Jim's Movie Reviews: Man Of Steel

Even while critics gave it a barely passing grade, director Zack Snyder's Man Of Steel went the distance this past weekend to set box-office records for a June opener.  So, who's right, the ticket-buying audience or the film buffs? Is Man Of Steel similar in tone or quality to the 1978 Superman, or 2006's Superman Returns?  Read on for my take, and find out whether you fall into the category of person likely to enjoy this film.  This review will avoid spoilers where practical, and assumes some knowledge of the Superman mythos to this point.  It will also use the 1978 Superman as a vehicle for comparison at several opportunities.

Director Zack Snyder is probably best known for the visually lavish, if not historically accurate, 300, as well as the controversial comic-to-film effort Watchmen.    So he has a certain pedigree when it comes to making films based on comics characters.  It should be noted that in both cases, Snyder had a visual palette from which to work...in the case of Watchmen, he filmed a cut of the movie that was almost a shot-for-shot remake of the books (heavily edited for the cinematic release, however).  This time around, Snyder had David S. Goyer's script to work from, a script whose story architecture was reportedly penned by none other than Christopher Nolan, father of the recent Batman trilogy.

Man Of Steel takes the same path as many recent re-boots of popular franchises, and unlike 2004's Superman Returns is a departure from the mythos first envisioned by Richard Donner in 1978.  It's yet another origin story for the character that re-tells the events surrounding his birth, but adds back-story and plot elements to the last days of Krypton that have far-reaching effects throughout the film. The first act concerns the destruction of Krypton and the infant Kal El's flight to Earth.  The second mostly concerns the young Clark Kent (Henry Cavill) wrestling with his power and abilities, and the third concerns his revelation to the world, and his conflict with General Zod (Michael Shannon) and the denizens of Krypton that hope to re-make Earth in its image.    

Visually, the film is what you would expect, given its lineage:  Flat, cool color tones, stark and imposing landscapes, and more often than not, strange alien architecture.  The film spends a surprising amount of time both on Superman's home world of Krypton, as well as inside various Kryptonian vehicles come to Earth.  Gone are the towering spires of lighted crystal from Donner's '78 effort:  This Krypton is an imposing brown cut with alien architecture right out of a Geiger painting.  The second act, changing settings between the American mid-west and Alaska territories, fares no better with the somber tones set forth in the first, and finally the washed-out greys that dominate the third act's city-scapes and alien spacecraft are occasionally punctuated by Superman's grey...er...red and blue costume.

The chief problems with the screenplay start to crop up in the first act:  It seems a compulsion for this movie to wish to one-up past efforts in the superhero genre in the action and visuals.  For example, one of the opening scenes concerns Jor El (Russel Crowe) witnessing an assassination by the rogue General Zod then fleeing home to secure his son's launch in the rocket destined for earth.  Instead of making his way across a war-torn capital city on foot, or even in a mechanical personal conveyance of some kind, he mounts a dragon, then flies home from work looping and wheeling through an epic aerial battle right out of a Star Wars prequel.  These types of excesses dominate the first and third acts of the film, to a degree that would make Michael Bay blush.  The needless pageantry is exposed for what it is when Jor arrives home (well, the dragon-landing pad outside his home), dismounts his mortally-wounded steed, and discovers that the General has all but beaten him there, Tortoise and The Hare style. Once the plot pieces are in place to begin the second act, the battle conveniently and abruptly halts, tipping the writers' hand to the utility of the device.

