Of course it’s not necessary to make a new Superman movie, the first one with Christopher Reeve is funny and stupid enough to cover that particular genre until the end of times. Why be too serious about that superhuman superboy with his x-ray vision and supersenses and heat beam eyes and funny cape? (What’s the cape for anyway? I never understood that bit. At least for Batman I think it’s bullet-proof… Superman could be naked for all means and purposes…). You can make a new film, of course, if you find a new approach, and the script of “Man of Steel” takes that starting point and kind of delivers. That does not mean that this could be a good movie – there’s too much wrong with it: the director, for one, who is not the person to be really interested in the character of an outcast fighting his way into a the heart of a society onto which he was merely dropped. Or Russel Crowe as Superman’s daddy, who is not just the wrong choice, I think, to take on a role burdened with a legendary Marlon Brando performance (not legendary because of its quality, that’s not what I mean…), but who also sports a terrible accent. I really heard him say “you can sniff her” the first time around, and Hannibal Lecter associations came up … thank God he repeated a bit more clearly a second later: “you can save them all”.
On the casting: Kevin Costner is actually not bad as country folkster with heart of gold, and Michael Shannon is great in whatever he does. However: Mr Shannon, I would really like to read the chapter in your memoires where you describe how it was to say sentences like “Release the world engine” or “Bring the phantom drive online”… It must be followed by some memorable Michael Caine quote about how he never watched the finished movie, but very much likes the house it built him.
Some nice Independence Day ripoff, same obtrusive Hans Zimmer marching bands as usual, superheroes engaging in devastating fist fights in which it is not clear why anybody could win without adding some cryptonite in the gloves. And a final scene that sets the agenda for the sequel and makes Clark Kent disappear behind a pair of black-rimmed glasses.
One of these blockbusters that will be forgotten in the near future. Rather entertaining while it lasted.
thomas4cinema 