Reminiscent, moving.

Rating: 9/10 (14 April 2016)

I remember sitting in front of the television, grinning, excited. It was our Justice League day marathon. We would watch our favorite Superheroes fight bad people again. My cousins and I would argue over who gets the red blanket because we all wanted to be Superman. We were mostly girls. It was a battle between Wonder Woman and him but I chose to be Superman either way. I wanted to be like him growing up. Superman played a huge part in my childhood and he plays a huge part in what I am today. This is not to say that I read all his comics. In fact, I've read very few of his when I started reading comics during my early adolescent stages. For a long while, I lost interest in him. Superman just did not interest me during that period. I thought he was so powerful that it made him.. bland. When Man of Steel came out, I was dealing with a lot of things. I missed the chance to watch it in the cinema, hence this 'review', albeit late, is not from a cinema experience. I was filled with remorse. I WISH I had gone to the cinema back then because MoS completely rekindled my love for Superman. It rekindled my understanding of what it takes to be a "Superman" and showed me the side of him I neglected for so long. This film made me pick up a Superman comic again. It reminded me of what Superman is, his origins, who he is.
(Spoilers below.)
The opening sequences while Krypton was dying struck me. In the same sense, Earth is also slowly disintegrating. As Lara watched her planet slowly crumble to pieces, I felt the real impact of Krypton's explosion. All the life that was built were so quickly in ruins. I couldn't help but feel similar towards Earth. That one day, all these would be lost - our specie extinct, our former selves forever lost, a planet fallen victim to oblivion. No creature would remember what existed before. In this same sense did I understand where Zod and Jor-el was coming from. Only they fully understood that Krypton couldn't be saved and what made Krypton wasn't just the place, but the creatures that thrived in its harsh environments. Our Earth is also slowly deteriorating and I am so sad that a lot of people do not see that. When Lara took one last look at Kal, I felt a wave of emotions. My mother was like that with me and my siblings. My aunts were like that to my cousins. If I will have a child, I know that I will look at my own sons or daughters that same way. As the film went on, I felt that the silence may have felt dragging for others. But it added to the depth for me. It let the feelings I had sink in. During the flash backs of Clark's childhood, I came to understand where Zack Snyder was taking the audience. He was showing us how scary and alienating life is when you feel like an outsider. These are emotions I have felt myself for being what other people deem "different". The whispers, the hyper sensitivity to your surroundings, the fear and confusion the world puts on each of us to "fit in". This mirrors alienation exactly. I wish Papa Kent didn't die, but in Clark's perspective, I get why he didn't save him and why Papa Kent didn't want him to. Before Clark could be a beacon of hope, before he truly knows hope, he must know what it is to be humble and powerless. To be human. He must know that he cannot save everybody and that he should not blame himself every time, especially in times of adversity. That he must embrace human life's fragility. Loss is inevitable. Death is inevitable. Papa Kent accepted his last moments and Clark should too. We all face loss. We all risk death. But to rise in such occasions are what makes humanity so great. It was a lesson that Clark needed to embrace, to understand.
> The only thing I did not like about this film was how there was no real build-up to Lois and Clark. It didn't have a strong foundation. It could have been better had they not kissed instead and saved the full-on romance for BvS. It made their arc feel forced. > The action scenes and CGI were great. For most of the film, the shakiness added to the feel of confusion for me, I just wish it wasn't so much.
The terraforming scene is one of my favorites. It showed so much of Superman/the human character. It didn't matter to me who Jenny was, but it was good to know that her co-workers were human enough to not leave her to die. It showed what Clark all this while has been fighting within himself: there is good and bad in all of humanity. Some people's good outweighs their bad and vice versa. That is why he's here and why he stays. That's what he sees in humans that often the audience were blind to. I didn't have to invest in the Daily Planet characters for me to care for them. I only knew, as a person myself, that when a crisis rises before me, I will remember my own humanity.
Young Clark wearing a cape was really symbolic. It made me cry. I remembered my own childhood and why I love Superheroes in the first place. I remember all those times I was playing with my friends and how much I love Superman. I remember that in all of us, there IS a Superman. There are many more things I want to talk about this film but this is already too long. It is not perfect in the least, but no film is. Man of Steel is easily one of my favorite Superhero films.