(As this film is a bit more recent than others I've discussed, there is a greater chance that the reader hasn't seen this film yet. If you haven't, and spoilers are an issue for you, stop reading now.)
I have to say I'm really taken with the depiction of Superman and his origin as given in the film "Man of Steel". It has a mystique that I've not seen in any other depiction of Superman. From the destruction of Krypton to Clark's emergence as Superman I was just pulled right in.
"Man of Steel" was produced by Warner Brothers, Legendary Entertainment, and Syncopy. It was directed by Zack Snyder and starred Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Diane Lane, and Russell Crowe. I have no problem accepting that my views concerning this film are most likely a rather singular appreciation. But, I can't help it. I enjoyed this movie far too much to back off of my attraction to it in any way. I liked everything about the story and I like the way it was told. I even like the way the flashbacks were handled. In light of the way many films have, lately, used flashbacks in the incorporation of history and backstory, I've become a bit averse to their use. But, where "Man of Steel" is concerned, the use of flashbacks was good in that they occurred at times when they would be expected in the progression of the story. And, after a certain point in the film, they ceased.
The movie starts off with Superman's (Kal-El's) birth on Krypton. It, rather rapidly, and effectively presents Krypton in its final days. Krypton is presented as a society that has made fatally serious mistakes leading inevitably to its doom. Just enough is shown in the beginning of the film to paint a sufficiently coherent picture of a world coming to its end. Prior depictions of Krypton in films and other media show Krypton meeting its doom due to some kind of cataclysmic natural disaster. In "Man of Steel", Krypton falls as a world and a society because of its own choices and actions. In this incarnation of Superman, Krypton is presented as being, not just highly advanced, but quite alien. I would say as alien as you can get without interfering with the flow of the story or presenting too great a distraction. The fall of Krypton culminates in the attempted and failed cou by General Zod, which serves as backdrop for the launch of Jor-El's son (Kal-El/Superman) into space. General Zod's attempted cou, following on the heels of the revelation of Jor-El's unheeded warning about actions taken that ultimately led to the destruction of Krypton paint the picture of a sealed fate.
The actual destruction of Krypton was like a study in resignation. Lady Lara, wife of Jor-El, affectionately seals away her now deceased husband's armor, and walks slowly toward the open end of corridor in their home that looked out on to the city where they lived. With despair on her face, she looks out on to the city and watches Krypton slowly blow itself apart. She is asked if she should seek shelter. She replies that her husband was right, there is no shelter. She looks up as she watches the erupting destruction of Krypton and quietly whispers for Kal-El (Superman) to make a better world than Krypton. The eruptions move like a wave across Krypton. She stands watching as the wave of destruction consumes her.
After Krypton explodes, a warp point forms just the other side of Saturn. A small, warp driven ship, carrying the infant Kal-El barrels toward Earth and crashlands in a field on the Kent farm. From that point, the movie moves through the experiences of Kal-El (now Clark Kent) searching for a place and a life on a world not his own, a search that turns into a journey to find out
the truth of who he is. This turn takes place when, in Canada, where Clark is working in a bar & grill, he hears talk and rumors about a dig site where the US military is examining a large object that may have come from offworld. Managing to situate himself as a dig site worker, he takes advantage of an opportunity to investigate the object found on the site. It turns
out to be an alien space craft. He boards the ship and finds an alien console with a port that is the same shape as an object that was found with him in the ship that brought him to earth. With some unforseen difficulty, he places the object in the port and finds that the ship still functions. He is then led to a certain part of the ship where he directly encounters an advanced holographic image of a man, like a computer avatar, which identifies itself as an image of his father Jor-El. It is at this point that Clark is made aware of his real name (Kal-El), his family and house, and the name, some of the history, and the fate of his home world. He is also made aware of the specific circumstances of his birth and the reason he was sent to earth. He was also made aware of the events occurring immediately before the destruction of Krypton. Namely the attempted cou by General Zod, a bit of information that proves of some value to Clark later on.
It is also aboard this ship that Clark crosses paths with Lois Lane. Having optained permission to visit the dig site, she was present when the object, buried under some 18,000+ years of ice, was being examined with ground penetrating sensor equipment. Trolling for shots of the dig site at night, she caught sight of Clark sneaking off to investigate the object and followed him. Upon entering the ship, Lois is attacked by an alien drone (the same one that unsuccessfully attacked Clark), which is subsequently destroyed by Clark in his effort to rescue her from it. Having witnessed what she did on the alien ship (including Clark's abilities, revealed to her as he rescued her and treated her injury resulting from the attack by the onboard drone), she concludes that both he and the ship are from off-planet and determines to find out who he is and tell his story.
Lois' investigation leads her to the Kent farm where she finds and speaks to Martha Kent. After speaking with Martha Kent, Lois visits Jonathan Kent's grave where Clark intercepts her. Lois asks to tell his story. Clark explains to her why she can't.
