Man of Steel

Look up in the sky!

It’s a bird!

It’s a plane!

No, it’s Superman!

No it’s actually a little bit of everything flying and crashing around. Stop looking at the sky and run for your life goddammit, before something falls on you!

And that’s how the movie goes. I believe everyone would’ve seen the movie by now as this was after all one of the most anticipated movies of the year. There was a time not too long ago when I had my FB profile pic as myself photoshopped like Superman (with the cape, hair style and all). I’m that a big fan of Sups. Who isn’t? He’s like this omnipotent god of superheroes. I think he must be the first superhero to be ever created. Writers back then didn’t think of what powers to give him so they first made him a super strong man and then as the stories went on they added super powers to him to suite the story. I’ve even read a comic book where he says he has photographic memory and re-assembles a broken super-computer from memory. And Sheldon Cooper boasts about having eidetic memory, pfft. Is there anything you can’t do Superman?

But to be frank I was a little disappointed with the movie. Maybe our expectations were too high. Why won’t they be since the director is Zack Snyder and the producer Christopher Nolan. The visuals are so awe inspiring in the classic Zack Snyder style that something had to be compromised and sadly it was the story that got the beating. Let’s see what the movie has.

Unlike any of the previous movies, this movie shows very good deal of the planet Krypton where our Sups hails from. The previous movies didn’t do that satisfactorily enough as they wanted to show, at the earliest, the red and blue tights flying around saving the city. That’s not right. The ghosts of your past won’t leave you alone, especially if your past is a shattered planet. Even the cartoon version dedicated a whole episode to show what happened in Krypton before the planet went up in smokes. So I very much liked that part of the movie.

These people wear fancy clothes that must take hours to put on (and it looks cool nevertheless). Our hero is born to a smart couple that knows the planet is about to implode. Nobody pays heed to the guy so he takes some last minute measures to save his race (some dare-devil stuffs) and launches Kal-El (superman’s name in that planet) into outer-space on a route to an unknown planet which they know has environment that can sustain life. This is a standard beginning as in every superman story (with some modifications of course).

What happens next is something the movie has shown very well. His body struggles to get used to the Earth’s strange environment, with the sun’s ‘yellow’ light giving him powers he can’t control. No matter how powerful he is, he still is an alien. And so his new parents try hard to keep that a secret. Because no matter what good you do, people will still be afraid of you. Not like the old movies where he just decides to use his powers to save people (and become famous). Why should he? He needs a normal life too and so he tries desperately to refrain from using his powers. But with great powers comes great responsibility right? I liked this new treatment to superman. Not a hero but a fallen angel.

It’s incredible how much superman-like the actor (Henry Cavill) looks. He must get that a lot in his home town. It’s not surprising that he was considered for Superman Returns. This is how superman should look- big and mature- not like the college student looking guy in Superman Returns. Superman doesn’t have the signature hair-style either (that little curl), which is stupid. Come on Clark, how do you expect to maintain a difference between Superman and Clark Kent? Humans are smart too you know!

Louis Lane does a great job. Instead of just pointing out that she won Pulitzer Prize, the movie brings out the journalist in her. ‘Morpheus’ is fat and weak. Russell Crowe plays a good father and the ‘consciousness’, though I found his sudden moves comical when he controlled the ship. The female Kryptonian’s speech about “Evolutionary advantage” is impressive and she fights well too. Strangely, that’s all I have to say about the characters.

Loved these lines:-

Clark-“I don’t know if I can trust them”

Cleric-“Sometimes you have to take a leap of faith. Trust comes after”

The movie looks real. The characters look real and not like supermodels. No more cartoon like bright dresses and the people of Krypton seem to have finally figured out that the underwear is something you wear inside your pants. I missed the old superman hair though.

Sigh, if only they had paid more attention to the story. They spent all their energy into the visual effects, and did a very good job too, but that’s not all a movie requires. No matter how earth shattering the movie was (literally shattering, they managed to thoroughly ground a whole city) the movie had little impression on me. It was fun watching but I didn’t feel anything after coming out of the movie. Movies should make an impact, right? But hey, that’s just my opinion.

Man of steel- a bit too hard.