Review of Man of Steel (2013) by Victor T — 25 Mar 2016

Making a movie about an invisible and flawless character is an insanely demanding task, but after his successful Dark Knight Trilogy, Nolan pitched the idea of a Superman film, and thus was a born a new imagining of the world´s first and arguably biggest comicbook superhero, by the "visionary" Zack Snyder. The result was polarizing, but still it managed to become the first step of the DC Cinematic Universe. Where does this film fall into to? To the bad category or to the solid category?

After the destruction of Kripton, its last survivor, Kal-El, arrives to Earth, and soon realizes that on this planet he has the powers that can be compared to a deity.

Out of all the people you choose to make Superman film, you go with the literal translator and incoherent Zack Snyder? Well that's an interesting gamble that could pay off, but sadly it doesn't exactly pay off. "Man of Steel" counts with Snyder´s over the top and over exaggerated visual style that don't work with the story and ideas presented in this film, the cast mostly fails to make an impression with the exception of our hero and villain, as Michael Shannon´s take of Zod can compete against Terrence Stamp´s as it is as entertaining and memorable, and Henry Cavill works but physically and acting wise with this take of Supes; the amount of advertisement is insanely distracting, the acting sequences are overlong and overly exaggerated, Goyer´s script is as dull and incompetent as expected from him, a pacing that works to the detriment of the film as it throws all character development out of the window, and an overall sterile atmosphere that prevents you from feeling something at all. While the major criticisms of this film is the level of destruction (a subject that I couldn't care less as it is a standard of the genre and overall summer blockbusters in general), the heavy handed Christ allegories (something that Donner had already done), and its overall joyless vibe, I want to say what this film did right after already mentioning my criticism towards it. Hans Zimmer score is absolutely good (sure, it never reaches the highs of John Williams but still it is a daring try that succeeded), the controversial direction that Superman takes I find it daring and actually potentially good to future character development (if they had gotten a better director for the future sequels, may I just say), Henry Cavil is a perfect choice for Superman, and ultimately the greatest decision of this film, and finally you have to give some credit to Snyder as he managed to create a Superman film that finally doesn't depend of Richard Donner´s version, regardless if you liked it or not, he finally created a new vision of this hero after decades of attempts.

"Man of Steel" is a sterile beginning for this iconic hero but it has potential of becoming something greater. A Zack Snyder film that mostly works but still is filled with flaws.