Look, it’s a bird! No, it’s a plane! Worse, it’s Zack Snyder’s “Man of Steel,” a bomb of heroic proportions torpedoing its way towards a multiplex near you to steal 2 1/2 hours of your life and $10 of your money. How this could have been touched by moviemaking Midas himself, Christopher Nolan, truly escapes me.
I personally saw nothing horrendously wrong with Bryan Singer’s “Superman Returns,” though I haven’t seen it since 2006 (a fact that may ultimately speak loudest to its quality). However, I can point out a number of gaping flaws in “Man of Steel.” It’s one thing to leave a movie nonplussed but another entirely to be angry. If you hadn’t already guessed, I was the latter upon leaving this film.
Most issues seemed to spring from the lackluster story. The film takes on the practically futile task of humanizing Superman/Clark Kent/Kal-El, an invincible being. He’s always had an identification problem because, well, how many of us can relate to someone who is essentially perfect? (I’ll speak for myself and say that I certainly cannot.) While the drama of Clark’s grappling with his power is relatively compelling, it’s told only in brief flashbacks.
And these scenes with his adoptive parents, played by Kevin Costner and Diane Lane, really only serve to play into the overarching Messianic allegory of the entire film. I’m certainly not opposed to such grand implications, but they need to be done well (such as they were in Tom Hooper’s “Les Misérables“). “Man of Steel” feels completely disingenuous, exploiting spirituality for its own gain. If it were any more obvious about its overloaded metaphor, Henry Cavill’s Superman would be wearing the letter t across his chest.