Ratings for reviews will appear above the fold, while the review itself will appear below the fold to avoid spoilers for anyone that wants to go into it with a blank slate.
Jean-Paul’s rating: 3/5 stars
If only they had fought their epic battle at Disney World instead of Metropolis. I would pay good money to see Disney World destroyed even if only on film.
“Man of Steel” is a thoroughly enjoyable action movie with little else to say about itself. The plot is mostly a repeat of the original Superman II with Christopher Reeve. This version, though, goes into slightly greater depths of Kryptonian intrigue. It shows some of the political fight to save Krypton as well as the coup attempt by Zod and his army. This is mostly a reason for really cool otherworldly war/action scenes and doesn’t really add much to the story that couldn’t have been done with a simple five minute narration. The fighting makes it worth it, though.
Like before, Zod and his lieutenants are sent to the Phantom Zone to do penance for rebelling. It seems to me that what Jor-El did was just as severe, but he’s not punished for some reason that isn’t explained. That was the only glaring issue with the movie that really bothered me. I’m sure there’s tons of fan fiction about how the military caste is looked down upon while the scientific caste was given leniency because of their need to think outside the box or whatnot.
We are then fed vignettes into Clark Kent’s formative years. His powers first show up (why not when he was a baby? Oh, right, it’s not supposed to make sense). He saves his schoolmates. He travels the world trying to discover himself which mostly consists of him performing menial jobs and saving random people and disappearing soon afterwards. I believe these scenes were thrown in to show Henry Cavil without his shirt as much as possible.
Clark eventually finds himself on a top secret archaeological dig to unearth an alien ship (because a man with a made up, completely untraceable past would find it so easy to get a job at the secretest of secret sites.). The ship, of course, comes from Krypton and Clark steals it which activates a homing beacon which in turn lets Zod know where Jor-El sent his son.
Thus, the conditions are set for the epic showdown between Zod and Superman. What happens when two indestructable people duke it out in the middle of a major metropolitan city? Lots of destruction. I won’t give away who wins, but it rhymes with blooper span.
Like all superhero movies, I’m sure everyone involved hopes that this becomes a series of movies. I worry, though, that they’ve already blown their Zod so what else can they do? It’s all kryptonite from here. Maybe I’m wrong. Only time and $200 million dollars spent will tell for sure.