Cole's Rating: ★★★
Jesse's Rating: ★★★
Director: Zack Snyder
Year: 2013
Cast: Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Kevin Costner, Diane Lane, Russell Crowe
Genre: Action/Adventure/Fantasy
MPAA Rating: PG-13
To date, Man of Steel is my second favorite film so far this year. Now given, it hasn’t been an incredible year for movies, I still think that this is a cinematic achievement—for some of its totality. My only wish for a movie like this, which is chock full of ambitious and irresistible elements, is that it could withhold its magnitude for the entirety of its running time. Director Zack Snyder isn’t capable of making this happen, but who knows that it was really him? Maybe Michael Bay swooped in towards the second half of the film and took over. I swear that I saw his fingers around the lenses of the camera during the action scenes. And if I should say so myself, they were tinted a bit green.Man of Steel begins with the introduction of the knock-out cast. Russell Crowe plays Jor-El, Superman’s father who sends him to Earth in a last second attempt to preserve his life from the apocalyptic (or soon-to-be apocalyptic) Krypton. A cold Michael Shannon plays General Zod, a Krypton-trained warrior who wants to rebuild his home planet on Earth. And finally, Henry Cavill plays the Superman character quite well, however, comparably not as good as Tom Welling in the Superman series titled Smallville. But as the movie progresses, I discovered that Cavill became more and more comfortable in the main role (and unshaven, might I add). Amy Adams looks the part as Lois Lane, who’s under-developed relationship with Superman is only a cause for the inevitable sequel. Kevin Costner also plays a big role in the movie, even though his screen time may be miniscule. He helps build the backbone for Superman as a child, and his performance is Academy-Award worthy (he is in the best scenes of the movie). The cast is excellent, the story is riveting, and it’s all carried out through a series of both chronological storytelling and flashbacks.
You may ask, “what could go wrong?”. Well, instead of continuing the movie’s epic case of storytelling, it takes the easy, Hollywood way out by turning the whole thing into a sabotage picture: blowing things up and tearing buildings down. I will give the director credit though. Something that he possesses that most directors do not is the ability to be imaginative with the action scenes. I’ve never seen anything like it. So I guess I was wrong about seeing Michael Bay’s hands; after all, he could never make action scenes like this. I guess the greenish color was foreshadowing Snyder’s greater success (not to mention monetary benefits) to come, maybe even with Man of Steel 2.
I took my nine-year-old brother to this picture, and I don’t think I will take him to another like this again. The movie takes a lot of intriguing plot turns, which is something that he had a hard time keeping up with. In fact, I think that’s what I liked about the first half of the movie. The plot is constantly developing at a nice, breezy pace, and the only thing that you might have to say is to slow down. I only found myself saying it once, as I was thoroughly impressed with how interesting the tellings panned out. Let’s hope that between our viewing of this and our viewing of the sequel, Snyder starts reading books instead of watching Transformers. That is if he decides to stick with it.
-Written by Cole Pollyea
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