Man Of Steel
Such was the enormous amount of respect that Hollywood had for the contributions of both Christopher Reeve and Richard Donner to the Superman cinematic legacy that in 2006, an unofficial “final chapter” to the Reeve saga was made without either the services of Reeve (who had died a couple of years earlier) or Donner, but it did utilize both snippets of Marlon Brando as Jor-El and John Williams’ bombastic score, featured a lead actor (Brandon Routh) who was clearly directed to emulate Reeve and his style of playing the role and most importantly made no bones about being a genuine sequel to if nothing else Donner’s Superman 2 (with the strong possibility that it even followed up the ill fated Part 4: The Quest For Peace) as it ended on the idea that Reeve / Routh / Donner’s Superman had actually fathered a son with Lois Lane but was resigned to have him be raised instead by Lois and her very human husband (much as he was) with the intent to watch over him and in time help him to understand his destiny much like Brando’s Jor-El had done for him. Nevertheless, this WAS the end for Donner’s saga (and Williams’ score) and Routh (who had believed that he would have first consideration for any further sequels) was dropped as the DC Comics Movie people worked on the Bale / Nolan Batman Trilogy instead and watched the impending success of the Marvel Universe’s Avengers saga. When the decision came to reboot Superman without Routh, that also meant that the entire cupboard would be cleared for a new backstory film and that not even Brando (even in death) would hold exclusive rights to play the role of Jor-El. So along came the “new” Superman in 2013 under the directorial eye of Zack Snyder (a guy who did brilliant work on Watchmen but has mostly faltered with almost everything else that he has done in his career) with the fans of Donner’s original work looking on. As far as the faithful casting of Superman / Clark Kent / Kal-El is concerned, it’s a pleasure to say that they actually found the right guy in one Henry Cavill, a British actor convincingly putting on an American brogue but more importantly, not making any attempt to directly copy Reeve at all, instead bringing his own brand of swagger and likability to the role and arguably coming out as being the best thing about this movie. As for Snyder as director, he brings a kind of schizophrenic mentality to the material, giving one the impression that he watched whole entire sections of Donner’s version before filming his own takes on certain key scenes so as not to desperately copy Donner in any way whatsoever when a little bit of homage in and of itself would have been perfectly fine and appropriate. Snyder also uses a disjointed flashback structure (possibly to bring Cavill onscreen earlier than expected) and even appears to have skipped over certain known, iconic bits (such as baby Kal-El landing on Earth) possibly out of fear that we are already overly familiar with such scenes. The movie starts off on Krypton with Russell Crowe taking on the role of Jor-El and while Crowe is no Brando, he’s certainly a very respectable choice if not for the fact that (unlike Donner), Snyder seems intent on rocketing through the Krypton scenes at a breakneck pace in order to get baby Kal-El out of there, blow up the planet and introduce us to the primary villain (since Lex Luthor was being saved for a later film) in Michael Shannon appearing to be on a low fiber diet as a constipated General Zod. Lacking the combination of menace and wit brought by Terence Stamp in favor of a laughably unconvincing and unintimidating wanna be badass, Shannon’s performance reeks of a guy trying to do a parody of unyielding military assholes without ever having even met such types(!), apparently thinking that talking out of the side of his mouth is a way of projecting authority so much so that the less seen of him the better whereas Stamp’s Zod we could watch giving orders all day long. As usual, once Superman arrives on Earth, we get the well done casting of Kevin Costner and Diane Lane as Jonathan and Martha Kent with a most unusual new twist given to Costner’s Jonathan as being someone who completely and absolutely discourages his adopted son from using his powers for any purpose on the basis that he will NEVER be accepted and instead suggests that Clark live a more quiet life and become a farmer (and in this version of the character, Jonathan is even willing to give his own life in order to maintain this particular edict rather than allow Clark to save him easily). The big twist here is in having Lois Lane (more sound casting in Amy Adams) catch on to a government conspiracy pertaining to a possible alien craft in the Arctic (The Fortress Of Solitude) and encountering Clark there while he is receiving his “education” from the long dead Jor-El. Her attempts to report on this actual alien encounter leads to her being given a 3 week vacation without pay from The Daily Planet by Perry White (Laurence Fishburne sporting a beer gut and for some strange reason an earring) but after an intensive personal investigation she actually winds up on Martha Kent’s front porch and her knowledge of Superman’s secret identity is known to her just like that (with no “memory kiss” in sight like Reeve used with Margot Kidder’s Lois nor is turning back the planet’s timeline an option). In fact, the screenplay seems so dedicated to reminding us every five minutes just how Superman is an alien from another world that when Zod and his surviving minions show up (having easily escaped The Phantom Zone after Krypton blew up), the film quickly starts giving us flashbacks to Independence Day and its scenes of mass destruction but only here the “death ray” that Zod intends to use is actually a terraforming ray that will transform Earth’s atmosphere into a replica of Krypton while killing all of the humans in the process (and emboldening Zod with a “us against them” attitude that not only paints Superman as being a traitor to his own people, but also shames Krypton itself as being a society that basically GOT WHAT THEY DESERVED IN THE FIRST PLACE especially with their tendency for genetic engineering) even as Jor-El (in hologram form) tells his son that the intention is to save the people of Earth from the same mistakes that The Kryptonians made which still belies the fact that much of Crowe’s inspiring dialogue is merely rewritten and rearranged variations of Brando’s monologues in the old movies (and having Crowe’s Jor-El appear as a full figured hologram as opposed to Brando’s wraith like appearance doesn’t quite have the same impact). Either way, as Zod’s terraforming death rays manages to kill thousands and Superman does hand to hand battle with his various minions (including an evil female obviously modeled after Sarah Douglas’ Ursa but given a different name here) in both Smallville and Metropolis, it becomes clear that the best that Snyder can give us for these fight scenes between two super powered beings is to show them repeatedly smacking into each other with tremendous force before throwing one or both of them through a CGI building and then upon reaching a stalemate they both just smack into each other yet again with more tremendous force with hardly any of the realistic nature (painstaking miniature model work remains far more effective than any CGI ever could) of Superman 2’s Duel Of The Fates in Metropolis with Zod, Non and Ursa and literally NONE of the humor that lightened up the earlier films. In fact, as seriously as this version takes itself (there seems to be an attempt here at being grounded in reality as the Nolan / Bale Dark Knight Trilogy was with the solemnness of dealing with an alien invasion), also gone completely is the whole entire “Jor-El is God and Superman is Jesus Christ” metaphor that had worked to a tee before, instead going in the route that now that we know that this ALIEN FROM ANOTHER PLANET is among us, can we really trust him (Zod’s arrival on Earth is what literally forces Superman to reveal himself as opposed to it being his own discretion)? In the end, while Cavill’s take on Superman is refreshingly well done (and Adams acquits herself just fine as Lois), the haphazard writing and directing along with Shannon’s bumblefuck take on Zod sinks this to a level where even with Jimmy Olsen being left out of the story as an annoying nuisance, this still fails to reignite one of the grandest of American movie franchises of any kind ever…
5/10