Man Of Steel
Just about every writer I read has had an issue with this movie. They picked it apart for its emphasis on action, lacking the qualities that make Superman, its gritty nature, etc. I really, really wanted to love this movie and be like hah but that just wasn’t meant to be.
The movie isn’t terrible, it’s just alright. The action was well done, but has the same problem I’ve always had with Superman, a whole lot of teasing with no payoff. Sure, a whole hell of a lot of buildings got destroyed, but everyone else just walked it off. They didn’t even breathe heavy. When everyone comes out of going through multiples buildings, having a train dropped on them, exploded, etc. and they don’t get scratched at all, it removes the climax of the combat. The only reason anyone stopped hitting each other was seemingly because they got bored or distracted and wandered over to something else.
BUT, I wouldn’t say this movie lacked the qualities of Superman. He’s still a boyscout, it still has plenty of hope, and it’s not near as gritty as everyone makes it out to be. This is NOT batman (and it shouldn’t be), don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. If anything, I would say it’s too hopeful, almost cheesy. Not as bad as Superman Returns, but half the movie is him flashing back to the awesomeness of Kansas and his family and how great they were and how much he wants to make his dad proud…yada, yada, yada. It’s fine, that’s what makes Superman, you know, Superman, but why is everyone talking about how dark it was?
SPOILER ALERT!
SPOILER ALERT!
SPOILER ALERT!
Is it because he kills Zod? Really? Fucking really? They guy who was going to destroy the whole human race, destroyed half of Metropolis, and was in the middle of trying to outright murder a family? That guy should have been spared? Superman should have just figured it out? It wasn’t gritty, it wasn’t some ruthless, Punisher-style take down. It took him forever to finally do it, and then he cried about it!
This is dark, eighties Superman? Really? Because, I’m pretty sure just about any other character would have killed Zod when he set out to kill seven billion people. Or when the non-lethal Phantom Zone plan (and why is it better to trap someone in a black hole for eternity?) didn’t pan out.
Something else everyone keeps harping on, is that it’s more about him being from Krypton than Kansas. No, not really. The movie’s action focuses on that (and I agree, they should have skipped the whole intro) but the theme, Superman’s character, comes exactly from the fact that he was raised by farmers, taught to restrain himself, taught to take care of the majority, to sacrifice himself, to be the bigger person, to be better, to be more.
The big moment isn’t when he meets Jor-El, it’s when he talks about his father’s death. When he finds out he’s an alien, he doesn’t ask if there are more like him, he asks, couldn’t I just go on pretending he your son? And his father tells him, you are my son! That’s what the movie was about. That’s the father that meant the most, the home that meant the most, and that he would protect it above anything else.
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