Well we've been waiting a long time for it, and I"ve been going through the other 5 films to tell you what I thought about them, it's time for my 475th review: Man of Steel!
Plot: Shortly before Krypton is destroyed, General Zod threatens the council to his rule only to be eventually captured and taken to the Phantom Zone. But during this, Jor-El takes his infant son Kal-El on a ship to Earth so he can survive. Once on earth, Kal-El is found and adopted by Johnathan and Martha Kent naming him Clark who over the years struggles with his super powers. Eventually, he finds an old Kryptonian ship where he finds out who he really is and what he's suppose to. But as this happens, General Zod comes to Earth free from the Phantom Zone and is looking for Kal-El.
Now the way people have started to view this movie has become divided. Critics especially are torn between liking or disliking it to the point where Rotten Tomatoes has given it a 57%, while the general audience seems to have come to more or less love it. For the most part, I side with the general audience to the point where while it's hardly great, I consider this the best Superman film for me personally. However while I won't call it bad per say, the critics do make some very good reasons as to why this movie is considered bad for a lot of people. But let's talk about what's good about it first. First off, the design is great. Krypton was not a small crystal planet (yeah I know everyone says ice but it's obviously crystal to me), it was a completely different planet with it's own technology, culture and so on. I've heard one argument that it's a bad thing what they did comparing to the comics, but since I'm not as devoted to them, I'll stick with what I liked. But the bigger and more obvious example with the design in this film is how they upgraded Superman's costume. I've said this many times before and I'll say it again: that needed to happen. Because while I understand how much the original costumed worked for so long with the belt and underwear thing balancing out the colors and things like that, it needed the change. I mean if Iron Man and Superman ever met, Iron Man would just look at him and go "Does your mother know that you're in your pajamas, wearing her drapes, your sisters' boots and your gay dad's underwear inside out?" And now we have gotten rid of the belt and underwear and have made the colors darker, it helps us take Superman a little more seriously. Secondly, the development in the story, and ...some aspects of the characters and the all around world was Superman was done well. Roughly similar to what Nolan did in the Dark Knight trilogy, Snyder kind of went a little deeper into the story and how the world of Superman works and gave us some different takes on the characters. The first 15-20 minutes and some other various parts of the film especially gave us so much more about what Krypton is and what the Kryptonians more or less do as a species. It may not be how it's suppose to be, but I found myself really enjoying Krypton as a culture. We also go a little more into what Clark and his parents have really gone through with his powers and what they are meant for. Granted, a lot of it is easily found to be rushed - especially watching the movie a second time, but they still showed more of Clark and his parents trying to hide his power when he was growing up. Even General Zod while probably could've been well played by anybody was given more of a background as to why he is the way he is instead of just being evil like he was in the first two Superman movies. The third thing that's good about it...albeit not entirely, is the characters themselves. Along with what I already said about Zod, Henry Cavill was not a bad Superman. Even if he didn't have the charm that makes Christopher Reeve's Superman so loveable or always knew how to use his powers, his performance held out well enough convincing us the he is Superman. Amy Adams as Lois Lane I was skeptical at first- particularly that she's red hair and not black like Lois is suppose to be, but she turned out to be a great version of Lois. Granted, I can agree that she was sort of bland, but I felt that she was still smart and willing to hold her own to the best of her ability despite needing to be rescued quite a few times, and of coarse always wanting to give out a story the people should know. Heck, we see her fight Kryptonians halfway through the movie, how often do you see Lois Lane do that? And the relationship between her and Superman - while I can't say played out in a lot of detail about the chemistry between them - is very unique from other adaptions of the couple that left me very interested to know how it will carry on in the sequel. Okay so what big things about the film that other people not like about it, and what do I disagree or admit about? Well for one thing, the action was considered to be overdone - some have even gone so far as saying that there was more action then anything else in particular in this movie. Now on a whole I really enjoyed the action. The fact that it had some certain aspects such as the destruction of buildings while superman fights some super strong villain(s), helped make Superman appear how he normally is today in either the tv shows or in the comics in my point of view. But even if I wouldn't go so far as saying that there was action more then anything else, they did tend to make some action scenes go too long to the point where after a while we seem to get a little too much of the general idea of what is happening. Finally, there's people who consider Man of Steel to not really be a Superman movie at all: that it really is just some sci-fi movie or that it's too dark and tense and we don't have a shred of joy or humor. And for the most part they're right. Man of Steel had more futuristic or advanced technology and all that stuff thanks to how much we see of Krypton and General Zod and his followers. And there wasn't a lot of other things Superman normally does like fight crime, or even be called Superman to begin with. Now I won't pretend that I read a lot of the Superman comics or that he's even one of my all time favorite superheroes. But I know and respect the comics and the all around world of Superman enough to know that the fact is that Superman as a franchise is made to be very light and family friendly. There's even one or two big moments is the film that I personally found to be too intense and dark to really work in a Superman movie. But at the same time without getting into a really deep discussion about it, it works because Superman kind of needed to start acting more serious. When I say that, I especially refer to how I personally found some of the way the other Superman films to be a little too light or humorous in some area or another as I've discussed in my reviews for those films. They worked back then, but around this modern time it's a little better to make him more serious as we got much further in development of the characters and the story.
And that's my review for Man of Steel. It's not quite for everyone considering some of the action and how it differs from anything else Superman, and it could've had more work with things like the characters or how similar it is to the comics in some way or another. But it's otherwise an enjoyable film that did have good action, design, okay character development for some of what it had, that altogether makes it my personal favorite of the Superman film. Is it a very strong start for DC and Warner Bros. when it comes to building up to a Justice League movie as a response to The Avengers? Not entirely. But I'm sure those who are loyal to the DC universe can hope that it can get better from here eventually.
Here's the video version of this review: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7wQRicsOgI
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