Man of Meh

Hello internetters, I come to you with probably the billionth review of this movie that you have seen on the internet of late. I'm sorry, I just have to be heard on this, everyone has an opinion but mine is right (Kidding. Maybe.) so this is the "Man of Steel". Just a warning, there will be spoilers and they will not always be labeled as such so I'll just put a big 'ol SPOILERS thingy here. Turn back, ye of unspoiled minds. You have no place here.

Fun Fact: When I told my sister I was going to see this, she was like "But wait, didn't you already see Iron Man 3?"
I worry about her.

Ugh, where to begin. First off, I'd like to state that I did not hate "Man of Steel" as a film. I didn't particularly like the story they chose to tell but I did like some of how they did it. I also just didn't think it did itself justice, it could have been really good for the budget and team they had. I think that's a lot of the reason people are so up in arms about it, because they expected soo much more.

So, plot. There, um, is one, mostly. The film starts on Krypton, Superman's home planet (or birth planet, I suppose) where we are introduced to his parents Jor-El (played by Russell Crowe) and "woman-who-we-don't-see-for-the-rest-of-the-movie-and-really-holds-very-little-importance"-El. I wasn't bothered to Google her name. They have decided to part-take in the first natural birth on Krypton in over a thousand years (Wahey ;) Seriously, did some Kryptonian chancellor or something just decide "Y'know what I reeeally don't want to have to do anymore? Have sex. Let's not do that anymore." And people just went along with it? Minor thing, I will get on with the plot.) So, yeah, the Els did it and now they have little bouncing baby Kal-El. But it turns out that Krypton is imploding because they harvested too much of the planet's core and it's become unstable, so Jor-El has decided to send his son off in a rocket to an inhabitable planet called Earth (that, for some reason, only he knows about, even though the Kryptonians have been looking for other planets to inhabit now that theirs is imploding. Nice guy.) He also steals the Kryptonian codex McGuffin thingie that has all the genetic code of every Kryptonian who is yet to be born in it (cos, y'know, they gave up sex.). Meanwhile, General Zod (Michael Shannon) and his silly suited super- friends are rebelling against the council of Krypton because... the planet's imploding #YOLO? There's this double plot thing going on where Zod wants to stop Jor-El for breaking the sex rules but is also breaking rules himself by staging a freaking coup. Kal-El goes off in his rocket thing, there's this pointless but awesome bit with Jol-El riding a lion/dragonfly hybrid to somewhere and the (mini) coup-ers (teehee, puns) are arrested and sent to the "Phantom Zone" for their crimes. Oh, and SPOILER, somewhere in there Zod kills our buddy Jor.

One of the best things in this movie. I want one oh so badly.
Sorry you can't see it that well, it's hard to find good pictures when you don't know technical names.

This bit takes up around the first 20-30 minutes of screen time. It's the first impression so it's really important. Here's what I did like. I loved the design of Krypton. Just a little sidenote, I'm probably going to be making a lot of Dr. Who comparisons in this post, so non-Whovians, bear with me please. I have to say, the Kryptonian landscape, while being incredibly beautiful, well done designers there (you will be getting shit later, sorry) is very reminiscent of Gallifrey in Dr. Who, when we see it in flashbacks and the like (minus the two suns and the domey thing over the buildings). The lighting and colours were very similar and I suppose they are quite similar in concept- they are the place where our protagonist can never return to, that unreachable Utopia (even if it wasn't actually perfect. Nostalgia goggles, I guess). I also loved the dragonfly thing but I was also acutely aware of the fact that Krypton was going to be destroyed because that is Superman's story, he has no home planet. I liked the swirly, almost celtic in design, style of the writing (I suppose) which had that whole ancient-but-also-advanced thing going on (ahem, Gallifreyan, ahem ahem), I liked that. I'll admit, I was a little iffy when Jor-El puts a key with the freaking Superman symbol on it in the ship to start it! I was like, "Dude, it's an S, that's meant to come AFTER he's Superman!" This does come back though, and, while I still think it's a little obnoxious to throw that in there, it annoyed me less once explained. Speaking of obnoxious, there is, as I'm sure most people who have been anywhere on the internet (or anywhere else for that matter) know, the issue of SHAKY-CAM. The "Hunger Games" had it, people thought it was mildly irritating but it made sense. The same with things like "Saving Private Ryan" and anything by Rolland Emmerich (he did "2012" and "Independence Day", you get the gist), annoying but made sense. But this? The camera shakes the entire freaking time! The first time I saw it make half a lick of sense was in the flying scene with awesome dragonfly beast, where Jor is swooping and swerving around buildings and rocks and stuff, but even then, it is so over done. I couldn't focus on the awesome cinematography or the landscape that was on screen because the camera effects would not let me. Film-makers, the human eye cannot move that fast. It gets to a point where all is a blur and you're watching smudged colours instead of the film you guys worked so hard on. The other scenes, no need for the shaky cam. As several internet reviewers have said in the past, about this and other movies, "Tripods are your friend. Invest!". To credit my main influences regarding this particular point: http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/ (Look up the Nostalgia Critic and Nostalgia Chicks' stuff, they taught me much about the art of criticising things. And it probably shows. A lot.)

