Man of Steel

Plot: Jor-El (Russell Crowe) sends baby Kal/Superman (Henry Cavill) to Earth just as Jor-El is killed by General Zod (Michael Shannon). Kal lands on earth, and in the next scenes the young Clark Kent is keeping a low profile but saving people's lives when he needs to. Reporter Lois Lane (Amy Adams) notices and eventually confronts Clark, and she figures out that he is a space alien. Just then, General Zod arrives on Earth to terraform it and turn it into a new Krypton. Clark gets out his Superman costume, and goes to battle so humans are not exterminated.  From then on, buildings are smashed and smashed and smashed and eventually the movie ends. After the movie should have ended, there are extra scenes to set up the sequel.  [imdb]    [photos]

Review: Why did people complain about John Carter?  It was twice as good as Man of Steel. The beginning of Man of Steel was interesting, but once Superman puts on the cape, the movie is doomed. 

Man of Steel was unpleasant, especially the fight sequences at the end, which are pointless and unwatchable. By the time General Zod himself is fighting instead of his henchmen/woman, I was beyond caring about buildings falling down. 

It starts out well enough with the back story on Krypton -- it was stilted but Russell Crowe and Mom Antje Traue played the birth and then destruction of Krypton with suitable angst and emotion. I liked the early General Zod scenes on Krypton when it was unclear if he was a friend or a foe. The art direction of the Krypton set was modern and steampunk -- I thought it was interesting. 

The problem with Superman is that he too powerful to be interesting. When he is fighting with his super opponents, it was like two armored knights hitting each other with Nerf swords --  they couldn't do enough damage to hurt each other. Superman and Zod never figured this out: they kept beating on each other as if they were trying to get exercise.

The sound track was all orchestral by Hans Zimmer, and was suitably grand but not inspired.  I bought one song online, the drum-heavy, battle music 'You Die or I Do.' The special effects were OK, but got boringly repetitive. It would have been better in 3D.

Cast: Henry Cavill, Russell Crowe, Michael Shannon, Amy Adams

Directed by: Zack Snyder, who directed 300 and Watchmen.

Rating: 1.5 stars: not recommended.

 

More: World Engine is a great name of a science fiction device. Whatever a World Engine is, it has got to be cool.

Even more: [Minor Spoiler] Why did Superman have to fly through the center of the Earth?

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