Man Of Steel (2013)

Superman is back for a new generation. After the last movie, Superman Returns, was decided to be too mediocre to be taken seriously, a reboot was conceived. A story is told of the origin of the hero himself: how he was born on Krypton and sent to earth as his new home. Man of Steel was released a year after Christopher Nolan's triumphant close to his Dark Knight trilogy, and it was anticipated that so many comic book fans were eager to watch another DC movie based on one of the most iconic heroes of all time, brought to life in the decade of CGI and rebirths.
This movie is roughly 2 hrs 23 min long, just like the Dark Knight movies before it. So it must be a challenge getting through this flick.

I am just going to be blunt that this movie does well in establishing the origin of a hero and the crisis that swept Krypton away, but I am going to be very derisory about how the story beyond that is not well told and structured as it was in the comics or the critically acclaimed Superman: The Animated Series of the 1990s. Instead, it is a series of flashbacks and messages that continually contradict one another. There is so much Jesus symbolism throughout this movie, yet at the most critical point of time that symbolism is quickly reversed.

Can anyone tell me if they have never watched The Matrix and its sequels of 2003? Because this movie bears a large amount of similarities to them. In this particular scene it is revealed that Krypton now "grows" babies instead of bearing them. Doesn't that sound strongly reminiscent of The Matrix (1999) where Morpheus recounts the truth about the enslavement of the human race like crops and dry cells? I have the movie and watched countless times and can not deny that this is a duplicate. Speaking of which, Lawrence Fishburne and Harry Lennix both featured in The Matrix sequels, both of which built up Neo (Keanu Reeves) into a messiah and the Superman in the Matrix itself--and it is ten years after the sequels this movie was released! What a shocking coincidence!

Again I discuss on that topic on growing babies. It became a somewhat approved policy to artificially control the population of Kryptonians (I wish this could be implemented in China and India). Jor-El (Russell Crowe) witnesses the first natural birth in centuries (so that was why he and his wife were not in a hospital where they could have safely delivered a child with all the advancement in civilization compared to the earth's). For centuries the population of Krypton was monitored and genetically selected to breed the best out of their offspring. Destinies were being manipulated for the will of the elite.

General Zod (Michael Shannon) must have the creepiest bug-eyes on screen since Ravenna from Snow White and The Huntsman (2012), even without the CGI. In fact this is the case in more than one scene throughout this movie. And I have been made aware of his incoherent barking of his orders, as though he was munching or something (or trying to prevent drooling while barking at the same time).

You would ask yourself who conceived this ridiculous costume for this movie. Seniors of the high council could not think anyone could possibly take them seriously if seen wearing this. I wonder how the actors reflected on this having watched themselves on screen. It must have been painful and a burden to have borne such weight on their shoulders, literally.

This scene caused some considerable uproar for these phallic capsules in which Zod and his army were ejected from Krypton. But seriously, they were really pointless because once Kryton imploded the insurrection rebels were released though still in the Phantom Zone. Was teleporting them too much of a deal?

So as I have already indicated we do not watch the start of Clark Kent's life from child through adulthood in an order that keeps us encapsulated. Instead it is out of order and so incoherent that you would be left beleaguered and confused. As shown right after the capsule flies through space, we spontaneously jump to a scene where Clark (Henry Caville) is suddenly an adult. We do not see him as well presented in the aforementioned animated series, starting from a child with unusual powers, through adolescence to adulthood. Nobody can understand the main character in a movie whose scenes are in poor sequences of events. It is as if somebody blew the storyboard pages which were not numbered and stacked them up without actually revising the products.

You will notice that for the first half hour the disasters that erupt never take a break. One thing after another and it is fueled with adrenaline just to keep the audience occupied. But that's not all: from the beginning to the end there are unsteady camera views and zoom-ins that occur when least expected. For a movie with a multi-million-dollar budget, I expected proper harnessing of photography and filmography.

One other cliche for which most comic movies are hyped is the death of a parental figure (in this case, a father). Before his death he is revered for having a positive impact on his child's path. Movies known for this are Batman (1989) and Batman Begins (2005), Daredevil (2003), The Green Lantern (2011), The Green Hornet (2011), Spider-Man (2004) and Kick-Ass (2010), to mention but a few. However, Clark's adoptive father has to be the least influential on him for his somewhat self-contradictory pep talks over his powers and the world. No one would feel sorry for John Kent's demise since it was wholly avoidable but allowed anyway. It must suck to lose a father in a situation that they saw coming. 

Anyone who has watched the X-Men movies will surely be familiar with the trials and tribulation of the heroes who have trouble fitting into society. Clark Kent is regarded as an act of God yet is treated like a victim of bullying until he saves someone's life. And just like movies involving this similar type of scenario, the quote very common to such movies, "People fear what they do not understand", is prevalent (at least it was never mentioned in The Matrix).

A major coincidence: Clark is working in a bar and happens to be eavesdropping on a conversation concerning the strange and unusual. And after that he intervenes in a sexist altercation and breaks it up. He gives a comeuppance to the sexist driver by dismembering his truck. One thing must be obvious that such dismemberment at an astronomical magnitude would attract everybody's attention. Heck, even the scene in Dexter's Laboratory was more logical: destroy someone's car and noise level is more than high enough to arouse the crowd. What a way for Clark to get back at somebody by not physically retaliating at them but by destroying their company's property. That way nobody would be convinced that Clark was in any way responsible for the destruction, even though he did not flinch when rammed into or hurled an empty can at. Yet the driver himself did not recoil in horror after seeing the dismembered truck.

I want to be frank that the only reason the Superman franchise was rebooted was because there was very little excitement in Superman Returns (2006). Throughout this movie is an orgy of rampage of destruction as a result of an alien "invasion", as was the case in Michael Bay's Transformers movies. The battles on Earth resulted in mass destruction of a major American city; loss of lives and property; and large questions over the reason for Superman's existence in our world. In the Justice League series Superman was presented as an ambassador of Earth, as a savior to the Earth at a time of crises. But in this movie that is the complete opposite because he fights his own people and endangers the lives of those he adopted as his own. No one ever could even fail to notice the amounts of product placements that were imperiled in fight scenes and orgies of destruction.

Whether you love the early franchise for Superman's symbol as a lifesaver, or love this movie for exploring more deeply into the trials and tribulations of a hero, I would give this movie a pass. The characters are forgettable, the noise level is explosively deafening, the computer effects are jaw-dropping, the acting is one way over-the-top and another way underwhelming, the story is haywire and the subplots are too widespread. A reboot that leaves the fans gobsmacked is not worth remembering but is to a newer generation of Superman fans.