Not to mention all the gizmos and effects that don’t get special names. Somehow the filmmakers have turned one of the simplest superhero origin stories into an overstuffed tale involving a Codex, a World Engine, a Genesis Chamber and a Phantom Drive (which I think gets converted to a warp engine, or vice versa, or possibly both). There’s too much plot, too many sci-fi conceits, too much technobabble, and almost certainly too many holes. (I say this as a lifelong lover of comic books and superhero movies, who put The Avengers on my 2012 top 10 list.) From a dragon-riding Russell Crowe as Superman’s father Jor-El battling the forces of Michael Shannon’s General Zod on Krypton, to a numbing finale so catastrophic that a sequel (or, mirabile dictu, a Justice League movie) would be hard-pressed to outdo it without destroying the planet, the film bludgeons the audience with scarcely any respite. It’s also way too much … and in all this muchness, something essential has been lost. The character’s Christological resonances and the morality that separates him from his enemies are both invoked. There are some interesting new ideas and bold departures from the traditional story that make sense. Give it its due: Man of Steel is well-made sci-fi action spectacle on an immense scale, from the vistas of Krypton (part Pandora, part Coruscant) to the inevitable urban destruction sequences of the climax (rivaling or outdoing the Avengers and Transformers finales). To borrow a line from Man of Steel producer Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight: This isn’t the Superman movie we need, but it’s the one we deserve.
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January 2023
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