Warner Bros., Legendary Pictures, Syncopy, DC Entertainment and Third Act Productions
Zack Snyder, director
David S. Goyer, writer
Henry Cavill, Amy Adams and Michael Shannon, stars
Today's headline is NOT a condemnation of the latest cinematic Superman reboot. In fact, I enjoyed it quite a bit.
As much as I still enjoy the first two Christopher Reeve "Superman" films, this one does a lot better job making use of the effects breakthroughs in the last 30 years to really convey the raw power of Superman. Reeve made us believe a man can fly, but that is not so uncommon these days in cinema. This film shows the utter destruction our world would suffer as the battleground for a pair of opposing Kryptonians. A good portion of Metropolis and almost all of downtown Smallville are pretty much trashed in the fight scenes included herein. Collateral damage would make both these cities poor vacation destinations for some time to come.
I won't go so far as to say this is a perfect Superman film; it's not. But it is very good and well worth your time to go and see.
Cavill does a good job portraying both the powerful alien Superman and the down-to-earth young Clark Kent, both looking for their place in this world. Shannon is superb as Zod, playing not so much a villain as the ultimate zealot, dedicated to his one goal -- the preservation of his species -- to the exclusion of all other considerations. Kevin Costner, Diane Lane and Laurence Fishburne perform their respective roles of Jonathan and Martha Kent and Perry White wonderfully. The inclusion of Richard Schiff as Dr. Emil Hamilton, a character from the comics, was a nice touch. And Amy Adams does a superb job bringing Lois Lane to life; she was just the right combination of hard-edged, no-nonsense reporter and soft, potential love interest. No one can call this Lois a damsel in distress as she is right in the thick of the action for most of the movie, by her own determination, but that doesn't mean Superman doesn't get the chance to swoop in and save her a time or two.
In fact, I only really have two little quibbles with the film that I'll mention here. The first is that I wish Superman had come up with a way to defeat Zod other than the one depicted. I don't condemn the movie for the path they chose. Film is a different media than comics where changes are sometimes necessary, and the film did a fair job justifying the final resolution they used. I still wish the Man of Steel had devised another way to save the people Zod was endangering at the moment to better portray a character that should be the absolute best we can all try to aspire to be.
The second thing deals with the flashbacks to Clark's childhood with Jonathan and Martha. I think it was an inspired bit of storytelling to depict those scenes as flashbacks throughout the film. To present them all at once, in chronological order, especially after the amount of time spent on Krypton at the outset of the film, would have been a mistake. Adding scenes here and there to emphasize points in the current time period scenes was a great call. But the final flashback, the one that shows Jonathan and Martha watching their son playing in the backyard with a red towel pinned to his shoulders, that scene pulled me right out of the movie.
I know what Snyder was going for there; what child hasn't played Superman with a red towel or blanket flapping behind him or her in the breeze? But it doesn't really make sense that Superman as a child would pretend to be Superman, someone who doesn't exist at the time when he is a child. My wife pointed out that young Clark might have just been pretending to be another generic hero, some fictional character he read about in comic books. There's no reason to think comic-book heroes couldn't exist when Superman was a child. I readily concede her point, but in my mind, young Clark was playing Superman there and that just isn't right.
No comments:
Post a Comment