Man of Steel is not that Super, man !

Rating: 7/10 (2 January 2014)

Superman never was my favorite among all the other superheroes . I thought he looked like a pussy and not just because he was always wearing his underpants in the wrong way. If you compare him with Spiderman , Batman , The Hulk , The Magnificent Seven , Dare Devil and The X -men , he is actually just a lousy figure . Most of the other superheroes have been mutated by radiation , chemical waste or bitten by a spider. Superman just crashed on Earth , got his superpowers cause gravity on his home planet is much larger and gets weaker when he comes near to a simple green luminescent material called kryptonite. As a teenager I really didn't think it was that thrilling.
I was 12 years old when I saw the first movie in which Christopher Reeve starred as Superman. I was quite impressed by this film . Compared with this Man Of Steel the special effects weren't that breathtaking , but at that time they were state of the art . A positive thing is that they didn't just copy the complete original movie. Man of Steel is told in a very different way . The only thing I missed was Lex Luther and the way in which General Zod and his crew were banished from the planet Krypton . I found those flat plates flying off into space quite original and a clever idea to use it that way.
However I have mixed feelings about this movie. I liked the first part on Krypton and the introduction of Superman to the people on Earth was a strong start . Until Zod arrives . Then it all feels exaggerated in a way. The layout and images of the endangered planet Krypton and the takeover by Zod are simply stunning and an indication of what was to come . Beautiful special effects and CGI that made me sit back to enjoy the rest that was to come. These images can be compared with those of the better contemporary SF .
First we see Superman as a wandering young man who tries to keep his powers to a limit and not to reveal it to mankind . The flashbacks show his difficult childhood in which he clearly struggles whether or not to use these powers . Cavill was exceptionally brilliant in his role . And not just because the costume has been restyled . Kevin Costner and Diane Lane as his human father and mother both were convincing. Amy Adams has a cute face , but as Lois Lane , she didn't really appeal to me . The relationship with Superman was not as pronounced here as in the old movie. To me it seemed not more than an ordinary friendship between the two characters . The discovery of the spaceship and Cavill's further development as Superman were extremely well developed. The way he discovers his powers and the way this is shown on the screen, especially him flying through the sound barrier, is stunning.
Zod and his crew land on the planet Earth and ask to turn in Superman . What we get then is a show of mind-blowing power development with such a destructive force that turns Metropolis in a ruin. Hard action was to be expected , but this was an over exaggerated display . Half an hour of collapsing buildings and skyscrapers , smashed flat cars, crashing satellites and flying debris . I thought these apocalyptic images would never end. After a while I wasn't watching out of admiration anymore , but rather out of boredom , when Superman or Zod were thrown again through a series of buildings and tons of all kinds of heavy equipment was smashed in their face. Despite the fact that they are actually indestructible and feel no pain, they had to get up out of a painful semiconscious state to continue with the hopeless showdown . The most ridiculous thing was yet to come. After an inhuman exhausting fight it all ends with a simple snap of Zods neck. We've seen that enough times in a rather normal action movie. Why didn't they end the whole matter by sending them back to the Phantom Zone like they did with Zods spacecraft and his crew ? Well, ultimately it all has to end somehow!
Finally one more fact that annoys me about Superman . He gets a job at the Dailey Planet and is (how is it possible) unrecognizable by wearing normal looking glasses. Just awful :)
Man of Steel . Not a super movie. It's excellent in using current computer technology to make everything look smooth and slick. But what an exaggerated destructive half hour to finish. I was not really blown away by it !
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