It's Superman's Time

Rating: 9/10 (7 July 2013)

Most people chafed at the thought of a retelling of Superman's origin story. But, like a composer weaving the same notes into a new song, the team of Snyder, Nolan, and Goyer have taken the same elements and given us an all-new emotionally-resonant and intellectually-stimulating composition.
We start this new tale on the dying planet of Superman's birth. That single element right there is the first change from the traditional Superman mythos: the fact of Superman's birth. Like certain great science fiction tales of old (more on that in a bit), Krypton is portrayed as a hyper-advanced society that has become virtually (and in some cases literally) mechanized in all the aspects that matter. Children, for example, are not born, but rather grown. For centuries, this has been Krypton's way of controlling the population and assigning roles for everyone in society. It is considered heresy for a couple to bear a child on their own as Jor-El and Lara Lor-Van have done.
There's not much time for punishment, of course, as mining forays into Krypton's core have triggered massive geologic events that will lead to the planet's inevitable destruction. Jor-El and Lara have foreseen this, and they have prepared a ship to carry their son Kal-El to another world; along with the Codex, a genetic database for the entire Kryptonian race, that may one day be used to rebuild their civilization. Kal-El's parents don't join him in the life pod, partly because they consider themselves a product of their own failed society, but also because they need to protect the pod's launch from the forces of General Zod.
Michael Shannon has some large, hammy shoes to fill. Terence Stamp's performance as the megalomaniacal Zod in Superman II is the pinnacle of supervillainy goodness in film. Could "I will find him!" be the new "Kneel before Zod!"? Maybe not. But Shannon does give us a thrilling reinterpretation of the Kryptonian criminal. As I said earlier, on Krypton, children are genetically engineered and raised from "birth" to fill certain roles in society. Zod's role is as Krypton's protector; and he is good at his job. Anything he sees as a threat to Krypton, he seeks to eliminate. That includes the Council that dug too deep into Krypton's core, Jor-El and Lara's illegally-conceived son, and the people of planet Earth when it becomes clear that terraforming our planet is the only way to build an environment where the genetic lines in the Codex can be properly reconstituted. He's campy at times, but Shannon's Zod is no less threatening for that fact, and he provides a grown Kal-El with a frightening picture of what the planet of his origin had produced.
Armed all the morals both his adoptive parents could instill in him, grown up Clark wanders the Earth hoping to learn more about himself, and looking for any sign that the time to reveal himself is at hand. His travels eventually lead him to the Arctic, where military forces (and one enterprising reporter) are on the verge of discovering an alien aircraft that's been buried in the ice for thousands of years. Clark beats them to it, of course, and activates his real father's artificial intelligence interface, allowing him to learn at last about his other heritage.
Some have criticized MoS for being "dark and gloomy", but I see it as hopeful and inspirational. And nowhere is that hope and inspiration more evident than in the scene where Jor-El tells his son he will only know how strong he is if he keeps testing his limits. His speech about how humanity will race behind him, stumble, and fall, but eventually join him in the Sun is taken directly from "All-Star Superman", one of the best Superman graphic novels in history. Another graphic novel, "Superman: Birthright", gives us the gem about how the "S" is actually the Kryptonian symbol for hope. The scene culminates in Superman's first flight.
The final battle, of course, is where the great debate about whether this is really a "Superman movie" resides. As you know, superhero battles often cause a great deal of destruction, but it's often shrugged off as "cartoon violence". In any case, we rarely see anyone actually die (though we all have to admit there must be plenty of offscreen death in every superhero movie). MoS actually shows a lot of that death on screen as the Kryptonians' ships start terraforming the Earth into a new Krypton. We see that Superman, tasked with destroying two massive ships on opposite sides of the Earth, cannot save everyone. This has led a distressingly large number of people to claim that he actually causes the death and destruction in Metropolis, though a careful reviewing will show that Superman didn't actually cause all that much damage, either directly or indirectly.
You may say he was responsible for all the damage Zod caused during their titanic clash; but Zod, bereft of his one last chance to create a new Krypton to protect as he'd been born and bred to do, swore to make every human suffer to punish Kal-El. The fully deranged general would not let himself be led away, and in the end, he forced Superman to pass final, terrible, and swift judgment upon him with the lives of others in danger. On Earth, we call it "suicide by cop". Superman, no doubt, will call it the moment he realized there were some things even he couldn't do.
I love this movie. MoS has given us the chance to see a new Superman in a new way, and whether it makes a billion dollars in theaters or paves the way for a Justice League movie or even gets a sequel, it shows us what a man, even a man of steel, can do. It's enough to make me strain my neck watching the skies.
(read full review at http://fourthdayuniverse.com/reports/2013/07/its-supermans-time)