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Man Of Steel

Man Of Steel

By Ben Nicholson • June 20th, 2013
Static Mass Rating: 3/5
MAN OF STEEL (MOVIE)
Warner Bros

Original release: June 14th, 2013
Running time: 143 minutes

Director: Zack Snyder
Writers: David Goyer, Christopher Nolan
Composer: Hans Zimmer

Cast: Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon

Man Of Steel

Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, a couple of shy teenagers, had no idea of what they were on to when they envisaged a bald telepathic maniac named The Superman in 1933. Five years later, the character had received a complete overhaul and appeared in 1938’s Action Comics #1 as the orphan from another world capable of incredible feats and complete with a billowing red cape and a large ‘S’ emblazoned on his chest.

Over the interceding three quarters of a century, his story has evolved and he’s become one of the most iconic characters in western civilisation, and certainly its most recognisable comic book hero. My earliest memory of Superman is from a tattered and much-loved copy of the first issue of John Byrne’s Man Of Steel (published in 1986) which portrayed the character’s origin after DC Comics had given him a reboot, laying down the foundations for years to come.

As I grew older, I found Superman to be a bit too boring. He was invulnerable, he had powers that are almost impossible to counter, and his goodie-two-shoes personality lacked edge. I could completely understand why people preferred the brooding and dangerous Batman or my childhood favourite, the wise-cracking teen, Spiderman. So it should be a welcome change to hear that David Goyer, Chris Nolan and Zack Snyder were going to revamp and modernise the Last Son of Krypton for their cinematic reinvention, Man Of Steel, shouldn’t it?

Events open on Krypton, in a lengthy sequence introducing the infant Kal-El along with his father, Jor-El (Russel Crowe) and the revolutionist military commander Zod (Michael Shannon). It allows us to see more of Krypton than we have before, however, it’s a fairly long sequence, telling what I knew already. My favourite Superman story took eight words on one page (“Doomed Planet. Desperate Scientists. Last Hope. Kindly Couple”) to convey Superman’s flight from Krypton with brevity and poignancy; Man Of Steel takes about half an hour.

Man Of Steel

This is especially vexing as all this time is devoted to exposition with no chance for characterisation of our hero, obviously. But that lack of character for its central figure is one of the film’s major flaws throughout.

The story then leaps forward in a single bound to an adult Clark (Henry Cavill). Jonathan (Kevin Costner) and Martha Kent (Diane Lane) are present, but largely through brief flashbacks to Clark’s upbringing. They provide some of the film’s warmest moments, but they’re few and far between. I felt Man Of Steel was crying out for more time spent with the Kents – flashback or not – but this isn’t what the filmmakers are interested in. So Clark learns who he really is, meets his real father through holographic projections and dons the modified, but still recognisable suit.

The action is absolutely epic, and there are certain sequences that work fantastically, but in removing the big blue Boy Scout from the big blue Boy Scout we’re left with an empty hero. This isn’t Cavill’s fault – I think he has a good Kal-El in him – but that of the script. It seems after Nolan’s successfully Batman trilogy, the same logic was applied to Superman, but that just doesn’t work.

Man Of Steel may be a new take on a character people thought was no longer relevant but there’s very little substance behind that ‘S’. At a soaring one-hundred-and-forty-three minutes, it’s a technical marvel with some visually impressive sequences that I really liked, and some minor touches that I loved. Yet in refitting this most selfless of superheroes for the modern world, they seemed to have removed his heart.

Man Of Steel

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Ben Nicholson

Ben Nicholson

Ben has had a keen love of moving images since his childhood but after leaving school he fell truly in love with films. His passion manifests itself in his consumption of movies (watching films from all around the globe and from any period of the medium’s history with equal gusto), the enjoyment he derives from reading, talking and writing about cinema and being behind the camera himself having completed his first co-directed short film in mid-2011.

His favourite films include things as diverse as The Third Man, In The Mood For Love, Badlands, 3 Iron, Casablanca, Ran and Grizzly Man to name but a few.

Ben has his own film site, ACHILLES AND THE TORTOISE, and you can follow him on Twitter @BRNicholson.

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