The second act calms a little but nevertheless favors a different type of excess.  The narrative jumps back and forth from Clark's childhood to young adulthood, and the story suffers a little here for a lack of rhythm and clear buildup of the character arc.  All the material is there for a significant look at the character, including the most poignant dialogue between his foster father Jonathan (Kevin Costner), but there are few, if any, scenes of Clark or the Kent family just being people.  In the same way that the pageantry of the first act is spoiled by excess, so is the gravitas of the second act diluted by repetitive story beats and dialogue of a singular theme.  Every word out of Jonathan's mouth is a bit of grandfatherly sage advice, to the point where you half expect a ray of sunshine to punctuate his every utterance. I don't think he has one line of dialogue in the whole film that sounds like something Dad would say, no "can you cut the grass" or "pass me the potatoes", just a constant stream of prophetic wisdom.  Every scene centered on Clark involves his actively using or not using his powers, and although the choices are explained, you're robbed of a chance to see the moral center of the character and his love for humanity develop in the rich way portrayed in Superman. Jonathan gives Clark reasons to jealously guard his secret, and those reasons compel him to the point where he must, eventually, be forced to step out of the shadows.  I don't have a problem with this change in the character's arc, except to say that it robs the Superman character of a certain moral center to suggest that all his life he was counselled to avoid revealing himself even at the cost of human lives.  Snyder tries to play up the iconography of the character in a scene in a church, but it's so heavy-handed and club-you-over-the-head subtle that it evokes laughter.  The 1978 Superman had a far superior second act when it came to the development of the character, and it was done with half the screen time spent on Clark's upbringing.

For some audience members, the third act is the part they paid to see, and for others, it's where the thing disintegrates completely.  It is for this that I am most hesitant to recommend either one way or another on this film:  The third act of Man Of Steel is an hour-long pitched battle, pure and simple.  And what a battle it is:  Skyscrapers fall, the earth is torn, the army attacks, city blocks are picked up and slammed down, alien space ships fire bolts of energy, trains are de-railed, satellites are hurled out of orbit, etc.  For an hour.  The third act doesn't build, it simply arrives, and it's not over until its over, so to speak.  Any one of Snyder's action scenes, when taken on its own, can be regarded as wonderful for its powerful imagery and beautifully moving pieces. But for all their thunder and calamity, you never get the sense that either combatant is against the ropes for more than a second or so between landing blows.  There's no lull, and therefore no rhythm to speak of, just spectacular yet inconsequential violence.  Superman on occasion stops to aid a human soldier, but he evinces almost no concern whatever for the workaday human populace.  In real-world terms, the off-screen death toll from his fight with Zod would have been staggering, yet no concern is evident until the very end, when Superman is forced(?) to make a decision that runs counter to what many fans expect of the character.

So, is it a good movie?  Partially.  See, Snyder gets the imagery and iconography right, and there is a compelling arc and poignant story notes scattered throughout the second act....I just don't think Snyder gets the music of it. Some story notes are shouted too loudly, others drowned by the thunderous drums of action set-pieces destroyed, and some are too brief or too out of sync to be of consequence.  Yes, it's a clearly recognizable three-act play, but it could have benefited from some choice editing of the third act, the inclusion of some humanizing script for the second act, and a minor re-write of the first to tone the narrative down a little.  Yes, some of the character choices in the script are interesting when evaluated out of context, but I don't know if the writers realize what was lost when they made Jonathan a jealous guardian rather than a guiding hand.  It's strange how, with as many glimpses of greatness as this film gives us, and all the talk about changing the world, it simply doesn't end up feeling like anything special...and the reasons for this are so plainly evident and easily fixable.  

Lemme see...how to rate this...I know, I'll use a sliding scale!  Find the byte below that best describes you, and you'll find your rating for Man Of Steel right after.

The Blockbuster:  You know who Superman is, but you don't read comics and you're not a fan of the '78 film (that wishy-washy rom-com with Margot Kidder that is, like, ancient) due to its slow pacing and obvious 70's special effects. You think that modern CGI is a chance to show some really cool battle scenes. You loved the Transformers movies, and think Iron Man 3 was the obvious best in the series.  Your rating:  9 out of 10.

