Review: Man Of Steel.

 

"Aha, I'm about to fly, and in a suit this subtle no-one will notice and start asking awkward questions..."

 

Jor-El, chief scientist of the planet Krypton, has a problem: The once wise race of Kryptonians has become kinda thick and short sighted. So much that they've mined out Krypton's core, and the whole planet is about to collapse.
Jor-El's former buddy, Zod, is so pissed about this that he starts a revolution, but Jor-El realises that capping bureaucrats for kicks isn't going to stop the end of their world. So he loads his newborn son into a rocket and sends him to Earth.
The lad is raised by a Kansas couple....  Zod and his goons turn up again and are pissed off....

....you know what? Unless you've actually just landed here from a another planet yourself, you can probably guess the rest.

So is it worth the price of cinema tickets to see a story, which most people already know, re-told yet again?

Errrm.

"No Sci-fi channel in the Phantom Zone? I will not stand for this! I AM ZOD!"

Bad stuff:

There are plot holes.
Good god there are plot holes. Huge WTF events just don't get any explanation. To mention just three of the many:

Why don't the Kryptonians even try to evacuate? 

Why does Zod, a veteran soldier, get his ass handed to him in a fist fight with a scientist?

Why is Zod determined to make Earth into a Krypton clone, when he gets groovy superpowers here if it stays as it is? It just... it's just... arrrgghhhh, the stupid, it burns!!!!

Good stuff:

The special effects are amazing, and the soundtrack is so epic it'll make your ears bleed.

Stuff that's good but also bad:

There are some great ancillary characters: Ultra-cool Colonel Hardy, and Dr Hamilton ("Is it a comet?" "No Mr President, comets don't make course corrections.") are actually the two characters who I came away wanting to see more of. They actually save the world with just bravery, sacrifice, and brains (and admittedly, Jor-El's guidance). Superman is basically just running interference for them for the last quarter of the movie.

And that's the film's fatal flaw: The original Superman was a metaphor for America saving the world, and as that it worked*. But Hardy and Hamilton's last stand shows a humanity that doesn't need a superhero, just sound guidance... and so the Man Of Steel feels out-heroed in his own movie.

 

It turns out that Zod's powers are no match for an extra hot Vindaloo from Manchester's curry mile. If you think the effect it's had on his eyes is bad then you should see what it's done to his arse.

On second thoughts, no, no, you really don't want to see that...

 

 

* I never said I approved, just that it was effective.