The latest Superman film is shockingly dated. Despite the many technological advances made in the FX department (surely, this is one of the best-looking and realistic in the series) and the shakiest camerawork we’ve seen in a superhero movie (The Blair Witch Project or Cloverfield, anyone?), there is not much new here. What made the older films so charming, especially the ‘70s and ‘80s originals, were their believable lo-fi aesthetics (groundbreaking then) and Christopher Reeves, who had the acting smarts to make his Clark Kent memorable. Man of Steel, on the other hand, feels completely manufactured, down to the casting of the muscular but dull Henry Cavill in its titular role, and takes itself more seriously than it really should.
You know the story: Planet Krypton is in shambles, and Jor-El (Russell Crowe) decides to send his newborn son Kal-El (Cavill) to earth. Hot on Kal-El’s heels is General Zod (a ridiculously wild-eyed Michael Shannon), hell-bent on vengeance after Planet Krypton is destroyed. Kal-El apparently carries a secret code within him that Zod needs to extract for his attempt to recreate Krypton on Earth—cue the superfluous explosions and fast-paced fight sequences you’d expect from a typical blockbuster. In between all this madness, director Zack Snyder tries his darndest to retell Clark Kent (or Kal- El)’s conflicted childhood through a series of lame flashbacks straight out of a Sunday matinee, with Diane Lane and Kevin Costner as Kent’s parents, to lend the film gravitas.
But with all those fast-paced, gravity-defying action sequences scattered throughout the film (from start to finish, literally), you’ll need a will of steel not to get a headache over the course of this long-drawn mess (it’s 144 minutes). And for all his good looks, Cavill simply does not do enough to carry the role convincingly (screenwriter David S. Goyer is partly to be blamed for the predictable script), while better actors like Lane, Costner and Amy Adams as Lois Lane are relegated to the sidelines. A shame, really. If Snyder was less preoccupied with toppling building after toppling building (and more often than not, exploding gas station after exploding gas station) and more with actual plot developments and character expositions, the film would have actually taken flight.
