There have been a lot of reviews lately criticizing Man of Steel’s lack of the light-heartedness and fun that has graced much of the Superman franchise, but let me just the record straight. Man of Steel shouldn’t be criticized because of these faults, it should be criticized because it’s just a damn horrible movie. A long, two hour snoozefest filled with dialogue that was terrified of itself, meaningless flashbacks and over-exaggerated action sequences that I can only gather were as ludicrous as they were because the film felt it needed to make up for the first 90 minutes of nothing that we were forced to endure.
In DC Comics’s never-ending attempt to one-up Marvel, Man of Steel takes a slightly unique but dreadfully dramatic approach, as Clark Kent finds himself in a constant battle between whether or not he should reveal his abilities. This leads to many instances where he says “screw it” and does so anyway (thankfully, amidst small towns that haven’t invented cameras or journalism), forcing him to ride off into the loving arms of another location with a job opening requiring that he wear tight shirts. On occasion, he travels back home so he can get called an idiot by his emotionless father and get a hug from his mother that was clearly told to just stay out of the conversation. There were a few moments that got a smirk or a laugh, but even sitting in the theatre, these felt like over-reactions to a bad joke from people desperately seeking a tone that wasn’t sappy and whiny.
Ultimately, he’s a character that fails to connect with anybody, including the audience. We like him because he’s Superman and know this as we drudge on from scene to scene. However, Man of Steel’s hero is a boring, depressing character. His dialogue is stale and unimaginative and sounds like it came straight out of the comic books this adaptation is trying to ignore. His chemistry with those around him, including Lois Lane, feels unnatural and forced and his revelations about his past come with the same sense of awe that a child gets when they visit the zoo for the first time. It was the same problem that I had with Green Lantern and John Carter, where an entire, amazing new world is opened up to the character, but they just glaze over it and move on, un-phased, because there’s more to be seen.
As a film, Man of Steel spends its entire runtime desperately searching for its movie trailer. The same thing that made Armageddon such a crap film is done worse here, where every 30 seconds looks like it could have been part of the advertising campaign. The same dull questions asked over and over, plot points spelled out in crayon repeatedly behind a new lens flare backdrop and once the action finally set in, it looked like a live action re-creation of the video game Rampage, with Superman and Zod trying to rack up points by creating big explosions and knocking over buildings as if they could just hit the reset button when it was all over. It was cool for about 20 seconds then it just got laughable; DC apparently wants to make it absolutely clear that in the battle of Superman vs. Wall, Superman wins every time.
The latest string of superhero reboots has aimed to be more respectful to the potential reality they would create, and we’ve gotten amazing films like X-Men: First Class and The Amazing Spiderman. What made these movies so great is that they stayed aware to the fact that this was fiction and it could tease the audience and play with the improbability that this would ACTUALLY happen. We got characters that felt real, that were enjoyable to watch and it was fun to watch even the smaller roles respond to this intriguing new thing unfolding before their eyes. Man of Steel takes that too far and pleads the case “if the world actually had a superhero, it would be the most socially awkward thing in history,” and for that, it just became terrified to embrace the world it was creating.
This was a chore, an endurance test and I squirmed around and literally banged my head on the chair at some moments because I was so frustrated. You’ll notice I didn’t talk a lot about the plot because it just didn’t matter. It felt like an after-thought and made absolutely no sense.
I urge you to save yourself the trouble; what you saw in the trailers is pretty much the entire movie.
3/10
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