One of them pinart doohickies.
 I love these, they amuse me endlessly.
Because I am a child. Effectively.

That was really the main issue that I had with this part of the film. There was also this really cool computer thing with little metal balls it uses to create images, I loved that, I hadn't seen anything like that before (though I have a feeling the filmmakers may have drawn inspiration from those pinart things). Zod's motivation seemed stupid but as the film progresses you realise that that is nowhere near the stupidest decision made, not by a long way. Jor-El's death didn't affect me that much because you really don't find out much about him as a character in this stretch of film (other than the fact he cares about his bloodline being passed on and that he stands up to Zod. Oh and that he has the best pet in the history of ever!) and then it's like, "Oops, he's dead." And then (SPOILERS) it turns out that he might as well not be dead cos he's in a good portion of the rest of the movie. The flying dragonfly-lion, as I have said, was epicness incarnate, I hate this film for not being more about these. Goddammit movie, why did you make me fall in love with this then rip it away? WHY?!! Ahem, other than that, the sets were kinda bland, generic alien spaceship style things. The cortumes were alright but again, most of the appeal there was the stylised Gallif- I mean Kryptonian script. Most of the time, Zod looked like one of those action figures with detachable head and limbs and huuuuuge shoulder muscles (and skipped leg day).

Superbeards, impervious to flames
but not razors, apparently.

One of the other best things in this movie

After this bit, we see baby Kal's ship hurtling into Earth's atmosphere and we cut to a fishing boat. First thoughts, the fishing boat is going to get hit by/ witness the landing of the ship. This does not happen. You see this fisherman dude yell at the greenhorn/ landlubber/ noob who did something wrong. The camera briefly shows his face, mostly shadowed by a hat and I'm like, "Wait, is that the guy from the trailer? The guy playing Superman? But that can't be him, he's in that spaceship, and, you know, A BABY! Surely they aren't jumping straight into him grown up?" Silly me, I expected logic. Superman (we think) then proceeds to rescue some people from a burning oil rig (How did that happen? No idea.), demonstrating his incredible strength and bravery. This scene really has very little relevance to the plot except to show that a) This guy is Superman and b) The writers of this didn't know what continuity was. Somehow, though, I didn't mind so much about this scene. It had some worth, it set up the character's powers, showed the lengths to which superman will go to help people, even ones he doesn't know and it, um, shows that superbeards are flameproof? Who knew? Did I mention that he inexplicably loses his shirt somewhere along the way? Mmm, dripping wet, shirtless, bearded Henry Cavill, pushing iron structures off people and stuff. This movie may have many, many flaws but I for one have no complaints here. So Superman (who's name we don't actually know yet, just for the record) steals some clothes (such a hero) and goes off broodingly to, um, do something. I think it's about here where we have our first flashback to Clark Kent's childhood. We see him in a classroom, a teacher writing on a chalkboard and she asks Clark a question. Can I just reiterate, we have never heard this name before. We have no idea of it's significance in the movie at all, except maybe for the fact that the zoned out kid the camera focuses on looks vaguely like the bearded dude from the last scene. This movie makes far too many assumptions of the audience regarding the superman story. It'd be ok if it was a parody of something, that people go to because they know about the subject and want to laugh at in jokes, but as a stand alone film (and one that is not actually called "Superman" at that) you can't assume that sort of thing. That's just presumptuous.

Ok, so Clark is in this classroom and he's looking kinda spaced, honestly. The camera then goes into what he's seeing and the whole room is x-rayified. Now this is actually really cool. This kid is terrified as he can see his teacher's heart beating in her ribcage. Such a great shot, and a great idea. I like the idea that x-ray vision, one of the less well known and frankly, the least useful of Superman's powers could be a sort of curse for young Clark growing up. It isn't explained why this seems so new to him but the idea was so original that I'll let that slide. Yeah, in other renditions of the superman story you have him kind of suffer because he's stronger than other people and he has to be careful and all that, but seeing this little boy near petrified with fear at what he can see if the first instance that I can think of where his powers seem like a genuine weakness, something that could traumatise him. That's kinda making him human, relateable. That was a nice scene (again, when he uses his heat vision, why is that not freaky to him? Why does that seem to manifest controllably and not the x-ray vision? Minor problems.) That's one thing I liked about this and they generally begin to reduce from here on.

