Film Review | Man of Steel

The summer - nay, the decade? - of superheroes continues with this brand new reboot of the Superman film franchise, directed by Zack Snyder (300, Watchmen, Sucker Punch) and produced by Christopher Nolan (the 'Dark Knight' trilogy).

Deliberately ignoring Bryan Singer's attempt to revive America's most venerable superpowered being in 2006 with Superman Returns, Man of Steel casts British actor Henry Cavill (The Tudors) as the alien orphan Kal-El, jettisoned from his home planet of Krypton by his loving parents Jor-El (Russell Crowe) and Lara (Ayelet Zurer) after Krypton plummets into civil war and environmental collapse.

The space pod containing Kal-El crash lands on a Kansas farm, and the boy is unofficially adopted by the farmer couple Jonathan (Kevin Costner) and Martha (Diane Lane) Kent, who christen the boy Clark. Struggling to keep his genetically inherited alien powers a secret (and not always succeeding), Clark grows used to being something of an outcast, and resolves to living an itinerant lifestyle, taking odd jobs on oil rigs, petrol stations and the like, all the while hoping to discover the truth about his true origins.

He appears to be close to a breakthrough when he discovers a Kryptonian pod nestled in the Arctic, which contains a message from his biological father's uploaded 'consciousness'. But it turns out Kal-El isn't the only one to witness Jor-El's little tour of Kryptonian history and what led Kal-El to this point. The ambitious reporter Lois Lane (Amy Adams) of the Daily Planet, eavesdropping on Kal-El's sudden encounter with his father, becomes attached to her subject and becomes keen to run a story about 'aliens among us', much to the chagrin of her editor, Perry White (Laurence Fishburne).

But getting her story in print will be the least of Lois' worries, after the alien commander General Zod (Michael Shannon) lands on Earth with his retinue of metallic-hued henchmen requesting that humanity hand over the 'fugitive' Kal-El, who has since become famous, Lois having leaked her story to a sleazy online news site.

Zod, a zealous Kryptonian general responsible for the murder of Jor-El, intends to 'harvest' Kal-El's body to power his invasion of Earth, in his ambitions to create a new Krypton.

Will Kal-El - Krypton's first biological birth in generations - give in to his native brethren, or will he stand by his adoptive race?

Despite Snyder's reputation as a juvenile filmmaker hiding behind CGI and explosions, the trailers to Man of Steel suggested that, perhaps thanks to Nolan's influence, the film had succeeded in finding a balance between pulse-pounding action and a genuine emotional drive, paying close attention to the fact that, after all is said and done, here's a story about an immigrant orphan trying to find his place in the world. So what went wrong?

Well, it turns out that all Mr Nolan seems to have done - from what we can surmise based on both of their CVs - is make Snyder's film a little quieter, longer and duller. Snyder's cack-handed grasp of basic narrative strategy is still very much present and accounted for, and the only real oomph comes when an action scene is shoved into our faces. Even then, it's done with such gracelessness and lack of invention that you can't help but feel disconnected from it all.

A leisurely half-hour for a prologue on Krypton. An even more drawn-out post-prologue origin story intercutting between Clark Kent's childhood, youth and young adulthood - from physical precociousness at school (he saves a drowning busload of kids) to heroics on an oil rig. The flashback structure is the final nail in the coffin - or, at least, it's a white flag - a nervous confession from Snyder: "Look, the only way I can try to make this bearable is if I flit from one thing to another quickly enough before your attention span flags." Honestly, what kind of action film is this?

What we get here is worst of both Nolan and Snyder's worlds: the former's joyless, grey-toned and heavy-handed 'messaging' via superhero mouthpieces, the latter's hollow characterisation and over-reliance on CGI glitz and juvenile destruction.

Perhaps the biggest black hole is the completely underwritten relationship between Clark and Lois. Never once is it made clear to us that Lois's interest in Kal-El is anything but journalistic, and neither would Kal-El have any real reason to connect with this particular human (especially when his primary concern at that point in time is humanity at large). But at the right 'romantic kiss' moment, you'll be sure to find them locked in each other's embrace and - yep, you guessed it - kissing.

Sure, you may not care about Clark and Lois, but the way their relationship pans out - or doesn't pan out - is symptomatic of the way the entire film operates. Just like their romance is tossed into the blender with nary a consideration of whether it works or not, so the convoluted Krytponian backstory is fired at us as if it's being made up on the spot, along with all of the other plot strands attempting to hold the film together. A story this simple, and familiar, really shouldn't be this confusing.

It's not a complete loss. Some of the climactic action scenes are enjoyable, and Shannon predictably serves up a menacing turn as the righteously villainous Zod. But for all of its slow-burning, mournful attempts at crafting a superhero epic, Snyder's hollow cinematic sensibility turns out to be the film's kryptonite.