WHY MAN OF STEEL DIDN’T DO IT FOR ME (A LOVE LETTER TO MY FRIEND KOREDE 'KOREX' ON WHY WE’RE BREAKING UP!)

Korede… this is how you lose me, lol! There’s been much hype surrounding the new Superman movie, Man Of Steel and rightfully so. I for one did not want a new Superman reboot, at least not yet, but I suppose it’s been long enough since the dismal Superman Returns so I guess I can forgive them, they who recycle. First of all let me state that this is not just a review, it’s also a letter to my friend and fellow outcast Korede who enjoyed Man Of Steel so much he saw it twice; the second time with me. He obviously enjoyed it so much that he’d already memorized whole dialogues, but I was disappointed in the overall product.

          

First let me point out the major problem with Superman as a character, despite his 75 years of existence (yes, he’s that old) is that he’s not really relatable. He’s practically a god sent to save humanity. He’s not a billionaire who wears a suit of iron because he’s a tech know-how nor does he don a bat suit because he has daddy issues. He’s a goody two-shoes who knows he’s better than us. So in come the team of Batman director Christopher Nolan as producer, dragging along his Batman co-writer David S. Goyer with Zack Snyder as director in an attempt to make him more… human, more relateable!

           

Of all of Nolan’s Batman movies, Man Of Steel reminds me of The Dark Knight Rises, arguably the least favourite of the recent trilogy and it was a good movie mind you. What plagued Rises is the same thing that plagues Man Of Steel. Allow me to recap: Rises had the chance to be better than its predecessor, the almost flawless The Dark Knight and it was doing just that for the first 45 minutes of the movie, then Bruce Wayne donned the Batman suit. I agree I was excited just like I’m sure everybody else was, but that’s where for me everything began to wobble. Let me point out that the fact that that audiences sat through a Batman movie for 45 minutes with no Batman is credit to the writing talent of the Nolan brothers and David. S. Goyer. Once the Dickensian drama of Gotham was done with and the movie entered comic book territory, it wobbled the plot.

           

Likewise Man Of Steel suffers from the same dilemma. Its first one hour is superb, even with the 20 minute Kryptonian prologue, which I felt could’ve been put in the middle of the movie, maybe have Zod explain his side of things and have holographic Jor-El explain his side of things too… or they could’ve even saved it all together for a sequel, but anyway we sat through it. No problem!

           

Then we get to the part where he becomes Superman, there’s no big revelation to it really, except Kal-El finding a ship and a hologram of his biological father. There’s no aha moment to the scene and then the suit we find out was made in Krypton, not on earth by Kal’s earth mother Martha Kent (which makes sense, since she can't make a suit that can withstand all the stuff that Superman goes through like bullet shots and fire, who is she, that genius lady in The Incredibles?), thus skipping the traditional story we all know and love and now can admit didn't make sense that she'd create that costume. May I point out here Kevin Costner is the best Jonathan Kent ever!

The process of Clark or Kal-El becoming Superman was rather fast and this is where the movie enters comic book territory and it’s hard to comprehend the first part of the movie with what follows. It just doesn’t stay as grounded from that moment on. Please, spare me the joke of, “How could it, when Superman flies?” Mention must be made of Diane Lane who plays Martha Kent and is the only character who in my opinion keeps the rest of the story grounded in some realism. Not that I expected realism in a Superman movie, but they sold it to us in the first half and we bought it.

           

I must explain what I mean by comic-book territory here. There are certain things you can get away with in a comic book; basically, we’ll believe any and everything. Yet when you translate it into a movie, you’re arguably raising the stake and we just won’t buy into anything (like a rapist being cast as an anti-hero a la The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Not bad for a comic, but not exactly ideal for a movie studio trying to make money), which is why movies are often altered if ever so slightly from their source material, which leads us to the movie’s second and third act.

           

When Zod arrives, destruction and mayhem follows as expected, the type that looks good in a comic and just ridiculous in a movie. As The Atlantic critic, Christopher Ori mentioned and I quote, “The general, who evidently watched The Dark Knight during his long journey to Earth, immediately takes a page out of the Joker's book and demands that Kal-El surrender himself or he’ll start killing Earthlings.

I must mention that Zod is NOT portrayed here as a villain per se. He’s the Twyin Lannister of Superman, he believes everything he does is right and is for the salvation of his people, even if it causes discomfort to a whole human race with whom he plans to re-enact the Red Wedding! Yes, he’s evil, but from his perception he’s just a guy taking care of his surviving race. The destruction and mayhem that follows was, I agree with a lot of critics, LOUD and unnecessarily and only Metallica should be allowed to be that LOUD!

I was hurt by the damage done to our planet, albeit we in Africa are always safe when these sorts of things happen. It wouldn’t look so good destroying mud houses in a little African village or the few high risings in my hometown. How much do you want to deprive us of? I am so glad the West gets most of the pounding in these movies; it’s so lovely to watch! The aliens, Superman included, proceed to destroy parts of Smallville (I admit I liked the fight scenes here) and move on to pound Metropolis (this I found confusingly disturbing), like two aliens couldn’t just go to outer space and duke it out, winner takes all style. No, they had to jerk off early.

I can’t tell you how I felt about the “shocking” ending to be honest and what this means for the Superman mythology and whether I could care. I’ll still give Man Of Steel a 4 out of 5 rating though. It’s worth the price of admission for the mere spectacle and its attempt to add depth to an alien who’s trying to relate to us, while we can’t relate to him. In short, it wasn’t as memorable as I expected. I just didn’t walk out the cinema thinking, “Wow… I’d like to watch that again!” Like Drake said, “One time, that’s fine with me!” And to my friend, Korede… maybe we should take a break! If you do decide to contact me, just know I’ll be somewhere watching Downton Abbey… trying to get some proper realism back in me.

Rating: 4/5.