The Andy Warhol:  You know the Superman character, and what he stands for, but you're more into the visuals than anything else.  You want to see Superman holding up a building, standing in front of a stained glass window, flying through space, on fire, in an H.R. Geiger painting, etc. You thought Sucker Punch was one of that year's best films. Your rating:  8 out of 10

The Fanboy:  You're dying to see this film.  You've waited 35 years for Superman to be done right again, and the previews are looking good.  You're very familiar with the Donner films, and happen to enjoy several comics and animated takes on the character throughout the years.  You think Waid's Birthright was really cool.  Your rating:  6 out of 10

The Keeper Of The Flame:   You are familiar with Superman's comic history, and can debate for hours on why silver age Superman is superior to any other published work in the last 30 years.  You think the Donner films were "interesting", but can't stomach the liberties they took with the character and the obvious non-canon approach to the character's back story.  Your Rating:  3 out of 10

Jim's Comic Reviews - Week of 9 January

Fantastic Four #3

So, now that we've settled in, what can we glean about the direction Fraction and co. have undertaken with this title? I have to say, it's exactly as expected:  The first family of comics is in another realm entirely, disconnected from the events of Earth-616, partaking in adventure of a very Trek or Lost in Space vibe.   Bagley's art is competent, Mount's colors are all very whiz-bang, as you'd expect on such a title, and the characters are true to their nature...but I'm a little bored with it, to be honest.  The one thing the issue lacks is a complex, motivated nemesis, and the being they encounter instead is very Trek-like and just...well, generic sci-fi. It's all very predictable, and this is one title that's gotta be anything but.  The vibe they're going for is "boundless adventure" and what you get is something that, although executed with competence, you've seen before.  If 50's and 60's sci-fi nostalgia is what trips your trigger, I'd say give it a look-see, but even then, if you're more Whovian than Trekkie in your taste for weird sci-fi plots you'll want to give it a pass.  For myself, I've seen this episode dozens of times, it's just that Shatner was playing his own version of Mr. Fantastic.

Thunderbolts #3

I gotta say, this was a fun read.  Way's giving us a motley of characters that are all very broken, and delights in those moments of interplay within the team that make the book what it is. He's one of those few that can get legitimate, consistent hilarity out of the over-used Deadpool, who's played as the perfect foil to everyone else's weighty concerns. Dillon's art is what it is, though...you never want for clues as to the characters' emotional states, and the storytelling, character blocking and composition is all there...but there's an element of same-face to characters and, well, to put it bluntly there's just something wrong with everyone's mouths and eyes.  The line weights are just too uniform around facial features and they lack any sense of texture. That, and character movements and poses are all very uninspired.  With a character like Red Hulk, for example, I want more "tank-like" and less "slightly taller than Frank Castle, if you check his driver's license" That being said, this title is going on my pull list tomorrow, great art or no.

Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files:  Ghoul Goblin #1

Apparently, there's a set of novels and a tv show about this Dresden guy, and I've never seen any of it...go figure.  I'm judging the work as an introduction to a reader who's starting out cold, so fans should bear that in mind.  Love the art work in this issue: the Cooper/Mohan team gives us images well suited for the story, which concerns the adventures of Harry Dresden, Wizard-For-Hire.  Now, that's a job title that just screams for a unique character and a bizarre plot to go with it.  While the plot here seems original in it's underpinnings, the execution is rather flat. I haven't followed the character in works past, so maybe there's back-story and motivation I'm unaware of that fans will just "get", but I didn't think the book did a convincing job of laying out the basics.  I'm thinking they were going for "hard-boiled" and "noir-ish", but they end up with a sort of faceless guy who deals in the fantastic in a way that's very parochial.  I don't recommend it as an introduction for non-fans of the character, but I'd guess that long-time fans might like it.

