Man Of Steel (2013) Movie Review

Director: Zack Snyder

Writers: David S. Goyer, Christopher Nolan

Starring: Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon

When I first saw the trailer for Man of Steel, I was excited to see another DC movie with Christopher Nolan working on it after the Dark Knight. A lot of people really enjoyed the movie many hated it. While it isn’t the worst movie I have ever seen, I heavily disliked it.

One issue the movie has is

that it’s apparent that DC only wants to reboot Superman because of the success that Marvel has had with their cinematic universe. I didn’t see the need for another Superman lineage at the moment since the character is pretty much the least interesting thing that has ever existed. By the end of the movie, that opinion wasn’t changed at all.

The first half of the movie had some enjoyable scenes. For instance, the one where he crucifies a truck was moderately funny. The problem here is that many of the scenes were unnecessary. In one bewilderingly short scene, Kal-el saves some people from a burning… oil rig. You could say that this was showing the audience what he is capable of but he doesn’t really do much. He basically grabs onto a massive pole and doesn’t catch on fire. Scenes like this are peppered about the movie. Laurence Fishburne’s boring version of J. Jonah Jameson is in about two scenes and contributes far less than Laurence Fishburne should. (On top of this he has no character at all.)

Omitting the first scene on Krypton, the film is rather subdued until the third act when the action gets cranked up to twelve. Phantom Drives get put over Metropolis, World Engines start terraforming for some reason and I’m pretty sure there was a Genesis Chamber somewhere in the mix. It’s actually incredible that they did the whole ‘Zod’s going to laser some random people’ moment because he had clearly already murdered countless extras. When the people start flying, nothing matters and nothing makes any sense and I lost interest.

The movie tries to reboot Superman in a gritty and Christopher Nolan way than it’s spandex predecessors. It definitely succeeds in that but leaves that viewer with a load and nonsensical shell of a movie. Any early enjoyment I found was negated by the disinteresting final third.

Recommendation Status: Not worth watching at all.

Please feel free to leave a comment on either the movie or the review. Say if you liked or disliked the movie. I'm interested to find out what you think!