With wall-to-wall action that moves
faster than a locomotive, Man of Steel reinvigorates a wealth
of Superman mythos for a new generation, but is far from an
unqualified success. The pairing of producer Christopher Nolan and
director Zach Snyder is a bit of an anomaly given their very
different directorial styles, but if nothing else, Man of Steel
certainly gives you a lot bang for your buck.
The script, scribed by Nolan's Dark
Knight co-writer David Goyer, covers not only the already well
known origin story of an alien baby who escapes the destruction of
his home planet and is raised by a kindly Kansas couple, but also the
saga of the man of steel's quest for self-enlightenment and his
run-in with his Kryptonian enemy General Zod. That's an awful lot of
material to cram into one movie – enough perhaps for two movies,
one could argue.
In Clark Kent/Kal-El (Henry Cavill),
we see a tormented man of few words, forced to repress his anger as
he grows up the victim of bullying and trots the globe in search of
his extra-terrestrial roots. He tries to balance the lessons learned
from his two fathers Jor-El and Pa Kent (Russell Crowe and Kevin
Costner) whose presence his felt throughout the film via flashback or
special Kryptonian technology, and questions if he can ever gain the
trust of the people of Earth.
In his nemesis Zod (standout Michael
Shannon) we see a tragically misguided figure whose villainy is born
of honest intention warped by circumstance. Even Amy Adams'
strong-willed Lois Lane and some of the supporting players are given
arcs to add dimensionality, but unfortunately, a great deal of the
character substance on the page is lost in execution.
The problem is not in Goyer's somewhat
unorthodox structure, but in the pacing and that there's no time to
properly establish the characters, the world(s) they inhabit, or the
rules that govern them. Rather, we are dropped from the near outset
into a collapsing (though beautifully designed) Krypton, without the
opportunity to live with the characters or acclimatize to the science
of their world, but forced to accept it immediately.
On the one hand, it's somewhat fitting
for a film about faith and trust to invest so much of it in its
audience. On the other, it's a lot to ask of an audience to invest
emotionally in characters they've hardly gotten to know. The much
needed moments of calm and introspection throughout the film seem to
fly by much too fast to truly resonate. By the time we hit the
apocalyptic final hour, it's hard to really care about our
characters' fates. That final hour is a Catch-22 of its own. No one
can deny the sensationalism of the literally earth-shattering action,
but after a while, all that collateral damage and
Mortal-Kombat-airborne fighting becomes exhausting.
Perhaps this should come as no
surprise. Snyder has always been more successful as a craftsman than
a storyteller. Even if his favouring of hand-held camera doesn't do
any favours for the otherwise excellent effects, his orchestration of
the film's aural and visual elements is marvelously achieved.
Production designer Alex McDowell and costumers James Acheson and
Michael Wilkinson lend bleak yet beautiful texture to the Kryptonian
environs and trappings, for which a great deal of credit should also
be paid to Joe Letteri and his army of CGI artistes. The sound is
imposing throughout, exceptionally mixing Hans Zimmer's hair-raising
score and the explosive sound effects.
On the whole, as Super-sized summer
spectacle, there isn't much for which you can fault Man of Steel.
It delivers all the eye-popping thrills that you'd expect, but a more
careful execution of the screenplay's thematic texture and character
arcs could have made it great.
**1/2 out of ****
