You Won't believe a man can be this boring...(Or Can Fly)

Rating: 3/10 (12 May 2014)

I refuse to believe that "Man of Steel" was really anything to do with Christopher Nolan, for the simple reason that it sums up the very worst things about contemporary superhero films, which the dark knight trilogy so carefully avoided. Instead, we have a creative collaboration from the guy who wrote the "Blade" films and the director who brought us the screamingly over the top campiness of "300". So, instead of a mature, intelligent measured take on a classic character, we have an over the top, dingy, poorly-told, horribly-filmed CGI cartoon of Super-Codpiece taking on another generic giant space invasion of the "Avengers" mould.
For the first half hour of this next-generation attempt to make a Superman movie, you're not quite sure whether this is a decent movie or not. In part, Hans Zimmer's relentless, percussion heavy soundtrack adds a gloss to Snyder's tacky imagery, and Goyer's mind numbing script, but, as soon as arch-villain General Zod comes to Earth, things devolve into a gigantic demolition movie, in which story, characters, well-choreographed fights and super heroic stunts give way to an hour of sheer, mindless destruction of poorly computer generated glass skyscrapers – seriously, the CGI in this movie is amongst the worst I have ever seen, just in its' simple aesthetic, let alone in Snyder's addiction to it, as he smothers virtually every scene with computer imagery of some kind.
The story itself seems desperate to distance itself from previous versions of this iconic character, and perhaps, wisely so. Beefcake Henry Cavill screams his way through his Superman scenes, and spends the rest of the film moping about in scruffy designer clothes and a baseball cap – and stubble. Seriously, where does his stubble come from? How does he shave it off, when his hair will be indestructible? Did they stop to think about this basic stepping stone of super-lore, or did they just think that it would be cool to show Kal-El in his degenerate, mopy posing phase, smashing up trucks, drinking beer, watching rugby, sniping at his dad, and generally wasting time doing totally un-Superman like things?
It isn't the fact that this takes a pitch-black look at Superman's character that annoys me. It's the stupid lengths to which Goyer goes to to make everything so artificially dismal and falsely morbid, combined with the utter lack of sense in the script, the general poor abilities of the cast, and the totally useless fight scenes. How difficult is it to make Superman a mope? He can do anything, for God's sake. The character was designed as a piece of wish fulfilment, the ultimate fantasy character. Why do we need to see a horrendously camp young Clark sniping at his dad? "Oh, I wish I didn't have super-powers" Yeah, really? That's totally how we'd all feel isn't it? And, how ridiculous is the scene in which Kevin Costner's Jonathan Kent dies? How contrived is this drama? Is it really feasible that Clark would just stand by and let this idiot risk his life, when he can do it without personal risk to himself? Or, maybe it's because Jonathan is the worst Dad in the world, who lets his "son" get bullied by local kids, because it builds character? Why is it beyond any superhero film these days - or indeed, any film – to show a normal child/parent relationship, without resorting to soap-opera bitching, and contrived fake drama? Apart from probably being the best actor in the film, Costner sticks around long enough to provide a few whispered, posing quotes to stick onto the trailer, and then he's gone. His mother is just a waste of space, who stays alive only for Goyer to not really be exactly sure how to use her.
So the first hour of the film is contrived, moany drama, with a handful of horrendously filmed "action" sequences – the tanker scene is so pointless, and badly executed, I'm not sure why it's even here, and Snyder films it so badly, all we get is Henry Cavill's bulging torso – not actually any super-heroics, which I think is what we should be seeing here. After this, things shift to mass destruction, with computer-generated Kryptonian villains smashing everything in sight, until you will have seen so much computer-generated glass smashing, that your eyes will hurt. Michael Shannon is your standard, screaming, posing, I-love-myself villain, who has no presence, and his sidekick, Antje Trau, is a concession perhaps to the Bechdel test, and makes the most of her unusual features to play a good, completely one-dimensional villainess, who spends most of her time as a computer cartoon. In fact, at the risk of sounding like a hard-core fan, the visualisation of these Kryptonians is infinitely worse than back in the first two Reeve movies, where we actually had real people doing these things, not terribly animated, zooming about, smashing everything computer characters. I do not exaggerate when I say that the last hour of this film contains some of the worst fight scenes I have ever seen, because they do not present the characters in any way – you can barely see what's going on most of the time, just endless tinkling, shattering and smashing. No excitement, no sense of heroism, or joy in these titanic struggles.
This is one of those movies, where it seems that an immense amount of effort has gone into making everything this bad. And, the terribly contrived "dark" ending – it's so, so overdone and stupid, just to justify indulging in more carnage and destruction, it's laughable. Best line in the entire film, comes at the very end – Lois to a finally bespectacled Clark; "Welcome to the planet, Mr Kent." Yeah. That was worth the entrance fee alone. Please. For Goodness sake – just stick to Superman and Superman II, to see what the real appeal of this character is. Can't wait to see Snyder cock-up Batman, Wonder Woman, Cyborg, etc., etc