Man of Steel might better have been called When Gods Go to War or Apocalyptic Reasons NOT to Live in Metropolis or Smallville, Kansas but don’t let the action put you off. This was a good film. Epic even. In a few hours it provided a more coherent origin story and character development with the excellent use vignettes scattered throughout than Smallville ever did in eight interminable seasons of soap wangst. They drew a great deal on the Superman mythology in the development of the story with brief appearances by Lana Lang, Pete Ross and even a glimpse of the LexCorp logo (a future villain in films to come no doubt!) as well as having Clark Kent wandering the Earth in search of meaning and purpose. Lois Lane got to show why she was a credible journalist by working out so much of where Superman came from before the red cape and blue tights made an appearance. Minor characters had their significant moments in the sun to make contribution to the story and their own fair share of good lines. Even the Colonel got chance to show why he was such a bad ass in a fight scene with the super powered invaders. What do you do when every bomb, missile, tank busting Gatling cannon, ranged assault weapon and best of the best soldier has failed to do anything more than temporarily (at best) knock down the oncoming armoured bad girl and her cohorts and you are left alone to look death in the face? Pull a knife because, well, you never know until you try and giving up is for wusses! This reboot has to be the best Superman film to date with no real exception coming to mind. And the wide range of age groups crowding into the theatre to see this film says a great deal about the strength of popular culture in our world and the desire for iconic heroic figures for all the deconstruction of the same in recent decades. Speaking of heroes, what are they without a villain to contend with and in General Zod we have a fully developed villain who was not in it for the evils but because, from the moment of his inception he was engineered to be the ruthless defender Krypton, its people and way of life. In many ways he did not become a monster until that was taken away from him. Soundtrack, story and special effects were all excellently done. One problem I do have with epic films with their epic action sequences in the middle of major urban areas, or even small town America. We see super being and super science cause the need for instant urban renewal but no real mention of the collateral damage that would occur with such battles. No mention of the orphans, the widows and widowers, the dispossessed, casaulities amoung the first responders or anyone else who would be effected by the carnage. That aside, roll on the next film or maybe its time for that long proposed Justice League film we keep on hearing about! Certainly something to keep Marvel on its toes anyway.
Posted on: Tue, 02 Jul 2013 23:08:23 +0000