Man of Steel (Snyder, 2013)

"You will give the people an ideal to strive towards... But in time, they will join you in the sun. In time, you will help them accomplish wonders." 

Apparently, Jor-El was not referring to his son's latest film debacle. 

Zack Snyder's Man of Steel is a hollow, lackluster, and no-fun adaptation of Superman's origin story. The visual effects are second rate at best, with CGI fight scenes looking more like a video game than an actual movie. Snyder sacrifices story and character development for excruciatingly long fight sequences, and seems not to care about the poor editing as well. 

Man of Steel starts with the planet Krypton's final hours, when General Zod (Michael Shannon) launches a coup against the elitist Kryptonian government. After a massive battle, Zod and his associates are placed in a black hole to suffer for all eternity for their crimes. Jor-El (Russell Crowe) and his wife send their recently born son to Earth to spare him from the destruction of their home world, and preserve the memory of their culture. 

After Krypton is destroyed, the baby lands on Earth, possessing superhuman strength and abilities due to some mumbo jumbo alien science. His childhood is told in a series of flashbacks, while the adult Clark Kent/Superman (Henry Cavill) tries to learn about his true nature from clues left by his father. Meanwhile, reporter Lois Lane (Amy Adams) investigates mysterious alien appearances across the globe, while General Zod comes to Earth to conquer the planet. Superman must now choose whether or not join the only surviving members of his race, or save the planet he has come to call home. 

The casting, on paper, seems excellent. Henry Cavill plays a decent Superman, but the Clark Kent parts are extremely uninteresting and poorly executed. Michael Shannon just yells a lot as Zod, with no character depth and pointless angry speeches. Amy Adams would be a good Lois Lane if she was actually playing Lois Lane; the character in Man of Steel is so far fetched and separated from the heroine that it's hard to tell what the writers were even thinking. Lawrence Fishburne's limited screen time as editor Perry White is wasted on pointless action and hammy dialogue. Russell Crowe's Jor-El is the only truly good performance in the film, making the corny screenplay have some girth and meaning. He gets the best lines and the best scenes (if there is such a thing in Man of Steel). 

Man of Steel takes everything one step farther than it should be. While the flashback idea is nice, the audience stops caring about them by the fourth or fifth depressing childhood memory. Each battle is at least 5-10 minutes too long, and there are several fight sequences that are just completely unnecessary. Most of it is just wanton destruction. Audiences will spend the majority of the action with their face in their palms, with buildings blowing up for seemingly no apparent reason. 

With Christopher Nolan producing and Zack Snyder directing, Man of Steel should have been a sure thing. Instead, audiences get an awkwardly humorless and overly long film that takes itself way too seriously. The Man of Steel deserves so much more than this. 

One and a half out of five stars.