Man of Steel (2013) **1/2

Running Length: 2:28

Rated: PG-13 (Violence, Sexual Dialogue)

Cast: Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Diane Lane, Russell Crowe, Antje Traue, Ayelet Zurer, Kevin Costner, Laurence Fishburne

Director: Zack Snyder

Screenplay: David S. Goyer, based on a story by David S. Goyer & Christopher Nolan

Sigh!

That one word pretty much describes my feelings coming out of Zack Snyder's reboot of the Superman franchise. It is hard for me to express beyond that just how underwhelming the experience was, especially considering my trepidation going into it.

Let me put things into perspective. While I was just one year old at the time Superman the movie came out in theaters I was old enough to remember, barely, seeing its sequel a few years later and loving it so much that I made my parents sit through a second screening of it back to back (you could do that in those days, how times have changed). I also got to watch both films over and over throughout my childhood and even have a copy of the first film on Blu-ray. I am not a slave to Christopher Reeve's interpretation of the Man of Steel but I do recognize that he captured the imaginations of children the world around and made me believe a man could fly. Brandon Routh did much the same thing in 2006's Superman Returns. That film was weak and full of problems but Routh wasn't one of them.

Henry Cavill is stone faced and an enigma most of this new film. His interpretation of Superman is hard to read because he shows no real depth. Most of the character development for him comes in the form of flashbacks, relegated to other actors playing him at various ages of his growing up years. Cavill himself is as cold and emotional as the steel he is compared to.

The story is pretty threadbare. There is the standard cacophonous opening sequence that depicts the destruction of Krypton. This includes a rather lengthy action sequence involving Jor-el (Russell Crowe) fighting off the army of General Zod (Michael Shannon), hopping on a giant winged creature and flying through firefights and massive destruction. This ultimately leads to Jor-el and his wife sending their son, the infant Superman, to earth. Zod is captured and sent to the phantom zone where he immediately escapes and tracks down Superman.

Flash forward thirty-two years later (that number should excite Christians who are once again bludgeoned with the Christ allegory presented in the Superman mythos) and Supes is a wandering loner randomly saving peoples lives and attracting the attention of a reporter for the Daily Planet, Lois Lane (Amy Adams). Zod shows up, threatens the earth if they don't turn Superman over to him, then plots to terreform  earth into a new Krypton killing everyone there already.

I know this is not the late seventies or early eighties, decades that fostered the image of Superman that Reeves played, but that doesn't mean Superman has to be portrayed as a brooding loner. It also doesn't mean that the characters around him need to be one dimensional and spouting crude dialogue laced with sexual comments and profanity. This may be the 21st century but Superman is still looked at as a family friendly superhero and Snyder has taken him away from that and added unnecessary potty humor to the mix. Christopher Nolan (Whose name is added to this film in a producer roll) made his Dark Knight trilogy aimed at an older audience and managed to not stoop to the potty humor and gratuitous profanity to bring his superhero into the modern era.  

Amy Adams is all wrong in the roll of Lois Lane. She has made a career of playing soft hearted love interests in mostly forgettable films. Her take on Lois is much the same and never conveys the hard edge needed for a top level journalist like her character is supposed to be. This isn't as bad as Denise Richards's Nuclear Physicist in The World is Not Enough but it is almost as ineffective. She is in way over her head here, relegated to playing follow the leader rather than striking out on her own and amounting to more than just a love interest who is along for the ride. She has screen presence but it is wasted on a roll that does her no favors and suffers from poor direction.

Michael Shannon is equally ineffective as General Zod, spouting about how he was genetically created to do what he does, eliminating choice from his character. Watching him I kept thinking that I would have much preferred the filmmakers bring Terrence Stamp back. Terrence can act circles around Shannon and would have brought a nuance to the character that Shannon fails at. Shannon has one expression, hatred. I have seen him in a few other films and this seems to be his default look for every roll. He is the worst character of the bunch, including an equally wooden Lawrence Fishburn.

There are tremendous visuals in this film. The problem is that they accompany uninteresting scenes. The action is so frenetic and destructive that in short order my mind was numb from the experience and I just sat there getting a little bored and saying to myself that it looked pretty but I'm checked out of it all. I had much the same experience in a previous Snyder film Sucker Punch. Cool visuals but somewhat lackluster nevertheless.

It is truely a missed opportunity to take the legend of Superman to a new place and make him more complex as well as up to speed with modern sensibilities. The Reeve Superman films are not perfect, especially the abysmal 3rd and 4th ones, but they are still regularly revisited with nostalgia and excitement. Man of Steel will probably make money and spawn a sequel but twenty-five years down the road it won't hold up the way the Reeve's ones do. That's because they had heart and real excitement, not just a bunch of cut-out characters and CGI.