REVIEW: ‘Man of Steel’ (12A)

To watch Man of Steel is to see a wrestling match take place between producer Christopher Nolan and director Zack Snyder.  It is, perhaps, a little too simplistic to attribute responsibility for different elements of the film to these two individuals (especially when writer David S. Goyer will also have had a good deal of input), but it’s hard not to make assumptions about which of them was responsible for certain creative decisions based on what we know about the two film-makers and their respective bodies of work.  Finding the right way to bring Superman back to the big screen was never going to be easy (as we discussed in a recent article), and while Man of Steel is far from the train wreck that many feared it would be, the film has a number of flaws which prevent it from being a great superhero movie in the vein of Iron Man or The Dark Knight.

Like Richard Donner’s Superman from 1978, the film’s lengthy prologue is set on Superman’s home-world of Krypton.  Jor-El (Russell Crowe) sends his newborn son to Earth to escape the planet’s destruction, just as he is murdered by Krypton’s rebellious military leader General Zod (Michael Shannon).  Fast-forward 33 years, and a mysterious loner (Henry Cavill) with immense superpowers is trekking around North America, leaving a series of urban legends in his wake.  Through flashbacks, we see how he was raised by Jonathan and Martha Kent (Kevin Costner and Diane Lane) who gave him the name Clark, and dissuaded him from revealing his powers to others.  Back in the present day, an incident in the arctic brings Clark into contact with intrepid reporter Lois Lane (Amy Adams) and a Kryptonian artifact buried in the ice, but just as the alien wanderer begins to understand who he is and the nature of his mission on Earth, his adopted planet is threatened by the arrival of the fascistic Zod and the remnants of Krypton’s army.  Forced to take a side in the ensuing stand-off, the newly-christened ‘Superman’ has to decide once and for all what he stands for.

So what does this Superman adaptation get right?  Thankfully quite a lot.  Like Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, the film takes an irreverent approach to its source material whilst still being rooted in comic book lore.  Man of Steel‘s emphasis on the legacy of Krypton and the inherent alien-ness of its protagonist makes for an origin story which is refreshingly unique in modern superhero cinema, especially when Clark is effectively forced to decide whether he is a Kryptonian or an Earthling in the face of Zod’s challenge.  Such character moments are where the film is at its strongest, particularly when it deals with Clark’s childhood and the terror and confusion he experiences as his powers begin to manifest.  The Superman of Man of Steel is wracked with uncertainty despite possessing almost god-like power, and another of the film’s strengths is the way in which it exhibits this power.  Rightly understanding that Superman is so powerful that the best way to treat him is essentially as myth rather than superhero (a fact recognised by Grant Morrison in his All-Star Superman comic), Snyder frames Clark’s battles with Zod as contests between warring gods of legend.  Humanity looks on as their fate is decided by beings who can shatter cities and crumble mountains, and it is largely because the film takes on this epic, mythic scale that it amounts to a satisfying portrayal of Superman’s story.

But Man of Steel falls short of its potential.  The action sequences, despite being visually arresting and technically impressive, extend to a fatiguing length.  The final half hour of the film becomes numbingly relentless, as building after building in downtown Metropolis is smashed to pieces, and the pacing throughout the rest of the film is also skewed towards set-pieces when more time could have been spent on character development (particularly with supporting characters like Laurence Fishburne’s Perry White and Richard Schiff’s Emil Hamilton – both of whom feel criminally underused).  It’s hard not to lay the blame for this at Snyder’s door, given the style-over-substance approach he’s demonstrated in the past with films like Suckerpunch and 300, but without a good look at Goyer’s script it’s had to be sure.  Flaws with a more ambiguous culprit include the film’s completely unsubtle messianic overtones, and to some extent the character of Superman himself.  It’s clear that Henry Cavill is trying to imbue the Man of Steel with the same benign loftiness that Christopher Reeve and Brandon Routh both managed to convey so well in their interpretations of the character, but sometimes he appears to falter.  However, this apparent inconsistency might – along with his apparent disregard for massive numbers of civilian casualties – be a deliberate attempt on the part of the film-makers to emphasise that the Superman we’re seeing here is one who is still coming to grips with his calling, and hasn’t yet become the hero of comic book legend.  If this is the case it’s been nicely done, and bodes well for the film’s inevitable sequel, which could possibly be released as early as next year.

Man of Steel, then, shows heavy traces of the stylish grit which is Zack Snyder’s calling card, but ultimately achieves redemption by embracing the more mythic aspects of the Superman story.  What characterisation there is also bolsters the film considerably, with compelling performances coming from Shannon, Costner and Crowe.  Cavill too shows that at the very least he has the potential to be a great Superman, and hopefully the film-makers can learn from the faults of this film in time for Man of Steel 2, which has already been fast-tracked by Warner Bros.  Nolan’s role will apparently be much-reduced on the sequel, and whether this means that style will finally overwhelm substance in Snyder’s second outing remains to be seen.  Hopefully this won’t be the case; they’ve built a promising foundation for a new Superman series, and brought the character back to the big screen in a thoroughly entertaining way.  It’ll be interesting to see where they take him next.