Movie of the Week (4/27/14-5/3/14): Many of you might remember this highly anticipated film from last year, several of my friends liked it a lot... but I didn't. And let me try and tell you all why Man of Steel was the most disappointing film of 2013. Like everybody else, I went into this movie expecting to be swept off of my feet with the best Superman movie ever made. I had such high hopes for this movie that I can't even explain it. I had probably the highest expectations for a movie in years. And I expected to give this movie very high praise and a 4 Star review, but in the end I was a little let down by Zack Snyder, again. Now, I don't mean that this was a total bust because it wasn't, I still some aspects of the movie, but not near as much as I thought I would, and there were several things that let me down.
We all pretty much know the story of Superman and his origin, and that is what this film was about, just a re-imagining of it, so I'm not going to go into details on the plot. First, I'm going to tell you what hurt the movie. So, first was the pacing, the movie is told in flashbacks several times, but you're never confused because you can tell which scenes were flashbacks. What hurt the film with the flashbacks was that many of them didn't seem to fit in place during the film when we go back in time, they hurt the pacing. A couple times in the first 45 minutes to an hour I found myself a little bored, hoping it would start to pick up. The flashbacks hurt the film the most and a I think it would have been better if it was told chronologically with maybe a couple flashbacks.
The next things are how we find out something and how they used Lois Lane, played by Amy Adams. Again, this is an origin story and those can be hard to tell, but some thing's we find out in the first half of the movie didn't seem to make much sense. I found myself asking "how did he get there to find that particular object?" The film was jumpy at times when it came to those aspects. Next, is Lois Lane, I didn't think she was used very well because she just shows up in a helicopter at a location, that I'm not going to tell you, and meets Clark there and then something bad happens. After that she goes on a search to find out more about this man she met, which is just a couple minutes of short cut scenes, not much explanation. Oh, and apparently Lois Lane can walk on the ledge of an icy cliff with no climbing gear or ropes. And Amy Adams overall didn't seem like a very good Lois Lane, and I like Amy Adams, but I never felt she embraced the role as good as she could have.
However, that being said there were still things that I did enjoy about the film. The first was the acting of Kevin Costner, Diane Lane, Russell Crowe, and Michael Shannon. All of these actors really did a fantastic job, they probably saved the film from being terrible. Kevin Costner and Diane Lane both give us heartwarming performances as Jonathan Kent and Martha Kent respectively, one scene in particular that I did like involved Jonathan saving people from an oncoming tornado, which was very good. Russell Crowe gives us another very good performance as Superman's father, Jor-El, we see him several times throughout the film alive and after the fact. Now he's no Marlon Brando, but I really did enjoy his take as Jor-El. Finally we have Michael Shannon as General Zod, who really stole the screen, I thought he was the best in the film and the best actor the play Zod. A great and frightening performance from Michael Shannon.
The other thing that helped this film out were the Visual Effects and the fight scenes, which all take place in the last 45 minutes or so, except the opening scene. This is a beautiful film when it comes to the Visual Effects, of course that is what Zack Snyder is known for in his other movies, 300 and Watchmen, although the latter was not a good movie. The first scene takes place on Krypton, which is a new take on it and it is Visually brilliant. Once Zod attacks Earth the effects really come into play and take over the movie, but I believe for the good. Obviously the effects help with the fight scenes, which are also fun and exciting at times, maybe a little much in some parts because one keeps going and going, just tearing up building after building with a lot of camera movement. But overall, good effects and fight scenes.
In the end this was not quite the Superman movie we wanted to see and I believe with better editing it might have been better, the pacing was the big thing that hurt the film and the character development with Amy Adam's Lois Lane, and Superman. I really wanted this film to join the 4 Star ranks of superhero movies such as the 1978 movie Superman: The Movie, Spiderman 2, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises, if you consider Batman a "Superhero", The Avengers, and the latest superhero movie Captain America: The Winter Soldier, but it failed to do that. I know it was a new origin story and those are hard to tell sometimes, but this really could have been a lot better with a better script, and director. With Snyder coming back for Batman vs. Superman and the newly announced Justice League movie, I'm afraid we will have the same problem with those.
When I first posted a review of this film last year I gave it three stars, but once I watched it again I realized how much I disliked it. With it's bad writing and storytelling over shadowing everything else, like the great acting from much of the cast, good visuals, and fight scenes this film is a complete letdown. Plus, Zack Snyder's style of directing is just not good for this kind of movie, his one good movie, 300, made him a star and unless he blows me away with his next film, he will continue to disappoint. I almost hate to to say this, but Superman Returns is a much better film than this one. And let's face it, I missed the original Superman theme by John Williams, although Hans Zimmer's was good, just not as good and we needed that uplifting score several times in this movie.
2/4 Stars.
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