Lois Lane and felt as convincing as Dana Delaney and Margot Kidder in the previous iterations of Lois Lane across media that have come to set the bar on how to play this beloved character. I felt that both Russell Crowe (Jor-El) and Michael Shannon (General Zod) stole the show. From the moment we were first treated with the spectacular visuals of the planet Krypton, Crowe and Shannon command this film with their mere presence onscreen. On a side note, I wouldn't mind seeing Crowe as a Jedi in a future Star Wars film with him pulling a Obi-Wan Kenobi/Jaga from Thundercats, as he found a way to return from grave as a ghost. Come on, I know I'm not alone in thinking that. Antje Traue delivers as Zod's second in command, Faora, who comes of just as cold, if not more bone-chillingly cold as Zod himself throughout the narrative. I hope she returns in a sequel as the main villain as she can easily fill General Zod's shoes. I am possibly in the minority here but both Jonathan and Martha Kent (Kevin Costner and Diane Lane) both came off as transparent and lacking in character as Uncle Ben and Aunt May in The Amazing Spider-Man reboot. Pa Kent pasted on the immortal words of wisdom a la Uncle Ben before meeting his untimely demise in a similar fashion. Unfortunately, that's all Kevin Costner was good for here - the infinite box of wisdom for the budding Man of Steel.

In terms of the film's plot it works for the most part, but it's better if we split it into two parts in sake of discussion - the Krypton-centric plot and the human element plot.

The Krypton-centric plot starts on Krypton before it blows up, centering around General Zod and Jor-El over their contrasting views on how to preserve Krypton's culture and legacy. Even though Krypton is destroyed and Jor-El along with it, Jor-El's will lives on through Kal-El/Superman. 33 years later their conflict continues as it seems like at times that Superman is literally taking a backseat in his own film. To say that Kal-El is told throughout his upbringing that he is destined to have a choice and control over his role in life, it just comes across that he is merely finishing his father's battle for him despite his parents' strives to give him a fresh start on Earth. While I understand that it would have been easier for Superman just to give Zod what he wanted, he did have a choice in that matter when he decided to take a stand for Earth and it's people.

The thing that really knocked this film out of the ballpark was that it was Superman's own choice to kill Zod at the film's finale. I'm glad that this film made this distinction to separate Superman from Batman with an act that Nolan drive home so hard in his Batman films as a line that Batman would never cross. When push came to shove, Superman killed Zod to serve the greater good. He didn't want to cross that line but he had to.

The human element plot starts with Lois Lane's discovery of the alien spacecraft, which quickly turned into a conspiracy story style investigation that led to Lois easily tracing Clark's superhuman exploits back to his hometown. Lois decides that it was for Clark's best interest to keep his secret while all of mankind hangs in the balance as Zod threatened to destroy the planet looking for him. Fortunately, he gives himself up willingly but it's strange that Zod never revealed his intentions for taking Lois hostage on board of his ship with Clark. It's not like having her would serve his purpose to restore Krypton at all. From here, it seems that Lois and Clark are instantly in a relationship just after he respected her decision to protect his secret and was the first to openly trust him. This romance just seemed really rushed and forced. Both Adams and Caville have a natural chemistry with each other onscreen but they could have introduced the romantic element in a sequel and not this early in the stage of this franchise. It seems like Snyder didn't want to give Lois and Clark's relationship no room to grow at all here. Within a single film, Lois knows Superman's secret identity AND they are already romantically involved. That's enough material to spread out across two or three films, not cram into first one.

The human element of the plot continues to cause a few more head scratching moments as Zod's terraforming machines wrecked Metropolis apart. How is the audience supposed to care about that random girl (supposedly Jimmy Olsen's sister) from the Daily Planet when we maybe have seen her like once in the film prior to the scene where it seemed as if she was going to die? The reaction from the witnesses watching Superman stop the machine was a bit idiotic as you would think for a guy with super-hearing he would have dropped what he was doing for like five seconds and saved them sooner. Apparently, no one in Metropolis and Smallville seems to care at the level of destruction that Superman's battle put across those two cities. Hell, Superman doesn't seem to care about how much damage they are causing until Zod's about to strike down those people right in front of him. I would love to see the death count in Metropolis obituaries the next day.

I know I'm going to get heat mentioning this but Pa Kent's death fell flat - HARD. Clark could have ran at normal speed and saved him without any powers. Instead, Clark and everyone one else watched the old man die without lifting a finger. It came off like he died from his own stupidity rather than trying to "protect" Clark's secret identity. I guess him and Uncle Ben can argue over who has the coolest kid who grew up to be a superhero in the afterlife.

I had to laugh that no one did not manage to do the cliched act in Superman-oriented media - bad guys empty their clips into the guy, watching the bullets bounce off only to toss the gun at him in frustration.

Last but not least, let's talk about the action sequences. Boy, this film has a LOT of action, but like Nolan's Batman films the use of extreme close-ups does not do anything for the audience as you can barely make out the action. It gets worse in the later fight sequences where Superman faces off with his fellow Kryptonians with all of the cutaway shots and exchanges of actors for their computer-generated counterparts. There are moments where these fights are a spectacle to behold, such as the finale between Zod and Superman across the ruins of Metropolis, to others where it's mess of bad CG characters ducking it out, such as Faora and Superman fighting at Smallville's local IHop diner. I still say Faora gave Superman a worse beating than Zod did and at least she didn't drop her armor off like a damn dumb ass.

On a side note, why does everyone working under Zod are wearing body armor that looks like they were trying out as extras for Gears of War? I guess everyone can't have bad ass armor like Jor-El did.

I'm still sad that director Zack Snyder (300, Sucker Punch, Watchmen) didn't find a way to squeeze this joke into Clark's childhood upbringing. I was a sad panda when they didn't manage to get that joke in there.

Hey, Pa Kent has a point. How else are you going to put fear into an invulnerable alien child?

All jokes aside, Man of Steel serves as a solid foundation for Warner Bros. to begin their own shared cinematic universe. There is no idea on where they are going from here, but if Man of Steel is any indication for the future then the sky is the limit. I'm giving this a solid 8.5 out of 10. If it wasn't for the several plot holes, such as the Krypton vs. Earth environment issue that never was explained in full detail, I would easily rate this higher. Man of Steel proves that Superman still has what it takes to deliver on the silver screen and that Batman isn't the only marketable hero underneath DC Comics' roof.

Easter Eggs:

These are some extra tidbits I noticed throughout the film that I'm sure most people possibly missed out on throughout the course of the film.

- Alessandro Juliana (Smallville’s Emil Hamilton) shared screen time with Richard Schiff (Man of Steel’s Emil Hamilton). Alessandro was the soldier (Officer Sekowsky) who was explaining that the ice surrounding the wrecked Kryptonian scoutship was at least 20,000 years old.

- The actor playing Jax-Ur, Gen. Zod’s medical officer (Mackenzie Gray) also played the role of Lex Luthor’s clone in Smallville.

- There is a “Wayne Enterprise” logo on the satellite that is destroyed during the space portion of Superman and Zod’s battle. It is the exact logo used from Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy.

- During the battle in Metropolis, there is a light up sign that when zoomed in on says “Blaze Comics”. Shout out to Booster Gold fans.

- Two scenes where the Lex Corp logo can be scene.

- While investigating the inside of the wrecked Kryptonian scoutship, Clark finds an open resting chamber (Think stasis tube). In the prequel comic to Man of Steel, it is possible that the resting chamber may have belonged to Kara Zor-El (Supergirl).