Man of Steel (2013)

Superman Returns was a brave attempt to resurrect the original Superman series from the 1980s.  It ignored the third and fourth movie, thus making itself an official sequel to Superman II.  Problem is, where Bryan Singer was normally pretty good at superhero films, this particular movie was weighed down by an underwhelming plot.  Sequels were planned, but ultimately Warner Bros. decided to do a complete reboot.

This didn't necessarily mean ignoring the original films.  Instead, writer David Goyer and director Zack Snyder opted to take the first two movies and, instead of a campy comic book film, jam them together into a major science fiction epic.  Thus, we get the true beginning of the DC Cinematic Universe with Man of Steel.

Due to a shortsighted plan to gain resources Krypton's core is collapsing, and Jor-El (Russell Crowe) attempts to convince the council of what needs to be done.  In secret, he and his wife Lara (Ayelet Zurer) have had the first natural born child on Krypton in centuries, and he plans to use him to save what can be saved of his people.  At the same time General Zod (Michael Shannon) launches a coup against the Council and, when Jor-El steals the Codex that contains all of Krypton's genetic information, goes after him, but is too late to stop Lara from sending the child into space along with it.

Kal-El (Henry Cavill) is sent to Earth where he lands in Smallville, Kansas and is taken in by Martha (Diane Lane) and Jonathan Kent (Kevin Costner).  He is raised to keep his powers secret until the appropriate time comes.  When a ship is found buried in a 20-thousand-year-old ice sheet his attempts to retrieve it and the information within catch the eye of journalist Lois Lane (Amy Adams), who is on assignment to find out what is going on at the dig site.  Raised as Clark Kent, he soon finds out his true identity and purpose just as General Zod arrives to both retrieve Kal-El and begin turning Earth into a new Krypton.

What Goyer and Snyder did is take Superman and Superman II, combine them and make everything as serious as possible.  Where the originals were campy Man of Steel is deadly earnest, so much so that it comes across as a grim, humorless film.  This is enhanced by the amount of destruction that occurs as Superman battles Zod and his forces, laying waste to large swathes of Metropolis in doing so.  It is realistic for a fight between two beings that are pretty much invincible, but it also makes it seem as if this version of Superman, for all of his talk about saving humanity, can't quite grasp the concept that humans live and work in the places he's destroying. 

Cavill is decent in the role, but by draining the humor it seems much of the emotion was removed as well.  The budding romance with Lois Lane is awkward and forced, and Amy Adams doesn't do anything to make the character her own.  The two that do stand out are Russell Crowe, in a rather restrained performance as Jor-El, and Michael Shannon as Zod.  He's more a tragic figure locked into a destiny due to genetic coding rather than an arrogant psychopath like in Superman II, and Shannon plays him well, giving him some nuances that I wish the good guys had.

The best part of the film is the opening on Krypton, where some good CGI affects are used to create a more believable, open world than in the original series.  That isn't to say the rest, despite neither Superman nor Lois Lane being that interesting, isn't entertaining.  Snyder keeps the pace up, although the last third of the movie lays on the fighting a bit too much to the point where it becomes numbing.  There are some places where the CGI fails, one being Kent walking out of a fire on an oil rig and the other being a scene with a tornado which is supposed to be a major turning point in Kent's life but instead looks like a bad video game rendering. 

Of the official DC movies I have seen, Man of Steel and Wonder Woman remain the best of the bunch, although the director's version of Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice isn't too bad either.  This was a good beginning to a series of films that quickly began to stumble due to bad scripts and terrible studio decisions.  

Man of Steel (2013)

Time: 143 minutes

Starring: Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Diane Lane, Kevin Costner, Russell Crowe, Michael Shannon

Director: Zack Snyder