Batman Detective Comics #16

While the issue is without the mask cover of the other, sometimes more relevant, pieces of the Death Of The Family crossover event, it does have the crossover billing over the marqis.  I suppose the guts of the story  kinda depend on DotF going on, but it's definitely a side-line arc that could have, with a few tiny tweaks, ended up well outside the bounds of the crossover.  Nevertheless, Layman once again lays out a tight, engaging script that's perfectly suited for the title, and could definitely stand as it's own story. An up-and-coming villain is bent on taking control of the Gotham crime syndicate currently headed by the Penguin, and he's definitely proving himself willing to embrace Gotham's own brand of intricate, violent weirdness to do it. Layman is setting us up for many issues to come, and it's a fun ride.  The art is pretty stellar, too.

Thor God Of Thunder #4

Just go buy it already.  I can't believe Marvel is putting out such consistent quality with this title at such a fast pace.  Probably the best run of Thor since JMS was on the character a few years back, and I daresay it's even better.  The art, imho, is a runaway best of the new Marvel NOW! line, and I'd put it up against any current monthly title by any publisher.

Action Comics #16

Somewhere in here is a good Superman story, I'm convinced of it...but it seems, once again, Mr. Morrison has confounded it with a jumbled aesthetic and an incomprehensible narrative, and it'll probably take another six issues to glean enough pieces to even begin the work of puzzling it all together.  Maybe it is hard to come up with an unfamiliar-sounding Superman story after 75 years, but is the character so far gone that finding such a story involves LSD?

Earth 2 #8

Earth 2 has been on-again, off-again with the quality, but I thought this issue was rather solid.  It gives us a view from the other side of the conflict, and really serves to cement the idea that in this dimension, things can be allowed to spiral out of control, upsetting the status quo on a world scale and examining the consequences in a way that, let's face it, you just can't in the regular DCU, no matter how many times you push the reboot/reset button.  The Steppenwolf of Earth 2, having been trapped on the wrong side of a boom tube, is embracing the new world he's found himself in, and like Caesar in Gaul, he's got his sights set on conquering the scattered barbarians he finds there and bringing them to heel.  Convenient, then, that he's found the perfect fictional nation to home base in.  This title is, the way I see it, so very necessary to DC as a sort of end-game fulfillment of the what they billed the New 52 reboot as being:  Truly new, truly different...and assertively NOT dependent on 75 year-old characters in familiar settings with familiar motivations, to make it tick.  All in all, a very good read, if a tad on the dry side.

Superior Spider-Man #1

I've made no bones on the podcast nor in previous blog entries about the fact I think some of the decades-old characters of comics could use an ending to their stories...in truth, I've found the idea of a new psyche inhabiting the body of Spider-Man immensely intriguing, perhaps even worthy of an indefinite status with one of Marvel's linchpin properties.  But do I end up liking this character?  I don't know yet.  Octavius of the comics has always been written as kinda petty, and while it is an interesting premise to have such a self-centered mind saddled with Parker's everlasting guilt trip, yet stuck in a body capable of the sort of wish fulfillment every villain dreams of, you still get the sense things are in a state of flux, and it's tough, at least in this first issue, to get behind it.  You want the diverse motivational elements to get to detente, so you can take a look at the singular result with new eyes, but you still get the sense this is two characters jumbled into one, ala someone like Firestorm.  Perhaps it's just the stutter of changing gears, and things will all shake out after we've had some time with the character.  Nevertheless, it is FUN, and treated somewhat lightly, and I'm genuinely interested in a Spider-Man title for the first time in years.  Stegman's art is perfect for the cartoony, frenetic tone of OctoParker's endeavors, and it's scripted about as well as can be expected.  Good for Mr. Slott for venturing down this path...we could use a few more such risks with established characters....and a risk, it definitely is.

Anyway, it's been a great week for comics.  Thanks for reading!  

Superheroes: Why Can't They Die?

