Saturday 15 June 2013

Man Of Steel Review


Trying to review Man Of Steel is more difficult than you might think. You see it's like the egg fried chilli chutney sanwidge (see Red Dwarf) All the ingredients are wrong. The director is wrong, Zack Snyder is only slightly better than Michael Bay when it comes to hack direction. Just see 300 and Sucker Punch. David S. Goyer is infamous for balls-ing up his own scripts. Seriously he might have done the first take on Batman Begins but he is also directly responsible for both the abysmal Blade Trinity and Nick Fury, Agent of Shield (back when it was played by the Hoff. Seriously look it up) So he's hit and miss. Christopher Nolan, most famous for his Batman Films, is great with psychological stuff but that's just an aspect of Superman. Not the whole thing.  On top of that we have a complete reboot of the franchise. Always decisive.

These are all bad ingredients, but together they sort of worked. It's first hurdle was to set itself apart from the Chris Reeve movies, which it did. It's second was to not distance itself too much from the source, again made a good job of that. We got some nice motivation from Zod and Jor-El that played into the overall plot, but not enough exploration of that concept. At least for me, but more on that later.

Spoilers after the Jump but if you just want an arbitrary score, Good film that has it's flaws, but still very enjoyable. If you like action, Superman or just a couple hours of mindless entertainment go and watch but it ain't as good as it could have been

So, Jump




This is why reviewing this is a problem, you would think I was being insulting with the dislike of Snyder, Goyer and the gang, but it somehow comes together. It's not flawless by a long chalk, but it is fun. There are, however, ways I would improve it. For example After the Prologue on Krypton I'd have jumped straight to Lois POV. Using bits like the Oil Rig rescue as flashbacks from the outside perspective. We could have seen and discovered his past on Earth along with her, working backwards through his life. Again it would have distanced itself from the other films that bit more and been a bit more cohesive 

However I will say, without a shadow of a doubt, Lois learning Clark's true identity and how it was handled here was perhaps the best part of the film. Another good part that I thought was well handled was when the military shot at everyone, Superman included. Clark had to earn the trust of the army and in the end they're still a little wary of him. For perhaps the first time we got, on screen, an explanation for the Fall of Krypton. A combination of dwindling resources, a strict cast system that was reinforced by a draconian form of population control and an atrophy of general social & scientific understanding. It is literally a civilisation that has naturally reached it's end. Does it deserve to survive or should it just pass on, leaving it's knowledge and wisdom for another perhaps a worthy successor?

No prizes for guessing who thinks what, but it's something that's not been looked at in quite the same way before.

Now what I'm going to do is highlight what I think the biggest flaw of the film was, by looking at how it worked in other Superman on screen depictions. That is the Lois and Clark relationship.

Chris Reeve & Margot Kidder 
Poor Reeve, he was acting his backside off in those last two movies and the scripts let him down. That's not the point though. The point is Kidder just didn't have it. Reeve pretty much cemented Superman as his iconic role in the second movie. In a single shot, without any cuts or trick edits, he went from bumbling Kent to man of tomorrow simply by straightening his shoulders. With that one action he showed how they were seen differently, how his disguise was more than a set of glasses. It was the attitude, the presentation and the idea. Kidder didn't come close to matching him. To her Lois was a love struck school girl, she as much admitted she didn't know the character and as such didn't get that Lois is an equal to Superman, not some hanger-on that gets into trouble all the time.
Sorry to say it's Kidder's no sell of Lois that has always put me off this version of the relationship and has always affected how much I enjoy the films.

Dean Cain & Teri Hatcher 
"Lois & Clark the New Adventures of Superman" the whole show was based around the relationship and by the third season that became the problem, but we're not looking at that. We're looking at the Chemistry of the actors. Cain and Hatcher actually seemed to be friends, they worked well off each other and had fun with the more stupid plot twists. By the fourth season they were happily married and despite a little difficulty with some bargain basement time travel, ghosts of long dead housewives looking for revenge and Dimension swapping villains that used hypnosis to rig an election pulled together quite nicely.
They sold the idea that they were two adults in love. They knew what they were expecting from each other and wanted to share the world with someone that would help enrich their experiences.

Tom Welling & Erica Durance
Yes Smallville, and I'll argue the only good thing about Smallville was the chemistry between these two. Everyone and their brother knew how it was going to go, those two crazy kids were going to get together. Even better they proved that, finishing each others sentences, teasing one another and quickly becoming good friends. The relationship grew naturally. They weren't instantly in love, these to grew to love one another. Again you can tell Durance and Welling are, much like Cain and Hatcher, good friends. Sometimes it felt like their friendship was actually getting in the way of their acting out the Romance.
Welling and Durance sold the concept of two friends growing closer.

So here's my point, Each version of the core romance is different, that's what makes each version of the familiar story unique. And here's the problem there's nothing really lie that in Man Of Steel. Sure the Romance is there but it doesn't feel quite right. There is no foundation. They don't share quite enough screen time or quiet moments for any chemistry they may have to work. I'm going to give you an example. There is a bit where Clark tells Lois how his father died, it's a fantastic moment. The actors in both flashback and real time do a great job. It's emotional and a good motivation for Clark. It also helps connect the two leads emotionally and that's the bit that wasn't quite driven home. We cut from the two of them talking at the cemetery to the two in the cemetery.

There's no movement, no development. I'm not talking about him flying off with her, perhaps just move to a bench, or the pair of them sitting on a wall with their back to the grave. That's what's missing here. Those little beats that make them more human, more relatable. We just needed a moment, here and there. Clark's doubt about destroying what was left of Krypton, a shot where we see Lois deciding not to run with the story, holding on Perry for that moment longer after he shouts at lois to show he's looking at a bigger picture. A longer shot of Zod, seeing the devastation of Krypton and all his dreams come crashing down, so that it resonates with what happens later. 

It might have made the film longer but perhaps a Directors Cut with some of these moments added would make this film infinitely better. A chance to breath To go back to the recipe metaphor it's that one last pinch of seasoning that shows a master from a bumbler with a cookbook.


I still liked the film and will still get it on DVD but I'm not sure I'll see it again in the cinema. Not when Much ado About Nothing is still playing

1 comment:

  1. I doubt I'll get it on DVD or Bluray, I'm a bit more stringent now that we have Netflix and Hulu. If it's a fantastic movie (like Now You See Me was) then it's worth it to shell out the money for a copy, If not...

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