***Warning: This review DOES contain spoilers***
You know Christopher Nolan has his hand in making a film for DC when the title doesn't contain the hero's actual name in it. It's not a bad thing at all, I think its more of a cliche from the 90's that worked well for "The Dark Knight" and "The Dark Knight Rises." However, when a director has a say in more than one franchise, especially ones from the same universe, you have to worry that his/ or her creative mind might try to blend the characters too much.
This being the first film review from Angelicomics, I will be breaking the movie down into 5 categories.
-Story
-Acting
-Visuals
-Sound
-Payoff (how satisfying was the film?)
I will then give each category a rating of 1-10; 1 being the worst, 10 the best; and at the end I will give an overall score for the film.
Again, please keep in mind that this review is just from my personal opinion of the film. That said, lets jump right in shall we.
-Story
Forget everything you think you know about the origins of Superman besides the name of his home planet. I really want to say that the script writers really missed their targets on this one, but I feel that "I don't think we're in Kansas anymore" is more appropriate. The film starts off quite beautifully with a much richer Krypton that gives new life from the 80's Superman films. Gone are the days of the winterized crystal planet and into the realm of CGI discovery we go. This time around we are introduced to a New Jor-El who instead of having words of wisdom seems to be a harbinger of doom and truth to his planet. The themes of human/kryptonian expanse are heavy in these scenes, which can easily identify with us regarding our natural resource consumption. Instead of Krypton's sun exploding, the planet is being torn from the inside out. The once thought to be superior race of kryptonians has now been brought down to a very humanized civilization. This was a bold move from the traditional story most of us know, but I felt it was really necessary to drive home the themes that the story wished to push for.
Eventually Jor-El does what he must in order to save the last of their kryptonian race and as we all know, he sends his son to Earth. Prior to doing so we find out that Kal-El is the first, naturally, born kryptonian in years, and that all kryptonians have been genetically grown in incubators using a "Codex." This "Codex" mysteriously is in the shape of a blackened skull fragment which is wired into the incubation machine. However, Jor-El, knowing the world is coming to an end, steals the codex and ingrains it into Kal-El's DNA. Quite the stretch from the original. This event sparks the events for the rest of the film of Zod trying to retrieve the codex to recreate Krypton. I give high marks for giving Jor-El's wife, Lara, a much needed, larger role. Not only is this woman caring as a mother, but in two scenes we see her standing along the council members as General Zod is tried for his crimes before being sent to the phantom zone, and we see her amidst the destruction of Krypton as a calm and strong individual embracing death. These are all good things that make for a much grander back story and feminists proud.
Fast forward a few years and we meet a traveling Clark Kent, who is in search of answers to his kryptonian past. Small flashbacks are all that we see of his time growing up in Kansas; all the while struggling to remain unnoticed by his neighbors and authorities, which I think he does a horrible job of. Eventually, grown up Clark, who has become an expert at creating new aliases for himself, stumbles upon a government operation to uncover a nuclear sub thought to be buried in an iceberg. It just so happens that Lois Lane is there at the same time and the two bump into each other a couple of times. Of course, at the time I had no clue in which direction they were going to take the Clark/Lois relationship. Honestly, I don't think there was one. Besides an awkward UN-heartfelt kiss in the films final scenes, Lois played sidekick more than love interest. Clark discovers the once thought sub, is actually an ancient colony ship sent from Krypton long ago. Upon reactivating the ship, the newly freed Zod from the phantom zone is alerted of its presence. Magically the ship has a suit already made up for Kal-El, something believable considering kryptonian technology but it steals the spotlight from a more meaningful costume creation by his Earth mother as seen in other stories.
Skipping ahead I can say that New York City becomes a wasteland, the Earth being terraformed for 30 minutes of onscreen time should have had more repercussions than displayed, and Superman killing Zod was a bit of a stretch but I can see where they are taking this. All of which is a bit far fetched, but gives a unique twist to the cookie cutter story we all know and love.
6/10
-Acting
I really thought the acting in this film was quite good. I didn't think the story was all that great, but overall I think most of the characters were believable and enjoyable to watch. The realistic nature of the film and how I would assume Earth people would react to an alien presence were all there. It took some time to get over Zod's lisp, but its forgivable. I wouldn't hold it against the actor for having a speech impediment. The only thing I felt was underplayed was Lois. I didn't feel a connection between her and Clark at all. The kiss at the end of the film was unexpected. I had assumed that since there is talk of a "Justice League" film in the works that Superman may have a love interest in Diana aka Wonder Woman as he did in the New 52 comics instead.
8/10
-Visuals
This movie looked beautiful. It had the fight scenes we have been wanting to see for years in a Superman movie. Not only were the choreographed battles amazing, but the angles they chose to go with made you feel that he really was faster than a speeding bullet. On the other side of the spectrum, I wasn't too keen on the dark hues they used throughout most of the film. Even the shots of Superman in the sun were dark and groggy. It really tried to be like the Nolan Batman films which I felt was misleading, considering that Superman is one of the trinity between Wonder Woman and Batman. This was a bit too much like "The Dark Knight" and I would have liked to have seen Superman's color scheme to be much brighter than Batman's.
7/10
-Sound
The music to this film was nothing special. I recall praying that they would implement the original Superman score into the film just for nostalgic purposes. It is such an iconic piece that really defines Superman. Alas, the creative minds behind "The Man of Steel" felt differently and dropped the ball on the music. There was no definitive track that I can hear in my head while thinking of this movie. Where as I can find myself humming the "Batman Begins" soundtrack, this movie offers us nothing new.
3/10
-Payoff
So the real question is, does this film deliver what we expect from a product placement packed superhero film. It has action, it has originality, it has a few funny moments, perhaps too few. I would say this film had more potential that was not tapped into. I think the origin being so far from the original really re-defines Superman as more of an alien than a human who happens to originate from somewhere else in the galaxy. There were too many coincidences in this film as well, such as Lois being there upon the discovery of the ship, Zod being released from the phantom zone upon the destruction of Krypton. I did appreciate the use of scientific facts in this film. The idea that kryptonians were unable to function in Earth's atmosphere and likewise Clark unable to function in theirs to begin with was great. Overall, I really felt like this story should have been in the sequel. There was just too much going, too quickly in this film that took away from the origin story. I didn't like the idea that everyone on Krypton were genetic clones to serve their purpose, and I didn't like that Superman killed Zod. I would expect Wonder Woman to kill but not Superman, although he really didn't have a choice in the matter. This film was a much darker movie than I wanted it to be, and I really missed the ditsy, lovable Clark Kent.
6/10
OVERALL FINAL SCORE: 60%
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