And as he battles Zod for Earth’s destiny, he must choose between saving humanity or letting Earth become New Krypton. Born an alien but raised a human, his character is tormented by a conflict that is at once existential and global. Behind the inscrutable good looks, his eyes flash with glimmers of intrigue, pain and lust. Also, when given half a chance, he can act. He looks stupendous in the suit, and with his chiselled features, he could be made of steel, ridiculously handsome in an other-worldly way. Henry Cavill is to the Man of Steel manor born. It allows for the gradual reveal of an actor who is perfectly cast, even though he’s British. Once we’re there, the narrative jumps back and forth between flashbacks of Clark Kent’s troubled boyhood, as Firestarter Kid struggling to contain his powers, and his early adulthood as a bearded labourer trying to mind his own business, when not anonymously saving lives. I found the Krypton sequences tedious and cheesy. The movie’s first act, which takes place on Krypton, unfolds as a space opera, in which super-advanced technology co-exists with warrior knights in armour. Before the planet goes boom, Zod is exiled for his crimes, which allows him to escape its destruction and hunt down Kal-El on Earth with his bad-ass army. As the doomsday clock ticks, Jor-El battles General Zod (Michael Shannon), then launches the Chosen One with a codex that contains the entire DNA of Krypton’s people. Krypton is about to vanish off the face of outerspace, imploding from bad environmental stewardship. The only son of Jor-El (Russell Crowe), he’s a born saviour, sent to rocketing to Earth as his people’s last shot at salvation. Kal-El, our alien baby in a manger, is a Christ figure from the word go. It takes Superman’s origin back to ground zero on Krypton, with the screams of his mother suffering through the planet’s first natural childbirth in 1,000 years-the first “origin” story to take its mandate so literally. Man of Steel is an origin story that deepens the mythology of the franchise with the Wagnerian complexity that has become Nolan’s signature.
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Too bad, because there’s a good movie buried in the rubble. There’s no visible bloodshed, just acres of what you might call “steelshed,” as the towers of Metropolis/Manhattan are lacerated, shredded, toppled and crushed in a shameless marathon of 9/11 porn. So before our Man of Steel can save the world from Zod’s alien army, it has to be all but demolished before our eyes. It’s no longer a question of “stopping” the apocalypse, just deciding how much of it to dish out before declaring victory over it. The apocalypse has become just another blockbuster trope, as obligatory as the chase, the fireball and the fist fight. But what is so magnificent about Man of Steel-the immaculate casting, the elegant design, the poise of the actors, the sweet spots of emotion-is overwhelmed by endless tableaux of destruction. I know it seems perverse to complain that there’s too much action in action movies.
And once again, carnage wins by a landslide. It’s the war between carnage and character that now rages at the heart of every comic book blockbuster. But after the dead-end reboot of Superman Returns (2006), I was as excited as anyone by the Man of Steel trailer, and encouraged to see the franchise gain some heft with director Zach Snyder ( 300, Watchmen) and producer/co-writer Christopher Nolan ( The Dark Knight).īut there’s a dirty war going on in Man of Steel, and I’m not talking about the earth-shaking showdown between Superman and Krypton’s genocidal General Zod. And trying to capture his virtue and invincibility in the flesh of film has always been a challenge.
Superman is the prototypical and Almighty superhero.
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And like a die-hard Maple Leafs fan, I’ve rooted for him over the years against all odds-from the original black-and-white TV show with George Reeve in a saggy suit through Christopher Reeve’s valiant run on the big screen. I think my first ambition was to be Superman. As someone old enough to have grown up on Superman comics when they were they were sold for a dime on newsstands, I’m ashamed to say I care deeply about this guy. Now the most anticipated blockbuster of summer has arrived, I wish I could embrace it with a review that’s more rapturous than mixed. Henry Cavill in 'Man of Steel' / Courtesy of Warner Bros.
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