This is also around the part where I'm going to have to stop telling the plot in order, for the simple reason that I can't remember the order. True, I've only seen this movie once but I have a decent memory, especially visually, so with most movies I can usually piece it together (even things that jump around the timeline, like "Pulp Fiction" I can remember more or less in order). This is another major problem with this movie; it feels so constantly disjointed. It expects too much of the audiences' deductive powers, no not even that, willingness to deduce things, and it really tries our patience (again, usually I like movies that challenge the viewer a little, that keep us guessing and thinking like in "Cloud Atlas" or "Memento". Hell, Christopher Nolan wrote for and directer Memento! Dammit movie, stop making me dislike things I like!) From now on I think I'm going to have to jump around a little in terms of story and maybe focus on characters and elements more.

Concerning characters, I think one of my favourites is Amy Adams' Lois Lane. She seems to have been getting a lot of flack from reviewers for being useless and forced as a love interest, but I disagree. Yeah, maybe the whole romance thing is a wee bit forced on Clark's part but he's not human, and c'mon now, you can't blame her attraction to this mysterious, handsome, compassionate man who saved her life. Regarding her being called bland and useless as a character, I whole-heartedly disagree. This is the first portrayal of Lois where she does do things. She's brave, going into the cave/spaceship (it's the Fortress of Solitude, why not call it that?) thing because she fears for the man she saw go in but also to satisfy her own journalistic curiousity. She sticks up for herself in conversation with the male reporters (the whole "I'm a girl, here, watch me totally own this dude who's being all misogynistic and shit" thing is clichéd, I know, but it is a point). Aside from falling off of things (because she does that a lot in this movie) and having to be saved because of that (in my head, Clark is all "Oh no, my Lois falling senses are tingling...please don't sue me, Spiderman) she is an important part of the film. She does that thing with the superkey McGuffin that was important somehow to the Kryptonians being defeated, (seeing this movie with my boyfriend, we were joking that if you took Superman out, it wouldn't make a huge difference with all the good he's doing) she uses her journalist powers to trace Superman back to his home town, actually finding his house (stalking that many an obsessive fangirl would envy). She is determined, she goes with the whole "aliens among us" story even when her editor decides he's going to suspend her. He's played by Laurence Fishburne, who I reeally wanted a "what if I told you..." line from. I was disappointed. Shame on you, movie, you had the opportunity so many times! I do question this in contrast to how willingly people believe the UFO and Zod on the TV thing, i wanted to scream at the screen "Check if it's a prank! What kind of journalists are you?!" Ugh, at least Lois has a reason to take it at face value. I thought her character was one of the most three dimensional. I was also happy with the chemistry between Lois and Clark. They don't kiss or anything til the very end of the film, which I thought was good, a lot of movies would have a kiss after the second encounter, at least. No, they took their time. Well done. They had conversations, they got to know each other, there're even a few funny moments, like the "Why the S?", "In my language it means hope", "Yeah, well here it's an S" scene. I thought that was a show of them genuinely building the relationship, really properly interacting like human beings. I was so relieved when they didn't do the "glasses on, glasses off" bit except for in the very end of the movie. And I don't judge that for its silliness because the canon is silly, and they do it well(ish).

Now to the Jesus metaphor. Ugh, shoot me. For those of you who don't know me personally, I am quite adamantly atheistic. I was raised Catholic, indoctrinated from birth, Catholic school, the whole shebang. I stopped being Catholic age thirteen, when the bribes stopped coming (seriously, they pay you. But that's another rant). Since then I have gone through a phase of announcing to the world "I don't believe!" to trying to convince others to become as jaded as me to eventually being fairly accepting and less pushy but still firmly secular. I dislike things that unnecessarily make things about religion. I realise it's historically relevant, I realise that it's easily recogniseable, I realise that a lot of things can be tweaked slightly to have a religious meaning. Fine. But when you make it so damn obvious and in your face it's just annoying. It's not clever or in any way subtle, it's annoying and patronising. People are going to draw these metaphors on their own, you don't have to make him thirty-three or stress the fact that he submits to handcuffing because "it wouldn't be much of a sacrifice if he resisted". This is literally in the same freaking scene. Way to hammer that home. Stupid. It's not a Jesus story. It's more like a Dr. Who or a Moses story if anything.
Moses: sent away from his home at birth in fear for his life. Grows up in a different environment, then has to choose which side he is truly on. (Granted in the Moses tale, he chooses his roots over his home but that's minor.)

I miss David Tennant.
Dayum, he's sexy in those glasses... 

