New Release Review: 'Man of Steel'

Let's see if I can start the review on a positive note... Give me a minute...

(225 seconds later)

It wasn't hateful. Suckerpunch, Zack Snyder's last film, was hateful. Man of Steel is merely boring. Actually that doesn't quite get it across. It's soporifically boring. It's so boring that there was more tension in whether or not the rain would keep away (I saw it at a drive-in).

I think I've gotten off track. Back to the positives:

I can appreciate the decision to tweak Superman's backstory, even if it doesn't work. Instead of the split persona of Superman/Clark Kent, Henry Cavill only plays Clark. In previous films Clark was the disguise and Superman is who he really was. In this version, although he hides the truth about himself, there is only Clark. It's a different way of humanising him. Instead of empathising with him when he's pretending to be Clark Kent, an alien playing at being human, here he sees himself as human; but he understands he's different, alone, adrift. It's not a bad idea, and it would have worked, except that Clark doesn't have a single meaningful relationship with anyone during the entire film. For two thirds of its running time it leans heavily on his connection with Lois Lane (Amy Adams, who comes across as a non-entity due to a seriously underwritten part). We're expected to care about them and believe that they care about each other. Only there is no attempt made to make us care. We just should because... Because... We should.

For most people, their first and last question about Man of Steel will be: 'Yeah but was the action any good?' Snyder isn't much of a storyteller but he has plenty of experience crafting huge set pieces (Watchmen, 300, Suckerpunch). In Man of Steel he does a credible job. The effects are near perfect, the pacing is decent, the actors seem committed. The problem, as with everything else, is you won't care. In one sequence Clark (he only gets called 'Superman' once during the entire film) fights a seven-foot 'thing' for ten-minutes. We have no idea who he's fighting. Is it a Kryptonian? A robot? Something else entirely? (My best guess is he's supposed to be fighting Snyder's version of Non from Richard Donner's Superman II. But who knows?) He also fights a tentacle-thing which is even less interesting, and even more ill-defined. There's no reason to invest in any of it. The planet will be destroyed if he doesn't yada yada, whatever. The planet is always on the verge of destruction in superhero films. You need a reason to invest in it. You need a personal stake. All Snyder knows is bombast. Despite the intentions of its writers Man of Steel is the opposite of what they intended: utterly devoid of humanity.

Overall: 3/10

SPOILERS!:
(Highlight to read)

I could write page after page on its plot holes. So, for brevity, I'm just going to focus on its worst offences:

THE CODEX
Possibly the most obvious MacGuffin in the history of MacGuffins (for the layman: a MacGuffin is what drives the plot. They ought to be subtly integrated, but often feel superfluous - such as Mission Impossible 3's 'Rabbit Foot'). Jor-El (Russell Crowe) steals it, for ethical reasons (obviously) and sends it to Earth to keep it out of the hands of General Zod (Michael Shannon). Now that's all well and good, but stealing the Codex is akin to stealing the Internet:

1) If you could actually steal it from one location, that would be a pretty well guarded location. Jor-El steals it by going for a swim and plucking it off a vine. The most important data device on his world and he steals it by going for a swim.

2) It wouldn't be in just one location! Do Kryptonian's not have back-up drives? What happens when their writers are doing op-ed pieces and their computer dies on them? Wouldn't they have invented back-up drives thousands of years ago?

THE WORLD ENGINE
Why is Zod hellbent on turning Earth into Krypton? If he has the Codex - with all its DNA sequences - then he can build another Kryptonian society. He doesn't need Earth to actually have the same atmosphere as Krypton. Especially since the Earth's atmosphere gives them abilities that make them close to God-like. (Occasionally they say it's the sun that gives them the powers they have, but they go back and forth on this during the film, and seem a touch unsure about which way round it is.) All the World Engine would do is turn Earth's atmosphere into a Kryptonian one; making them average schlubs. WORST. PLAN. EVER.

THE OUTPOSTS
The Kryptonian's use up all their resources setting up outposts on habitable planets, and terraform the planets that are not so habitable. Question: How is it ALL the outposts have withered and died? What happened to the outpost/ship that landed on Earth 20,000 years ago? As far as I can tell everyone died because it's convenient for the script. Having this information delivered so offhand makes you think that something else must have happened. One possible answer is that the outposts had to rely on the Codex, as natural births had been outlawed. (At least that's what was intimated.) If all the births are regulated using the Codex and its DNA sequences the outposts would have to rely on Krypton, where the Codex is kept, for new crew; but this brings us back to: Why the hell is there just the one Codex? Why would you send your people to the other side of the Universe, to set up an outpost, without any way to sustain the population you're sending? They're all still capable of having children. Wouldn't you just tell them that maybe they should give the whole sex-thing a go again? Wouldn't a survival instinct drive them to do it without prompting? Wouldn't... You know what? I give up.