Man of Steel Movie Review

Article by Gabe Zia

Lazy Film Critic Movie Reviews

Man of Steel

Man of Steel, the big Superman reboot. Following the success of Marvels "The Avengers" series, DC wanted to capitalize on the superhero movie trend. So immediately following the end of Christopher Nolans Batman trilogy, Zack Snyder, Nolan, and David S. Goyer banded together to bring Superman to a new audience. Thus, we have Man of Steel. The film came out to mostly mixed reviews, some loved it, others hated it. With such a simple subject matter, how can a film be so dividing? Well, let's find out.

Well, I'm gonna start off with the stuff I did enjoy about the movie, as I usually do. First off, there's the action. If you know this page, you know I'm a sucker for a well made action sequence. And while some of the action had a bit too much of the cgi flying effect to be truly memorable, it's not awful. It's entertaining to watch, and the special effects work really well into making each action set-piece visually impressive.

It's also got a fantastic score, of all the topics I've seen divide fans about this movie, the score is usually the one fans and non-fans usually agree on. The music is really fitting to every scene, and is the only part of the movie I still remember really enjoying. It's really good at adding a sense of grand scale to a moment, or giving a scene a lot of emotion. There's one particular scene, when Superman is flying for the first time, and the music just works so well for that moment. It's one of the best scenes in the entire movie, and it's due in large part to the soundtrack.

So so-far you might be thinking that I'm in the "fan" camp. Well, not exactly. While the action, score, and cinematography are enough to keep me from hating it, it's not enough to save the movie from it's bigger problems. None of the performances really stand out (except for Michael Shannon who is not in this movie nearly enough), and the writing is just kind of okay, it's not awful but it could have been much better. As for the darker tone of the film, here lies the biggest problem with Man of Steel and the one that ultimately stopped me from enjoying it for the most part, which is that it's a darker and more "realistic" take on Superman.

Now, different interpretations of comic book characters are fine, in fact I welcome the idea of a dark and more realistic Superman movie. It's not really the "what" with Man of Steel, but the "why", a question it flat out refuses to answer. The iconic Superman image is gone and is replaced with a darker, brooding, Batman-ish character, but it serves no purpose. The premise of a darker and realistic Superman could have been fascinating, if Zack Snyder had actually done anything creative or fascinating with that premise. Instead, the end result is a needlessly dark version of the character that ends up coming off as kind of lazy in its execution.

Final Rating
Man of Steel should on all accounts be a great movie. It's got good action, a good score, and visually speaking it's a very impressive movie. But combine both the jarring and unnecessary darker tone of the film with it's sub-par acting and writing, and you have a film that is overall just kind of okay. I'm not in either the "love it" or "hate it" camp, to me this is a perfect example of a film that isn't terrible but isn't that good either.