Different Does Not Mean Better

Rating: 1/10 (9 March 2014)

As someone who reviews movies on a regular basis, I always try to remain as objective as I can possibly be, but this is one instance where I feel a major movie studio allowed a filmmaker and his writer to take extreme liberties to completely demoralize and denigrate a beloved comic book character. Was this a dramatic departure from previous incarnations of the Superman character on film? Yes. Did that fact make this a better film? No. And while certainly there was a sizable audience that wanted that completely different new take and dramatic departure, it still did not make this movie a knock out of the park home run. It was just a mild success, and if I was Warner, I would be extremely worried about keeping Snyder and poor script writer, David Goyer, at the helm. The fact is the domestic box office numbers support my opinion on this. The domestic box office results of the original 1978 Superman when adjusted for inflation were 478 million. While Man of Steel's domestic numbers surpassed 2006's Superman Returns, this still paled in comparison compared to the box office of the original with only 291 million. So clearly different definitely does not mean better and many people did not like this new incarnation of Superman at all. It also quickly lost steam and certainly did not maintain the box office longevity of Iron Man 3.
Here are just some of the reasons I feel Man of Steel was a major disappointment. First and foremost, the dialogue of "Man of Steel" was downright embarrassing and awful with nonsensical ramblings about "world engines" and "black holes". Again a much more skilled and talented script writer was needed instead of Goyer. The whole alien invasion came across as a very Orwellian recycled theme we've seen countless times before. There was nothing new or original about it at all and the main villain of Zod had already been done before in Superman I and II. Pa Kent's death was absolutely ridiculous. While Zack Snyder had a lot going for him at first, it's probably what he thought would be small changes to the Superman mythos he could get away with such as the alteration of the unitard. Unfortunately it just snowballed from there. By the time we get to the tedious third act of this film, the audience is presented with a needless scene of Superman breaking Zod's neck. This has been the scene even those who are not die hard comic book fans of Superman had the biggest problem with. To me, it wasn't the fact Superman killed someone that bothered me. It was just an anti climatic cheap and mindless way to end the fight scene which dragged out for what seemed like an eternity. The even bigger misstep of Snyder's was to present a Superman that allowed Metropolis to be totally annihilated. The Superman of the comics we've always known would sooner sacrifice himself before ever letting that happen. With all the filmmakers in this world with endless imagination and creativity, Zack Snyder just doesn't have the talent to present anything that really is new or innovative. He doesn't even have the ability to take a comic book character like Superman and present something new while still holding true to the mythos of the characters the way so many of the filmmakers have with Marvel's characters. For this reason, Warner and DC have an very steep uphill road to climb. Any sequels to this mess have an extremely high risk of failure.