It is here that we are introduced to the wisdom of Jonathan Kent. Jonathan Kent, the farmer from Kansas that had enough sense to realize how unprepared the world was for the knowledge of Clark's existence and abilities. So thoroughly convinced that he sacrificed his own life to keep the secret. Typically, the story of Jonathan Kent's death was quite simple. He dies of a heart attack. Not so here. Jonathan, Martha, and Clark found themselves cornered on the highway by bad traffic and the appearance of a deadly tornado. In an effort to assist others in escaping the tornado, they discover that their own dog (who was in the car with them) was still in the car on the highway. Jonathan went to rescue the dog, but was injured in the process. He found himself unable to escape the path of the tornado. Clark could easily have rescued him, but he'd have done it in the presence of many. Fearing Clark's secret would be revealed, Jonathan waved him off from coming to his rescue. With no trace of fear on his face, he disappeared, taken by the tornado. Clark trusted his judgment enough to allow it to happen. Clark's revelation of the circumstances of Jonathan Kent's death, having brought her to tears, convinces Lois to abandon the story.
Returning home to be with his mother (Martha Kent), he relates to her what he discovered in Canada. Comforting her fears of his being taken away, he promises her that he would not leave her. That night, an alien ship shows up in the skies over Earth. Lights go out all over the planet. Then every video capable device is taken
over and the same message is shown planet-wide and is seen and heard in all the indigenous languages of every region and country on Earth. After the warm, touching, and tragic account of Clark's experiences and loss, the air of the film turns down right creepy. Every video screen on the planet is lit up with this pulsating static. Through the static can be seen the words "You Are Not Alone". The words are accompanied by a voice that echos the same words in every language that the words are written in. After repeating for some minutes, the form of a head and shoulders appears in the pulsating static and the owner of the voice identifies himself as General Zod, reveals the existence of Kal-El (Clark Kent), the truth of his origin, and demands that he be turned over to his custody.
Naturally, the planet panics. The FBI comes looking for Lois because of her account of what happened at the dig site in Canada. After seeking a little advice, Clark dons the suit that he got from the ship that he "liberated" from the dig site and proceeds to surrender himself to the authorities. This is the first time he appears in the suit before others. It is at this point that Clark expresses his distrust of General Zod's intentions, but agrees to be turned over to Zod for the safety of Earth. As Clark is surrendered to Zod's people, it is requested that Lois, who is on site at the time, come with them. She agrees. Aboard Zod's ship, they find out that it is his intention to terraform Earth into a replica of Krypton, at the expense of humanity. While aboard the ship, after learning of Zod's plan, Lois receives information instrumental in stopping him. Effecting a narrow escape from Zod's ship, Clark rescues his mother (Martha Kent) from Zod, attacking him directly. The fight that ensues is downright titanic. The military gets involves and are completely ineffective. Though they fight valiantly, all they manage to do is get in the way. Zod's people, being unacclimated to Earth's atmosphere, are forced to retreat briefly. This provides Clark, by this time given the name "Superman", the time necessary, with the help of the military, to impliment Lois' plan (from Jor-El) to stop Zod. Zod impliments his terraforming plan and the resulting destruction is like watching disaster porn. A large chunk of Metropolis was nearly wiped off the map.
From this point, what ensues is what can be seen in many films of this kind. Multiple moments of crisis. (I'm sure there's a name for this, but, I don't know what it is.) The stage is set with the activation of the device General Zod is using to terraform Earth. The "world engine", operating in tandem with his ship, is creating an ever expanding field of alternating gravity which is consuming Metropolis pieces at a time. This is the location of one of the moments of crisis. Perry White (Laurence Fishburne) stops in the path of the pulsating gravity wave to rescue a friend and employee from beneath the ruins of a collapsed building. The gravity wave is expanding toward them, smashing everything in its path flat as paper. Meanwhile, approaching Zod's ship in a plane carrying the ship Superman came to Earth in as a baby, Colonel Hardy (Christopher Meloni) and Lois Lane experience serious difficulties in their effort to stop Zod's ship from destroying Earth, one of which is being attacked by Faora-Ul (Antje Traue), while trying to remedy a malfunction in the engine in Superman's ship. And, while all this is happening, Superman is on the other side of the planet attacking the world engine and having to contend with its quite formidable defences. All three situations, seeming hopeless, end up working out, one success achieved with ultimate sacrifice.
At the end of the triple crisis, Zod is left alone, all of his people gone, along with his ship. And the stage is set for the final battle between Superman and Zod. Zod is resigned to the battle being his last, determining that either he will die fighting Superman or Superman will die fighting him. Superman is determined to stop Zod for the sake and safety of humanity. The was impressive to say the least. It was nearly as destructive as the gravity wave from Zod's ship. Needless to say, the farmboy from Krypton got the better of the warrior from Krypton.
