30 Minutes of flying through buildings

Rating: 6/10 (2 August 2013)

Superman! But this time he looks less like he got dressed drunk and more like a ballerina. The director of Watchmen (which was awesome) and 300 (which I didn't like) attempts to make a serious superman movie. He definitely succeeds at people taking it seriously, but not at it living up to my expectations. Personally I am not a superman fan, as a kid I was obsessed with Batman (just like everyone else). And I have only watched the first two old superman movies because of 5 USA.
The movie starts off really well on Krypton, this time Russell Crowe is his dad instead of Marlon Brando and (eve if it does feel like I'm betraying all my fellow movie nerds) I can't lie. Russell Crowe does a better job at being superman senior than the cinematic legend Marlon Brando. Then General Zod who I will write more about later starts stirring everything up and because of the impending doom on Krypton - Russell Crowe sends baby superman to earth. I won't explain the rest of the plot because it gets quite complicated about an hour in, but lets just say it's very different to the old superman comics. For example in the comics the S on superman's chest obviously stands for "superman". But here Zack Snyder (or Christopher Nolan) has taken a risk, and the S now stands for hope. Which I liked whoever decided to tinker with the origins of superman is quite brave because it was a bit risky. but it worked, they also changed other stuff like Clarke isn't a journalist until the end of the movie and when he first flies it goes wrong and he smashes into the ground. Next good point Kevin Costner steals the show. He probably only has about 15 minutes screen time, but in that 15 minutes he's pretty darn good. Shame about his stupid death scene which was unbelievable. The special effects are top notch and what some call eye candy. The plot is clever and more intellectual than I expected it to be. It's reasonably believable and there's no pointless scenes with nos significance whatsoever. Acting is mediocre the 2 daddies of the film Russell Crowe and Kevin Costner are Oscar worthy. Henry Cavill and Amy Adams got a bit wooden in places, Michael Shannon was terrible.
First bad point of the review - the villain played quite badly in my opinion by Michael Shannon, who was not threatening at all. Although his evil plan and dialogue was good, he didn't have the look or voice of a good villain. I'm not saying that all villains have to have long black capes, be 8 foot tall and force strangle people (remind you of anyone)? But Zod seemed to act like a secondary villain. (The guy who tried to negotiate with terrorists in Die Hard, Snape in Harry Potter, Budd in Kill Bill). His voice was also unintentionally amusing (this is the second Zack Snyder film to do this - Rorschach in Watchmen) and rivals bane as the silliest movie villain ever. I don't think I've ever actually seen Michael Shannon in anything else, so for all I know he talks like that in real life. If he does - I pity him. Now onto the second thing which I cannot stand about Man of Steel. The huge fight at the end, first superman and General Zod are smashing things up in superman's home town. Then 10 minutes later they fly through a load of buildings - FOR AGES!!! I thought the movie had finished but it hadn't, so there was even more destroying of buildings! Then they went up into space and smashed a satellite or two. Then they flew back down to earth and and landed in a museum where Zod had a terrible death! Zack Snyder must really like the same thing over and over again because this is the same thing he did in 300. Repeating something awesome subtracts the awesomeness from it each time For example in Kick Ass (the best superhero movie ever) there's this awesome scene where Hit Girl kills every single person in a room to the banana splits theme using her samurai swords. She massacres something like 8 people in just over a minute, loads of little different awesome things put together to make a scene more awesome than the huge fight in Man of Steel. If Hit Girl just chopped off a guys head, chopped off another guys head, chopped off a third guys head, chopped off yet another guys head, chopped off a guys head, chopped off a final guys head. It wouldn't be awesome! So flying through buildings over and over again decreases awesomeness each time.
I'll start off at 10 (obviously) and deduct one whole point for General Zod being a bad villain. Minus 1.5 points for a repetitive fight scene and minus another 0.5 points for Henry Cavill and Amy Adams getting a bit wooden in places. But plus 0.2 points (0.1 for each daddy) because of Kevin Costner and Russell Crowe being superb actors. So I give Man of Steel a good, but disappointing, 7.2/10 and 3.5 stars.