Man Of Steel (2013) Review

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DC Entertainment

Just glancing at my posts on Blogger, the final DC 'Dark Knight' Batman film is one of my more read articles and therefore it would be worthwhile continuing with a review of DC films, even though I am in general more of a fan of the Marvel films, as in the Avengers related series, especially, Avengers and Iron Man I-III, but have never reviewed any of those films. I do like the Dark Knight series though.

So, yes I do listen to my readers.

Sort of...

I will further preface my review with some background information on my bias as in writing this review, as although I aim for objectivity, no one has complete objectivity.

I am not a regular comic book reader/graphic novel reader but have a small collection. Superman has never really interested me much because of DC comics insistence in making him too powerful relative to other characters and I also think his villains for the most part were never all that interesting. Even with the crossovers with Marvel Comics, the rules with Superman were followed.

With the films, the first the Superman series of four films were reasonably good, Superman (1978), Superman II (1980), Superman III (1983) and Super IV: The Quest For Peace (1987) although they lacked the computer technology and other modern studio film technology of the 2000s and 2010s that more closely duplicated action scenes from comic books and graphic novels.

The first Superman in 1978 did have an origin segment which was reasonable to expect, even though the character had been part of American, Western and much of world culture since the origin of the character in text in 1938. 

I was annoyed to see an another origin film with Superman Returns (2006), a type of loosely based sequel to the previous four films with virtually all new cast members, nine-teen years later.

Besides having the origins told again, which I thought was unnecessary,  Lex Luthor was once again brought back as a main villain, for the fourth time and still in my mind not powerful enough to make a battle with Superman extremely interesting.

Often there is too much reliance on kryptonite.

And Superman ends up being a deadbeat Dad unaware that he was one at first in the 2006 Returns film.

So, when I saw the preview for Man Of Steel (2013) in the theatres, theaters for you Americans, I had a pretty negative attitude about seeing the film when for one I saw that it had a large origins component...once again.

Secondly,  it was borrowing much of the story line from Superman II by bringing back General Zod and his partners. 

These makers of these films seem to treat viewers as if they have no historical  reference when in fact even younger viewers today with DVDs and computer technology have all kinds of technological references to older films from the 1980s and 1970s for example.

Even earlier in fact if some initiative in shown.

I find this disregard for historical reference in film and the need to rehash incredibly annoying and intellectually insulting. 

You know, sometimes when I view something on film on television and I do not understand the reference I go and look it up on my laptop at a commercial break or when the program is over or I look it up on my cellphone while I am watching the program.

Hmm, I guess a younger person and by that I mean a non-adult, for example, could do that as well too, eh, film industry?

Imagine that? Having to reason things out...

IMDB

Quote

 'A young itinerant worker is forced to confront his secret extraterrestrial heritage when Earth is invaded by members of his race.'

Interestingly with Man of Steel (2013) this takes place at the age of thirty-three which seemingly is a parallel to the age when Jesus Christ is viewed by many scholars to have been historically crucified.

Did I find this personally offensive?

No.

The film is a work of fiction. I have read and heard Superman portrayed as a Christ type before and in this film he is a type of saviour, savior for you Americans,  but I am not in any great measure comparing a fictional superhero, the Man Of Steel that is a lot more like Marvel's Iron Man than the historical, Biblical Jesus Christ, God and Man that is a product of our non-fictional reality within Christian theology, philosophy and faith.

Other points:

Due to modern technological advances as noted earlier, the film was superior demonstrating the superpowers of the heroes and villains in comparison to the films from the 1980s.

I thought there could have been a little more constructive dialogue and a fair amount less action, although what was done, was well-done.

It does not make reasonable sense, and the group agreed with me, that Krypton had the technology to send General Zod and villains away to safety and Kal-El away to safety and yet simply martyred themselves, making no attempts with their vast technologies to leave their dying planet.

Of course this is not so much a problem of the films but of the original comic book text and to change this in the film would be to change the original story, although it would be a more reasonable one.

Overall, despite my initial large negativity with the film I once again attempted to be open-minded and would state this is a good but not excellent film. It was certainly an improvement to Superman Returns (2006) because the action was better as in the story seemed more true to the text, and the villains although rehashed as was Lex Luther previously were reasonable matches for Superman.

In my view, the film is comparable in quality to Captain America or Thor in the Avengers series. But I do not rate it as high as the excellent Avengers or Iron Man I-III films. The European tour from Manchester. Another Kool version of grand finale at about the six minute mark. Will be seeing them in July.