Man of Steel

Zack Snyder – 2013 – USA

Call me crazy, but I didn’t pick up on anything in this film worthy of the hysterical, almost pathological hatred that had been heaped upon it.  I’m not much of a superhero fan in the first place, so I suppose my needs from a superhero film are different from those of hardcore fans.  What I never enjoy in such films is the smart-assed supposedly “average” guy suddenly acquiring super powers and a skin-tight wrestling outfit.  What Man of Steel emphasizes more than any former Superman movies, though, is the character’s essential alien-ness.  The Christ parallels are probably unavoidable, but the film makes them less cornball than in previous incarnations.  There’s no shortage of action and effects, but I imagine that what the geeks are angry about is the absence of colorful characterizations and comedy that have been key to the major superhero franchises of recent years like Spider-Man, Iron-Man, Thor and what-have-you.  Nor is it especially dark like Christopher Nolan’s Batman films.  What does that leave?  It seems to be playing by some new rules, and I’m not sure what’s so offensive about that.  It does what comic-book fans always seem to be demanding, which is to take the mythos seriously while also providing requisite amounts of awesome action.  It’s true that New York, aka Metropolis, takes an apocalyptic beating as it usually does in summer blockbusters, but aside from that the film is surprisingly muted, dramatic, and – for me – satisfying.