Flawed Steel

 Henry Cavill                                Kal El/Superman/Clarke Kent
 Amy Adams                                Lois Lane
 Laurence Fishburne                     Perry White
 Michael Shannon                         General Zod
 Russell Crowe                             Jor El



  Directed By Zach Synder.  Written by David S Goyer.  Screen story by David S Goyer and Christopher Nolan.

  Here's the good news about "Man Of Steel."  It's not a horrendously inept mess like "Superman Returns" was.  In other words, I didn't walk out of "Man Of Steel" wishing death to the Superman franchise as a whole.  Here's the caveat though.  When or if Warner Brothers signs on for the next Superman flick, I would beg of them to hire Christopher Nolan as a director and co writer.  You know, the same hats he wore when masterfully resurrected Batman from the ashes of Tim Burton's empty headed artistry and Joel Schumacher's nauseating campiness.  Believe me when I say, "Man Of Steel" sure could've used Nolan's guiding hand in the directors chair.  This is more than apparent during the second act, when director Zach Snyder seems to lose control of the premise in a blur of inflated CGI and high tech gadgetry.  This is the portion of the film, the second act, where both Zod and Los Lane appear and then disappear and basically function as lost castaways waiting to be rescued.  It's as if director Zach Snyder couldn't grasp the concept of actually having to work with living breathing actors and not the CGI based minions he surrounded Gerard Butler with in "300."  The fundamental problem here is that there's not enough Christopher Nolan and there's way to much Zach Snyder here.  The Nolan touches, subtle as they are, make you salivate as to what kind of film this could've been if Nolan was the head chef in the creative kitchen.  The opening sequence in which General Zod (Michael Shannon) bum rushes the Krypton counsel in lieu of a bloody insurrection made me smile because of its gritty realism ala the party scene with the Joker in the Dark Knight.  The Nolan touches are more than evident in this scene and a rather powerful sequence in the final act in which Superman is pushed to his breaking point and forced to take drastic action to save his adopted planet from ruin.

  Plot:  Superman's home planet of Krypton is facing a dire situation in terms of its very survival.  You see, the leaders of Krypton have somehow squandered all of their natural resources and their very planet has become unstable.  The council of Krypton has chosen to let the crisis resolve itself but Superman's father, Jor El (Russell Crowe) believes that the key to Krypton's survival is to send his naturally born son, Kal El aka Superman to earth with something called the codec.  The codec will enable Superman to recreate Krypton on earth if he so chooses.  Enter, Kal El's fellow Kryptonian, General Zod (Michael Shannon.)  Zod wants to use the codec to save Krypton in its current planetary form and stages a coup to take over the council and seize the codec from Jor-El.  In the end,  Zod is banished to a punishment akin to cryostasis for the crimes of treason and the son of Jor El aka Superman eventually settles into an existence on earth in which he struggles to understand where he comes from and who he truly is.  I'll stop there, you can decipher the rest of the plot on your own.

  I've directed most of my ire so far at director Zach Synder but I have some angst regarding David S Goyer's screenplay.  It seems like the pattern with Goyer and the other writers who have tried to resurrect Superman is their inability to charter their own course as far as the story goes.  Nothing is more indicative of this then the last scene of the film, an obvious bone being thrown to the Superman films that came before.  My question is, why spend millions upon million of dollars to have a screenwriter as talented as David S Goyer basically mine the same elements.  The plot line with Lois Lane (Amy Adams) starts out promising but then Goyer's screenplay reduces Lois to the same doe eyed observer she was in the previous Superman films.  Maybe the problem with the concept of Superman is that there really isn't any place to go in terms of breathing life into the premise itself.  For every attempt Goyer's screenplay makes to try and tell Superman's story without all the action related bells and whistles, there's a sequence in which Goyer gives the audience what he thinks we want.  See Superman sprint to save a burning oil tanker after we get a voice over from Superman's human alter ego, Clarke Kent, bemoaning his preference to be an anonymous mortal.  As much as I hoped that Nolan's presence as Executive Producer would bring new twists and turns, this is a pretty much by the numbers super hero flick with a few sprinkles of Nolan like sensibilities bubbling to the surface.  Unfortunately, this is Zach Synder's show and at 145 minutes, it could use some trimming in the final act.  Not for nothing, but how many times can you watch Superman and Zod attack one another during the final showdown.  Snyder's attempts to pacify the audience by framing both Zod and Superman as super human attack missiles ripping through the Metropolis skyline wears thin after about ten minutes of which not for earth being can top this in terms of overall smack down related damage inflicted.  I will say this for Snyder, at least he's smart enough to do away with the gawking oblivious denizens of Metropolis when Zod comes to earth for the big throw down with Superman.  That's new I guess.

  Grade C plus.  Star Rating:  Two and one half