Review- Man Of Steel

Batman VS Superman: Dawn of Justice comes out later this week and to try and get myself excited for it, I watched Man of Steel. Makes sense, it's the same Superman, the same director. If this is great, then BvS will be great as well, right? 

Man of Steel is yet another Superman origin story because the consumers clearly want more superhero origin stories. It tells the story of Kal El being sent away from Krypton moments before its destruction and landing in Smallville to be raised by the Kents as Clark Kent. It's a fairly standard origin story and the rest of the movie seems to be waiting for that bit to be over so the rest of it can begin. The other stories here are a revenge story from General Zod who wants to rebuild Krypton on Earth's ashes and then Lois Lane who is trying to find out who Superman is to get a really good news story. The story tries to be more dramatic than it is and at the end of the day, the origin story of a near immortal alien isn't the most relatable of stories.

Talking about acting for a superhero film sounds pointless, but it can't be for a film this gritty and grounded surely? Not really. Henry Cavill is fine as Superman. I'm not a huge Superman fan so it's hard to compare but it just feels fine. He can really do the ugly anguish face thing, even if it's not quite Tobey face levels (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOTFxWAWuTo). The rest of the cast are good enough. Kevin Costner, Russel Crowe and Laurence Fishburne are good but under used. The best performance is Michael Shannon but I just really like him as an actor so I'm biased. He hams it up in many scenes but maybe if this film had embraced that, it could have been a bit better.

Speaking of that, this is a slightly conflicted film. Superman has always been a slightly cheesy character in his best movies before this and in his most beloved comics, there is a lightness to them in places. Unfortunately, this film came out the year after Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy concluded and DC movies couldn't go without a shot of grit to the veins. After all, there weren't any other superhero films out there that were enjoying themselves at the time like, say, Iron Man or The Avengers so the only option was to be grittier than a gravel drive. To the films credit, for over the top, ridiculous action, it's pretty entertaining. Plus, despite my many complaints with the film, it isn't really that bad. It's 2 hours and 20 minutes long and you'd expect it to drag and it may do from time to time but is often entertaining.

Man of Steel isn't as good as it should be. It's often over dramatic and tries to be cooler than it is. Underneath its pretentions though, you have a pretty fine film. The action is decent but not special. The acting will do. The directing does that annoying thing where it'll try and make it look like the action is real by zooming in like the camera is in a helicopter but that aside, Snyder does a fairly good job. The film doesn't give me huge confidence for BvS, a film that is already looking crowded. If Snyder handles lots of stuff going on at once like he does here, we'll be in for a mediocre film. There's promise here however, because this is a film that I would give a