Man of Steel in review, part one: the pros

With a creepy Kryptonian you are not alone ringing in my ears, I sat down to write a nice little blog review of the world’s latest salvation-by-superhero, Man of Steel. But then my nice little review turned into a monstrously long one and demanded to be broken into two pieces, one about the film’s pros and the other about the film’s cons. So here’s part one: what worked about Man of Steel. 

Disclaimer: following are some mild spoilers, especially depending on your knowledge of the DC universe (although these posts will look at the movie as a story-whole on its own and not within the scope of all its DC implications). But I won’t give away that Superman does indeed succeed in saving the world. Whoops. Just gave it away. But you already knew that.

Now, what worked. Because enough worked in this film to get it an initial IMDb 8.0/10 and a grade A with almost everyone I’ve talked to about it. And the following list is by no means comprehensive.

Russell Crowe/Jor-El. <--First off, this guy. There’s a basic undeniable principle here that when Russell Crowe is in a film, he automatically increases the coolness of said film. In this case, with his classic deep-voiced, sad-eyed dignity and grace he helps bring a level of added legitimacy to our grasp on the dying Kryptonian culture. He helps cement the seriousness of it all in our minds.

As the person sitting next to me whispered repeatedly, both during and after the film, “Best part of the movie: Russell Crowe in tights.” Though I don’t agree with that statement per se, the fact remains that in all seriousness, Jor-El is one of the coolest elements of the movie, both when he’s alive and otherwise.

Amy Adams/Lois Lane. “She’s too old and I don’t mean to be a jerk but she’s not hot enough,” one of my friends said to me about Amy Adams before Man of Steel came out. I heard a lot of that kind of sentiment before the film premiered, both in person and online. There’s some legitimacy to the argument—you cast a redhead eight years older than your hero as Lois, you’re going to have some controversy. For the most part, we’ve all come to picture this fated reporter as a brunette. And on the sultry side, at that. It’s understandable that Adams feels a jarring choice.

But interestingly, those arguments about how she was too old and not hot enough seemed to decrease dramatically after the film came out. Sure, some people still were displeased, and opinions varied drastically. But with all of us opinionated fans waiting to devour her performance no matter how it turned out, that was inevitable. What fascinated me was that of the group with which I first saw the film, the young men were most pleased with her (one of them, a twenty-something, actually said afterwards, “What, she’s thirty-eight? She looked twenty-four!”), and the person least pleased with her performance was my best friend’s mother. I just think that has to say something about the attractive-enough argument.

I do have some issues with her character role through the movie, specifically the way her character is written, but I’ll talk about that in the next part of this post. The point here is that Adams makes a lovely Lois, though she doesn’t play the part as we were expecting it to be played. But she wasn’t aiming at playing the Lois we were expecting; she wanted to be a brand new take on the classic character. And with that goal in mind, at least to a respectable extent she succeeded.

Plus, she is a beautiful woman, but Clark falls in love with her because she’s smart and believes in him. To me that seems pretty full of win.

Henry Cavill/Kal-El/Clark Kent. Christian Bale. Chris Hemsworth. Robert Downey, Jr. Chris Evans. Etc., etc. Now here’s Henry Cavill jumping into the superhero party—and he quickly makes it clear he belongs.

Yes, he looks the part. One of my friends said after the credits—and I quote—“Oh my gosh, he’s so gorgeous—what was the movie even about? I can’t get my mind off how gorgeous he is. EVERY FEMALE ON EARTH SHOULD WATCH THIS MOVIE.” And of course that’s a conservative response compared to some of the ones floating about the internet.

But it goes beyond that. Let’s be real here. It takes some serious testosterone to rock a red cape in the year 2013 and not look like a joke. And that’s what I think is so cool: Cavill doesn’t just look like Clark Kent. He succeeds in pulling off Superman. Which is a pretty tall order, considering some of the Supermans (Supermen?) we’ve seen in the past. I think Cavill’s biggest triumph is asserting Superman’s legitimacy as a serious superhero in our competitive superhero-saturated society.

Side note: I cannot give enough applause to whoever’s idea it was to lose the red underwear outside the suit. Yes. Yes and amen. Although I can’t be the only person who thought of the old Pixar film The Incredibles when I saw Zod get a hold of the edge of Superman’s cape and swing him around in circles. Looks like Edna Mode knew what she was talking about after all.

Michael Shannon/General Zod. I love General Zod. Actually I hate General Zod. Actually I think he’s one of the best-written characters in the movie, and that’s why I love-hate him, which is a good thing. It’s refreshing to experience a villain who is not primarily:

(a)   trying to prove himself to a father who favors another son over him, especially if said other son happens to be a good guy,

(b)  on a power trip to turn all the peoples of earth into his slaves to fuel his prospective evil empire, or

(c)   hoping to blast the earth out of existence because humans are stupid.

There is a level of option (c) about him, but that’s not his main drive. No, his primary motive is:

(d) ensuring the survival of his people at any cost.

The twisting of a noble impulse into evil is one of the most beautiful makings of a villain. All Zod wants is to save his people. That’s a good thing. But he ends up blowing his goal out of proportion and turning to the coldblooded murder of countless innocents in order to achieve it. And that’s a bad thing.

But it makes a crazy-good villain. Because when Superman crushes the chances of Krypton’s survival, Zod reacts out of an almost moral vengeance, not just personal revenge. He delivers a bloodchilling line, too, nearly frothing at the mouth, about how Superman stole his soul by destroying the only reason Zod is alive: the protection of the future of Krypton.

And that dim shadow of sympathy for the villain is delicious.

The soundtrack. Let’s just all give a standing ovation to Hans Zimmer for his soundtrack behind this movie. Like seriously, right now, wherever you’re reading this, just stand up for him. Scratch that. Let’s not randomly stand up because we’ll probably look like idiots. The point stands, though; the soundtrack is exquisite.

Not that that’s a surprise, considering this is the mastermind behind the soundtracks for films like The Lion King, Gladiator, The Dark Knight, Inception, and a hundred others. Like, literally, he’s done over a hundred film scores. The guy’s a genius.

“You can save them; you can save all of them,” Jor-El tells his son in an especially climactic moment. I’m not sure if he isn’t counting on the multitudes who die at the hands of Zod before Superman prevails, or if he just means Superman can save the future of humanity and therefore ultimately save us all as a race. Either way, Clark/Kal/Superman does save the world, and he manages to do so through 143 minutes of superhero-movie exhilaration.

That’s no small feat.