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More than once, a female sidekick of Zod (German actress Antje Traue) taunts Superman, telling him that his morality makes him weak and gives his foes an “evolutionary advantage” over him - that they’ll kill far more than he can save, etc. Nor, for that matter, does the action highlight the villains’ contempt for life in the way that the dialogue suggests. It’s like he’s trying to keep the battle there. Bizarrely, at one point Superman actually gets Zod out of the city, off the planet’s surface and into orbit - only to come crashing down again … back into Metropolis. As the brawl rages through Metropolis, Superman makes no obvious effort to contain the battle, or to draw it away from the densely populated city, as he did in Superman II.
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I’m not saying he’s not busy, but it doesn’t exactly showcase the hero’s character. In all of this third-act chaos, I recall exactly one person (a military pilot) whom Superman saves from death. If hundreds or even thousands haven’t been slain by the end, it would be a miracle. All the while, terrified crowds mill about. Military helicopters crash into buildings. Cars, trucks and buses are heaved into the air by waves of mysterious energy and come smashing down again. Rubble and debris rain down like urban rockslides. Countless skyscrapers and other buildings are leveled. Man of Steel culminates in a battle royale of perhaps unprecedented scale between Superman and Zod’s Kryptonian forces, raging from the streets of Smallville to the canyons of Metropolis. Director Zack Snyder ( 300, Watchmen) is best known for outsize action, and he delivers what Nolan and his fellow producers hired him for.Īlas, amid all the catastrophic disaster footage of the third act, one of Superman’s defining traits - his concern for mankind and respect for life - is all but forgotten, until the very climactic scene. Man of Steel is determined to be the anti- Superman Returns. “Not enough action” was the rap on the box-office disappointment of Superman Returns in 2006, and the studio wasn’t about to repeat that mistake. In a way, you can hardly blame the filmmakers for giving people what they want. Each vignette serves only as an occasion for action, then ends.
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The idea of the future Superman working a fishing trawler or waiting tables, like Bill Bixby in the old Hulk series, is intriguing … but the filmmakers aren’t interested in depicting Clark enjoying manual labor or bonding with his fellow workers. Early scenes include glimpses of Clark Kent (Henry Cavill), not yet Superman, drifting anonymously from one odd blue-collar job to another, occasionally leaping into action when a disaster threatens lives, or a bullying trucker needs to be mysteriously punished by the inexplicable destruction of his rig. Who’d have thought that at nearly 50 Russell Crowe would be saving Lois Lane, not to mention the world, in a Superman movie?Ĭharacters are given almost no chance to breathe. Not only does Jor-El speak with Clark (as in past iterations) long after his own death, he also gets action scenes (both in life and posthumously), saves Amy Adams’ Lois Lane and masterminds his son’s ultimate attack plan. There are three separate Kryptonian expeditions to Earth - one of which has nothing to do with Kal-El or General Zod. Not to mention all the gizmos and effects that don’t get special names. Somehow the filmmakers have turned one of the simplest superhero origin stories into an overstuffed tale involving a Codex, a World Engine, a Genesis Chamber and a Phantom Drive (which I think gets converted to a warp engine, or vice versa, or possibly both). There’s too much plot, too many sci-fi conceits, too much technobabble, and almost certainly too many holes. (I say this as a lifelong lover of comic books and superhero movies, who put The Avengers on my 2012 top 10 list.) From a dragon-riding Russell Crowe as Superman’s father Jor-El battling the forces of Michael Shannon’s General Zod on Krypton, to a numbing finale so catastrophic that a sequel (or, mirabile dictu, a Justice League movie) would be hard-pressed to outdo it without destroying the planet, the film bludgeons the audience with scarcely any respite.