Man of Steel - 2 1/2 stars

It's hard for me to be objective about this movie.  Richard Donner's 1978 Superman is one of my favorite movies of all time.  I saw it when I was around 5 years old, and Christopher Reeve has always been Superman to me. 

This movie takes the Superman story and tries to place it in a realistic world, the same way Christopher Nolan's Batman movies did.  They tried to make it less comic book-ish and more realistic.  I have no problem with that.  But this just doesn't feel like a Superman movie to me. 

When Superman Returns came out in 2006, I was excited.  It seemed like they were being so faithful to the Donner / Reeve Superman, even going so far as to use the John Williams theme music and footage of Marlon Brando as Jor-El.  Superman Returns was a pseudo-sequel to Superman I and II, and that ended up being one of that movie's problems.  It reminded me too much of the original and better Superman movies.  The movie had other problems, like Clark Kent / Superman's lack of dialogue, or Brandon Routh's lack of chemistry with Kate Bosworth, or the casting of Kate Bosworth in general ...

So I was glad that this movie wasn't trying to be a sequel to those other movies.  Krypton is unlike any Krypton we have seen before.  Instead of a crystal planet that doesn't look habitable at all, we get an actual alien world with creatures and ships.  Russell Crowe is a very good choice for Jor-El.  I really enjoyed the setup of this movie.

But one problem is the entire movie feels like the origin story.  I kept waiting for Clark Kent to change into Superman and save the day, along with some triumphant music.  Superman may have saved the day here and here, but it was either as shirtless Clark with a beard, or as Superman with no triumphant music.  At no point does he even have a secret identity. 

After his father, Jonathan Kent (Kevin Costner) dies a really pointless death, Clark leaves home and becomes a vagabond.  He's like David Banner in the Bill Bixby TV series, going from town to town and job to job.  He saves people here and there using his powers, but he isn't Superman yet.  Once he learns who he is and puts on the suit, General Zod arrives and the battles begin.  He never assumes a secret identity.

The last 45 minutes or so are exhausting.  It's one long battle between Superman and Zod.  Unlike the battle in Superman II, this time when they hit each other, buildings collapse.  There is so much destruction the death toll must be in the hundreds of thousands.  And there is no mention of this.  At no point does any character acknowledge how many people were killed in this tragedy.  The point where Superman kills Zod is Zod is about to vaporize a family of 4.  As much as I wanted Superman to save them, I couldn't help thinking about all the other families that were killed in the preceeding 30 minutes.

The destruction and the look of the film were just depressing.  The movie was shot so dark, and during the battles I got numb to it.  The Avengers did a great job of keeping the focus on the characters amidst all the destruction.  But Man of Steel is like the Transformers movies.  After 10 minutes of characters punching each other and throwing each other through buildings, it gets really boring.

I know I've spent all this time ripping on the movie, but there are things I liked about it.  Amy Adams is a better Lois Lane than Kate Bosworth was.  I liked the way Clark started to discover his powers as a kid, and how they frightened him.  He had to learn to control his X-ray vision and his super hearing.  And Kevin Costner was great as Jonathan Kent.  I wish he had more screen time.

Overall, a disappointment but not a bad movie.  Just not a good Superman movie.  I really think I would have liked it better if it hadn't been a Superman movie, but just an original sci-fi movie.  They leave it open for a sequel (of course), and they set up the next movie nicely.  I'm curious to see if they can do a better job with the next movie.