"Death is a fact of life," is a phrase I think we've all heard at one time or another.  It's a fact of art, too.  It's portrayed in film in every fashion imaginable, from casual slayings in action and horror movies, to tearful goodbyes in more sentimental efforts, to dramatic disappearances (off a cliff, into a vortex) of the main villain in various Disney films.
Being truthful, as I look back on my childhood, some of my first emotional experiences of death were fictional portrayals in media.  The slaying of Bambi's father and the execution of Ol' Yeller were experiences that pre-date any real wake services I was allowed to attend, at least according to my memory.  At those points in my life, if I'm honest with my self, a vague knowledge of the story of the Passion of Christ, imparted via Sunday mass and the teachings of my parents, simply didn't hit as hard.
I think I was about three when I remember accidentally seeing someone killed on a tv show. I think they had been shot, but however it was, I remember clearly thinking that it were real, and my mortified parents having to explain to me that it was an imaginary thing, and that the actor was indeed ok. As I grew older, of course there were more fictional portrayals, many treated with less care for younger sensibilities:  The death of King Kong, the act of revenge in a saw mill in Walking Tall, the administration of various coups de grace by Mr. James Bond, are all stand-out movie experiences in my mind. My experiences with assigned reading in early adolescence were no doubt more meaningful:  The devastating mercy-killing of Lennie in Of Mice And Men,  Finny's death, preceded by a supreme act of forgiveness, in A Separate Peace.  For myself, I was an avid reader of science fiction and fantasy by the time I was twelve, and even these rarely shied from portrayals of death both meaningful and incidental.  I'll never forget reading The Lord of the Rings for the first time, and realizing that Tolkien, at the height of his storytelling power, had created in his fantasy world a place where death was not only re-defined metaphorically, but as a matter of the economy of his universe as well. I would wonder later if, having experienced world wars, the author had a need to ascribe additional meaning to a character death than was likely for the vast majority of the millions who died senselessly in those conflicts.
And yes, death is portrayed in comics.  In fact, if one were to list the most impactful comics in recent memory, they almost to a one portray the death of some important character.  Alan Moore's Watchmen,  DC's first (and last) Crisis event, the Death of Superman, the assassination of Captain America, The Dark Knight Returns, the list goes on....and now, as I write this, Spider-Man is seemingly joining the ranks.  But he isn't truly dead, to be sure....these super-heroes just can't stay dead, can they?  Even Rorschach survives in print media after his obliteration, having wholly and completely served his character's purpose, albeit in prequel fashion in some inferior attempt to ring the registers one more time without covering any new, meaningful ground (in my humble opinion).  Why is that?
Part of it, to be sure, is in their nature as characters:  What is Superman, if not an icon of human virtue set loose with all our human frailties erased?  We've been ascribing such abilities to gods and goddesses, to magical beings of folklore and myth and religion for thousands of years...why wouldn't illustrated fiction create a character with abilities "far beyond those of mortal men"?  And why wouldn't such a character survive through the decades?  What is Batman, but a timeless representation of human need for justice and order amidst the deadly chaos of lawlessness?  A character who, in every respect, represents the pinnacle of human aspiration....the perfect detective, the most knowledgeable of consultants, the most capable martial artist, the richest of businessmen, the most prepared to defeat evil. His connection to his parents (really, the only thing distinctly human about him), and their death, represents a life-debt owed him by criminality that can never be paid, despite his unceasing efforts to collect, and connects us to the character in ways as old as civilization.  We've all experienced loss, we all have a need for order, we all fear lawlessness but are occasionally subject to circumstances that don't demonstrate care for the well-being of ourselves or our loved ones.  Who wouldn't want to read about a character who, although human, ceaselessly prepares for the worst, who stays at the pinnacle of physical prowess, whose mental faculties are forever keen, who stands as a bulwark of order in the darkness...who, after remaining in his thirties for 75 years, give or take, is human AND immortal? The cardinal sin in the latest cinematic portrayal of the character, for many fans, was that Batman demonstrated human frailty:  He wasn't prepared.  His detective skills weren't perfect.  He aged, he lost, and eventually, having experienced both fundamental loss and fleeting moments of triumph, he stopped.
