Movie of Eyerolls

Rating: Null/10 (5 July 2013)

"I wanna roll my eyes right now, but the doctor said if I keep doing it, my ocular muscles might spasm and eject my eyeballs," Liz Lemon says in an episode of 30 Rock. I would advise Tina Fey to stay far away from the new Superman movie because that is all that awaits you on the other side of the theater door: eye roll after eye roll. By the third act I wished my eyeballs would eject from my skull. In an honest world, Man Of Steel should have been renamed Movie of Eyerolls.
After The Dark Knight Rises concluded Christopher Nolan's classy Batman revival series last summer, fans didn't fall into despair, for they were suffocated with the initial Man of Steel trailer upon each showing of The Dark Knight Rises, with everyone's favorite director's name plastered as a "producer". Anyone could've guessed that Man of Steel was going to fall below The Dark Knight trilogy's quality, but I didn't even expect it to be as bad as it actually is. Clearly, the genre has not learned a thing from Christopher Nolan.
Man of Steel is piled with bad dialogue, unfulfilling characters, and leaden visuals that never satisfy your eyes. The script has decent intentions, but the final product feels like a slapdash effort by the screenwriter. Many times, I asked myself "Are they really going to go down this route, really?" There is some effective aspects of a superhero tale, but most of the time it gets lost with making "spectacular action" that it uses clichés to fill in the gaping holes left by the characters and plot arcs. The beginning shows an idea was entirely drawn, though it's explored, it never feels as interesting as it should be. The dialogue is awful, but David S. Goyer does supply one memorable quote that hits you like a bullet: "People are afraid of what they don't understand." I hope, Man of Steel is a simple-minded movie, with no greater meaning, because if it does have a greater meaning, we know it will go the religion route. If that point ever came, I wouldn't wait for my eyerolling to eject my eyeballs, I would gouge them out myself with my movie ticket.
Misdirection is accounts for most of Man of Steel's issues. Zack Snyder brings not much else except pretension to the table, therefore fails to shine light on the humanity that lies within the story and characters. There's countless of attempts at bringing the "man" to "Superman", all that the movie has to show for it is embarrassment. Most the film is told in unbridled periods of action it's not enough to satisfy the audience and their craving to know these characters. The action sequences are proficient and they improve in the second half. I'm not crazy about the technical aspects of Man of Steel. Sure the special effects and the sound design are give-ins that deliver, but the editing and cinematography are huge letdowns. The look of the film is unappealingly murky. I did really take to the new Superman costume, it updates the classic outfit comfortably.
I'm not really sure if Man of Steel was motivated to be driven by the character of the man behind the "S" (which interestingly means peace in this movie) or if it's epicly driven by the destructive plot, but either way the movie hardly ever advances because the lack of development with its characters or actors. Leave it Diane Lane to supply the first and one of the only touching moments in the story. Lois Lane is the most intriguing character in the movie, but Adams doesn't try to break new ground with her even though she has audience's accessibility on her side. The characters are run-of-the-mill and fail to enter our hearts.
Man of Steel hoodwinks the audience into believing that it's a thoughtful origin story that takes itself seriously. When an action movie fails technically, you know the movie is in trouble. In fact, I had the uneasy feeling like I was watching a straight-to-DVD, low budget horror movie during my two and a half hours with the new Superman. There are too many clichéd attempts at being a profound, character piece. If the movie we got is the movie sci-fi nerds and fans of the advancing work in this genre have been anticipating in Man of Steel, then the movie industry is in trouble. I walked out of the theater with haunting thoughts of an apocalyptic business down the road where originality and art are dried up.