Among the characters in this film that stood out to me was Jonathan Kent (Kevin Costner). His influence could be felt throughout the whole film. In the flashbacks, Clark as a boy was strongly attached to his father (Jonathan Kent). This served to provide a powerful influence on Clark growing up, making him into the man Superman came to be. So, it wasn't really a matter of who Superman was because he was an alien, with the honesty and the sterling character and all, which was the impression I always got from Clark Kent in the other incarnations of Superman. In this version, all of the virtues of Superman's character came from the influence of Jonathan Kent. And it was nurtured and sustained by Martha Kent. Jonathan Kent saw a potential in Clark that no one else could. And he kept that in front of Clark as best he could, taking great pains getting him to understand the scope of the responsibility attending the powers he possessed.
In any of the incarnations of Superman, Lois Lane was never a character the stood out to me. And this despite her close relationship to Superman. She always came off as kind of flaky to me. However, in this version of Superman, I found myself liking her. Quite a bit. She was competent, level headed and knew where to draw the line. Yeah, she could be a bit headstrong sometimes, about somethings. But, inspite of that, she never went too far. And she wasn't petty. Not flaky at all. This was quite refreshing. And I enjoyed seeing the two of them together.
At the very beginning, there was Jor-El. Jor-El was the guy who, in a society of blind drones incapable of creative thought, could see the truth of what was going on and had that elusive capacity for thinking outside the box. He had enough vision to understand the shortcomings of the society he was a part of, and, he was creative enough to come up with what could have been a viable solution to the crisis they created for themselves. But, even more what stood out to me about Jor-El was that he was a scientist, and could skillfully defeat the number one soldier on Krypton, General Zod, in close combat.
I liked Jor-El's wife too. The lady Lara Lor-Van (Ayelet Zurer). I couldn't help but admire her love for, trust in, and loyalty to her husband. She trusted what her husband was telling her inspite of her own fears concerning baby Kal-El (Superman). She forced herself to part with her baby, trusting in her husband's reassurances that sending Kal-El to Earth was his best chance for life. In her last appearance on the screen, you could see her affection for her husband, then deceased, as she sealed his armor away for the last time, the forlorn look on her face as she watched the death throes of her world, molten geysers erupting around her, looking up with fond hopes for her son. The sadness was impressive, seeing her consumed by the destruction of her world.
General Zod was the picture of everything that was wrong about Kryptonian society. Despite his claims of being about nothing but the good of his people, he was quite psychotic. Quite the megalomaniac. It said a lot to me that, not only was he beaten by a scientist, he failed to pull off a cou being the head of the military on Krypton. All of the resources of the military are under your command and you can't even pull off a cou? And if that's not bad enough, you and your people get beaten by a farmboy.
"Man of Steel" was to me one of if not the best telling of the "Superman" story. It was, I guess you could say, a bit more "realistic" (and I use that word loosely) than the other "Superman" accounts (at least the ones on film). The struggle to come to terms with the manifestation of his abilities, the struggle to refrain from the use of his abilities and adhere to his father's (Jonathan Kent) guidance, then, later on in life, after Jonathan Kent's death, to try and find a place in life on Earth as one not from Earth; all of these were like visible steps in Clark Kent's growth. Then when he had become the man that life and Jonathan Kent's influence made him, he discovers the identity he was born to. He discovers himself as Kal-El, the last son of the house of El and of Krypton. I've not seen another account of "Superman" that provided so in depth a look into the life of Clark Kent as he grows from Clark Kent to Kal-El to Superman. This was, I think, what made this movie so enjoyable for me. This is the biggest reason why I like watching this movie over and over again.
The actual destruction of Krypton was like a study in resignation. Lady Lara, wife of Jor-El, affectionately seals away her now deceased husband's armor, and walks slowly toward the open end of corridor in their home that looked out on to the city where they lived. With despair on her face, she looks out on to the city and watches Krypton slowly blow itself apart. She is asked if she should seek shelter. She replies that her husband was right, there is no shelter. She looks up as she watches the erupting destruction of Krypton and quietly whispers for Kal-El (Superman) to make a better world than Krypton. The eruptions move like a wave across Krypton. She stands watching as the wave of destruction consumes her.
over and the same message is shown planet-wide and is seen and heard in all the indigenous languages of every region and country on Earth. After the warm, touching, and tragic account of Clark's experiences and loss, the air of the film turns down right creepy. Every video screen on the planet is lit up with this pulsating static. Through the static can be seen the words "You Are Not Alone". The words are accompanied by a voice that echos the same words in every language that the words are written in. After repeating for some minutes, the form of a head and shoulders appears in the pulsating static and the owner of the voice identifies himself as General Zod, reveals the existence of Kal-El (Clark Kent), the truth of his origin, and demands that he be turned over to his custody.