And what is Spider-Man, but an iconic portrayal of the responsibility of those entrusted with great power?  Of the human need, even in the face of time's unrelenting march forward, to attempt to re-set the clock with actions that, however heroic, cannot affect the failings of the past?  The character, no matter how many punches he delivers, can't change the story of how his uncle was killed, and what he could have done to prevent it.  We, the readers, can see the futile nature of this conflict with things already past.  Strange, then, that some of those same readers purporting to "love" the character of Peter Parker, and who indubitably "get" the nature of his heroism at odds with a past he can't change, seem to balk at the seeming end of his story....as if the ending of that story could invalidate fifty years of storytelling...as if his humanity (you know, the humanity Marvel became a household name for giving their characters in the first place) and mortality were the absolute worst thing a writer could illustrate.  To me, the events of the last issue of Amazing are fitting:  The character is demonstrated as mortal, but in death, he sets one of his greatest enemies on a path to heroism that continues.  His heroic act, at the last, ensures the continuation of his crusade, and stamps his legacy on his world well past his own "sell-by" date.
These stories all start from places literature had trod for thousands of years prior, and will likely go on with for that much more.  The question is not from whence they come, but rather, as characters, where they're capable of going:  How fully realized can a character be at some frozen state of development?  How many times can we open the cover to find them on the same mission, motivated by the same compulsion, at the same age, with only slight tweaks to the nature of their nemeses to clue us in to the fact that this story could be any different from those that came before it?  How many times must any changes to the status quo be redacted to please nostalgia, to assuage reader insecurities in the face of an uncertain future, to give them the dependable, static portrayal of their fantasies before any semblance of truth or lasting meaning bounces off the literary wall like bullets off the iconic "S"?  True, there are those works in comics where these paragons seemingly experience loss, are hurt, come to new realizations about themselves, enter into new relationships, etc.  Those are all character arcs, right?  But can they stick?  Do they ever change things in some fundamental way?  And if they do not do so, where is the meaning, and how can there be real progress?  
What is the cost, then, of such faithfulness to iconography? Superman, for example, purports to be a beacon of hope to the masses, an example for us to follow...but how can the character realize this, either literally or within the fiction, unless humanity is left in some way changed by his presence?  The seeming fact is that neither real fans nor the fictional Metropolis can deal with a world without a Superman. Instead, it appears they're stuck in some sort of nostalgic time-loop that's dependent on he being there, unchanged, for next month's episode.  In a character where any lasting change to him, or to the fictional landscape that hosts him, is forbidden, there can be no real character arc, can there?  Forbidding lasting change, forbidding death itself, preserves the character for future generations...or does it?  Do those stories all disappear if the character dies?  And if we keep him alive and unchanged, how is there hope that the story has meaning beyond what it had fifty years ago?
Some would explain that there is a conservationist value in the everlasting icon itself, that its immortality parallels for us some unceasing battle that mankind must fight against the darkness, and I'll admit there is some literary value in this.  But there is a reality that concerns me at work here:  We of this earth are mortal.  We crave things with staying power, things that deny aging, and the idea that our existence is memorable in some way.  We don't want our stories to end.  But eventually, end they will, and we can immortalize ourselves only by creating lasting change, whether through our works or our human progeny.  To be sure, I'd like for my daughter to enjoy the works of fantasy and fiction her father enjoyed on life's journey, but I would hope that her generation is able to create their own such works to surpass those that came before.  I wonder to what extent we, the aging fan base of comics, have put boundaries around what will come after with our demand for dependability in the characters we love.  I love the medium of comics as a concept, but I question whether the endeavor is served, after 75 years or so, by an aging fan base laying the yoke of their iconic, unchanging characters around the necks of so many of their brightest young writing and artistic talents.  How much paper is enough to devote to these characters?  How much of the industry's resources must revolve around them? How much of our young talent should be devoted to a re-treatment the essentials of which haven't changed in decades?  And how much storytelling opportunity is wasted by denying ourselves the two words most essential to all our childhood fables:

The End.