Man of Not Much Appeal

Rating: 4/10 (16 June 2013)

In preparation for Zack Snyder's David S. Goyer-written Superman reboot, I returned to Superman Returns from 2006. Bryan Singer's take on Superman was a 2.5-hour love letter to an unashamedly Christ-like saviour. While the one-dimensional villainy and whizz-bangery was kind of a drag, the human stuff was affectionate and soulful. It was also humorous, something that Man of Steel certainly is not. It's like producer Christopher Nolan scoured the script for jokes, surgically removing them - and all the fun - so we're left with an turgid, mechanical, over-plotted, gloomy, deafening bellow of a movie that's shorter than its predecessor but feels twice as long.
The film starts with a war on Krypton, during which Kal-El is hurled in the general direction of Earth. He's raised on a farm by Ma and Pa Kent (Kevin Costner and Diane Lane), urged to keep his superpowers a secret. Little does Kal know, he's being pursued by General Zod (played unusually blankly by Michael Shannon), the super-villain who wasted his homeworld.
So we have a racist fundamentalist threatening the American way of life, who when offered the chance to join civilised society and integrate refuses, choosing instead an apocalyptic cleansing, starting with New York. I mean, Metropolis. This is a new Superman for a paranoid world, cowering under the shadow of terrorist outsiders. Big themes. Unfortunately the script is a freakshow parade of glum portentous exclamations, convoluted sci-fantasy references, how-why-what exposition, and stillborn attempts at aphorism.
Change is good. Comic book characters are necessarily reinvented throughout the ages to reflect the society that puts them on the page. But the changes have to work, and most of them don't in this film. It doesn't really matter that Clark Kent (played by Henry Cavill, with a perennial slight frown) has gone from awkward goof to smug beefcake, because we barely see him interacting with humans as an adult. But changes to other characters, in particular Lois Lane (a miscast and/or misused Amy Adams), serve only to further deny any semblance of humour from encroaching upon proceedings.
The film isn't a complete disaster. Costner and Lane provide some softness and soul in their small roles. There's some pleasing John Carter-esque production design on Krypton. And while it might not be The Last Temptation of Christ, Goyer does at least glance in the direction of understanding the psychology of being The One.
In the last reel, the final confrontation(s) outstay their welcome, but they're welcome relief from the lousy dialogue, and the mass destruction is certainly on an appropriately vast scale. (No need to hide your eyes - it's only implied that hundreds of thousands die.) It is telling that the best set-piece in the movie, which involves a tornado, occurs earlier on: well-choreographed action with an emotionally dramatic core. If only the rest of the film had worked on the same basis.