Man of Steel (2013) Better Than Expected

Man of Steel (2013) Warner Bros

I have heard a lot of mixed reviews about this film. When I first saw it I could tell that there was something I didn't like about it, but couldn't identify what it was. The second go around there was only one thing that bothered me throughout the movie... it was Louis Lane.

Now in the past I have generally disliked the women characters in superhero films because they have the personality of a potato and never add anything good to the film. They are always a side character that is put in an unlikely situation and should end up dying if it weren't for the superhero. They cant save themselves, they usually don't have any business being where they are, and they have off-putting relationships with the superhero because it materializes out of thin air. These types of characters hold back the development of the story and become a nuisance to watch.

Man of Steel is the opposite of what most movies are because the story is better than the characters in the film. Usually stories are character based and show how they develop overtime. Superman changes a little, but its mostly showing why he feels the way he does. For one, he has two great families. Both of them teach him the value of life and show him the impact of his actions. Both fathers are portrayed by great father figures (in the movies) and they did a wonderful job. You would think that the movie was about the character of Superman, but in all honesty his story is not nearly as interesting as the galactic one being told. The race of alien beings on the planet of Krypton have more substantial interests than some red-headed reporter ever did.

The struggle for resources and political power for dominance of the galaxy far outweigh a skirmish on planet Earth. I was more interested about Krypton and their race of people than Earth. I think this is because Superman is one of the only superheros that didn't gain his powers through radioactive experiments. He wasn't a lab rat, he was born with his powers. His alter ego of Clark Kent is really a critique of the human race. Clark Kent is clumsy, mistake prone, and hesitant to accomplish anything. It really makes you feel small as a human if an alien species were to ever come to down to Earth and live among us.

The characters of the film are captivating because they have actual values, while most of the human side-characters have no impact on anything because they are too weak or realize the impact of their own insignificance. Either way, humans were as worthless in this film as Amy Adams.

Writing of Amy Adams and Characters:

I know that Amy Adams is being nominated for an Acadamy Award for her performance in American Hustle, but that being said she is an annoyance in the majority of the films she's starred in. I don't mind the quirky, intelligent, and straight to the point girl but she's just not great at doing it. She's mildly attractive but she doesn't deliver dialogue well. She has a nonsensical relationship with Superman and it was substantiated in over 3 conversations they had together. If that were real life it would only work with someone that looked like Henry Cavill and it would be as meaningless as this relationship was. It made me angry to think that Superman was unsure of himself and what to do when he had been preparing for it his whole life. Some girl comes by and tells him that she believes in him and suddenly hes superman again. No. Superman is already super as I have already mentioned. He was born differently than the rest of us. He was already a great person with a sense of protecting others. Why did he need anyone to tell him that he was just that? It doesn't make any sense. Why trivialize a man who has worked hard to be the man he was supposed to be and who even sacrificed his own father to do so?

General Zod is an interesting character. He is unable to take over his own planet with a surprise attack, gets his ass kicked by Supermans father (who was a scientist), and is banished by the people he claimed to be too weak to rule. On his way to banishment (instead of death even though they are low on resources already) he claims that Jor-El (the man he just killed) was right and he agreed that the death of the planet was caused by the council of leaders. He is a loser by definition but it allows him to use his hate and animosity to fuel his mission. Throughout the film you find it to be hard for him to be arrogant but he somehow he manages it. You also wonder about his motives because his devious plot is to destroy earth and to save his people who were far more technologically advanced in and revolutionized in ideals. A plot point some of you may have missed, is that he believes his race to be far superior than that of humans (they were in every way). He says to Jor-El that it would be hard for them to struggle to adapt to the foreign conditions of Earth and claiming that for this reason he needed to change it to be more like Krypton. I know that Zod is supposedly intelligent and also a warrior that can rule over his own senses, but he was able to adapt in less than a few hours on Earth and it made him almost a God among humans comparatively. Hard to see a downside to co-existing at this point. 

Jor-El was one of the most believable characters that Russell Crowe has played in years. The character itself is so noble that he chose his own death because of the failures of his own race. In other words, he fell on his own sword. It was noble even though these characteristics are hard for most to understand because it's a foreign concept. He wasn't going to try and redeem his people because they already failed. Sure he could have tried to reunite with his son but he already gave him everything he could. Jor-El is a great lesson to us all and shows that you can give someone a meaningful existence through your actions even if you are not always there. He tells Zod that he was a better man once and that he would honor that man even though they were fighting to save their own race through different means.

Jonathan Kent was also a good character with high moral standing in his community and the film. He is as much a father to Clark as Jor-El and taught him great understanding of his powers. He was the only human in the film I didn't entirely hate. 

I wont mention any more about the characters, but I will say that most of them made sense and made for a great story. Like I said the whole movie would've been better if it wasn't so focused on the character of Lois Lane. I wish she wasn't in the film or an innocent bystander until introduced properly as a real woman that has a real relationship with Clark Kent. Man of Steel was the best Superman film yet and a solid film. I hope they do more in the future.