Dr. Who: He's the last of his kind. He's an alien. He loves humanity and deeply regrets the fact that sometimes he is the reason they are put in danger while he also feels obligated to save them. He must constantly be careful of how he uses his powers. He is against killing, trying as best he can to use his powers peacefully. He keeps his true identity a secret from most, with a few exceptions (usually female). He can never return to his home planet.
He will try to reason with the enemy before jumping into the fighting. He is conflicted in his loyalties (this is particularly prominent in season three of the show, where the Doctor has to choose whether or not he will have to kill the Master, and if he'll be able to if it comes to that) Glasses and phone-boxes.

Most of the comparisons with Jesus are made by the writers of the film itself, which really doesn't count. When in the comics did he martyr himself any more than any other hero? Yes, he has two daddies but so did Peter Parker, in effect, people don't call him Jesus.

Designwise, I didn't like the lighting for a lot of this movie, it's been said a million times but it was trying to be "The Dark Knight" and it failed because Superman is not Batman. Batman would not wear a red cape and tights. Just no. It's alright if his movie is very black in the costume and prop and set departments because that's Batman's thing. It really doesn't work with Superman. The Kryptonian ship design, I'm gonna be honest, reminded me of the aliens from "Wreck it Ralph". They were so stylistically boring and felt like parodies of aliens that had already been done, like those in "War of the Worlds". As I've mentioned, the insides of the ships were dull, generic and sci-fi-ish. The same with the Kryptonians' Earth suits, boring as hell. I know the movie is taking itself seriously and all but that doesn't mean you can't be creative with your armour and whatnot. It's a superhero movie, for fuck sake, you are allowed to be a little frivolous, even with your villains. Look at The Joker in TDK, he was creative, and terrifying. It can be done! Russell Crowe was... I get the feeling that the filmmakers were like "We've got Russell Crowe as Jor-El! Oh, but he dies in the first twenty minutes. Hey, let's make him the explaining guru guy who also somehow has power to open and close doors and just generally be a useful plot device for lazy writers. I did like the relationship between the Earth Commander (I think) and the second in commant Kryptonian who (SPOILER) both die at the end. There's this line they both say about how it's just and honourable to die for your nation or planet or whatever (ahem, army propaganda, ahem ahem) which kinda highlights the fact that they are both pawns in the bigger struggle, and have no personal enmity, almost a respect for their worthy opponent. I'm probably reading into this one small chunk of plot a little too much but I don't care, this was one bit I liked, the way I interpreted it.

This is a legitimate shot from the movie.
 I wanted to strangle this kid
with his own makeshift Superman cape. 

This review is going on far too long, I'm probably going to try and wrap it up about here. Just a few little things that annoyed me. At the very end of the film, there's this flashback where mini-Clark is in the garden playing with the dog and he ties a red cloth around his neck and strikes the typical heroic Superman pose. I wanted to murder this movie for this. THIS COMES FROM SUPERMAN! You cannot have Superman as a child dress up like fucking Superman. It does not work. It was incredibly stupid, I hated it. There was this one bit where they're trying to get the superkey into this doohicky and it's not working and everyone's panicking. This one guy (who we haven't seen for all the rest of the movie) figures out you have to spin the table thing in order for the key to go in. It just felt like a bad sitcom joke, like there should be canned laughter and a trombone in the background. That was stupid. Also, there was one fighting scene where the helmeted Kryptonian keeps making these "Glurghlurghalurgh" noises every time he throws a punch or whatever, I kept almost cracking up. The Kryptonians kept fighting Superman then jumping into their ship and flying off, leaving the viewer like "Are they gone now, is that it? Or...oh no, they were just re-grouping. That was pointless." The codex subplot seems to go nowhere. Why did the ready made suit have a cape? Why was there a ready made suit? I hated the whole "You need to keep your powers hidden but when the world finds out about you, you're gonna be great" spiel. Spare us, we've heard it so many times before, and in such better context. General Zod, if your primary objective is to protect the Kryptonian race, why wouldn't you compromise when faced with extinction or sharing a planet? Why did you complain about the pain of having to adjust to a new environment when it literally took you four seconds to adjust? What was the point of Zod and friends being sent to the Phantom Zone only to be instantly released when Krypton imploded? What was the explanation for the x-ray and heat ray vision (they explained the flying and strength with the different gravity on earth compared to Krypton. What, does Krypton also have less see through things?)? Ugh, I have to stop now, this movie infuriates me whenever I think of all the stupid little things and stupid big things and wasted talent that it represents. Dammit movie. I'll say it again, I didn't hate "Man of Steel", I was just so disappointed. Granted, Superman is not the most interesting of superheroes, you could have made something at least more sensical and creative than this. I have so much more I could say. Believe me, I'm being kind here.

Embrace the Madness, even when you want to hit it repeatedly in the face then yell at it for being stupid, then cry because David Tennant isn't the Doctor anymore.