Man of Steel is exactly the film its creators were always going to make, and too little of the film it needs to be. Obviously, with director Zack Snyder in the director’s chair, a grotesquely serious, stodgy take on teenage wish fulfillment is expected, and a great deal of the unease about the film before its release was directed entirely at his superficial eye for fetishistic violence-porn. Indeed, the concern was not only valid but imperative. Very little about Man of Steel indicates that Snyder thinks of Superman as anything else than a fist with a body attached, and the final act leaves no doubt. The man in the blue suit being carted around the film hurts and broods and bruises. He has the rippling abs and the stoic back story, but he is an imposter, plain and simple, a mechanical man with a fancy suit.

Which doesn’t necessarily make for a bad film – that is David S. Goyer’s job. Goyer, who somehow found his way into Christopher Nolan’s overly-dense Batman movies and generally made a mess of human activity and thought, does for Superman what he did for the Caped Crusader – indulge with him. Which was fine when he and Nolan were opening up a maelstrom of pure chaos in The Dark Knight, but that film was still hampered by Goyer’s over-worked, exposition-heavy writing style that frequently feels more like a lecture than a script proper. In comparison, the behemoth that is Man of Steel is, for one, far too long, itself part of the Nolan/ Goyer aesthetic, and far too mechanical, exposition-heavy, and clinical – frankly, part of the Nolan/Goyer aesthetic as well. Continue reading →