Superman is back in an unwieldy film that clocks in at a whopping 2 hours and 23 minutes
Superman is back, this time in yet another origin story, as has become the latest norm in Hollywood.
Directed by Zack Snyder, who unfortunately has the slightly ignominious reputation of having directed the brutal, needlessly violent 300 (2006), the interesting but lengthy and self important Watchmen (2009), and most recently the puzzlingly bad Sucker Punch (2011), the latest iteration Man of Steel is interesting enough to hold one’s attention, that is, right up to the last 20 minutes or so, when the action is needlessly protracted and the villain just won’t die.
The script, co-conceived by David S Goyer and Christopher Nolan (of the latest Batman trilogy) looked promising enough (after all, who doesn’t want to watch a film conceived out of the darkly convoluted mind of Nolan these days), and so, the film starts particularly well, on Krypton, Superman’s home planet.
We are treated with a spectacularly realised world where Superman’s father Jor-El (Russell Crowe) is trying to save what remains of their species by sending his new born son, Kal-El to Earth, with the Codex, a complete genetic history of their race. Krypton is dying and every one on it is doomed, even though Jor-El, the leading scientist there implores the leaders of the council to try and salvage what remains.
Enter the unfortunately named General Zod (Michael Shannon), a rabid warrior who attempts to stage a coup to save his beloved planet. He fails, but he kills Jor-El in the process and is imprisoned along with his team, just as Kal-El’s shuttle takes off and Krypton collapses into its own core.
On Earth, Kal-El is played by the British actor Henry Cavill, who has radically inflated his physique to try and embody the famed man of steel. Cavill is astonishingly good looking and a fair actor, but he clearly could have done with a slightly leaner and more athletic physique rather than the beefy armed, sloped shouldered action hero he has rigorously trained to be, apparently by consuming 5,000 calories and training two hours per day.
Regardless of this slight error in judgment Man of Steel carries itself along well, aided by the efforts of Amy Adams as the courageous Lois Lane, Kevin Costner and Diane Lane as Jonathan and Martha Kent, Kal/Clark Kent’s beloved human parents, and Laurence Fishburne as Perry White, the editor in chief of The Daily Planet, the newspaper that Lois works for.
The story on Earth begins with Kal/Clark as a wandering adult, drifting from city to sea, struggling with his strength and his ‘otherness’. His upbringing with Jonathan and Martha is shown to us in poetically shot flashbacks each time Kal has a conflict, whether emotional or physical. While this is an attempt to alter the conventional structure of past Superman films, and is mostly successful, it does result in further lengthening an already unwieldy film that clocks in at a whopping 2 hours and 23 minutes.
I will not elaborate on the plot; especially since it is fairly obvious from the very first scenes that General Zod is going to make a comeback. I will say though, that in this summer action blockbuster, it is not the action that is most interesting but rather the human relationships and Kal’s struggle with himself to become the adult that both his fathers dreamed he would become.
To my delight, Russell Crowe, in a slyly cool performance makes a posthumous comeback, which, while slightly preposterous, can be forgiven for its sheer enjoyability.
Watch Man of Steel with this in mind, once the plane hits the alien spaceship, you can leave, unless you really really want to see Superman kiss Lois Lane.
Man of steel directed by Zack Snyder
Read other reviews:
Iron Man 3
Quantum of Solace
The Dark Knight