Walk into Superman reboot "Man of Steel" five minutes late and you might think you've found the cutting room floor of "Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of Clones." Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing is somewhat up to debate, but certainly Zack Snyder's "Man of Steel" is like no other version we've seen yet.
Yet even though all the pieces seem to be in place, including a perfect fit with Henry Cavill donning the red cap, "Man of Steel" falls apart under a flimsy script, an orgy of laughable action sequences and irritating camerawork that is occasionally painful to watch. More than anything, though, "Man of Steel" is less a bad movie than just a missed opportunity that squanders a well-picked cast and an origin story that seemed worthy of telling.
For those not already fairly acclimated with Superman's background, the beginning of "Man of Steel" might come as a bit of a shock. With the planet of Krypton facing certain destruction, Superman's father Jor-El decides to send young Kal-El off to a distant planet, making him the last hope for his people in the process. Thanks to the enormous expectations from his father, Kal-El, soon to be called Clark Kent, has some big shoes to fill before he even crash lands on Earth.
Far away from home and 20 years into the future, Clark lives on his own, wandering as a loner who doesn't quite fit in anywhere. After being reared by a kind couple that raises him as their own (played by Kevin Costner and Diane Lane), Clark heads off to fend for himself doing odd jobs around the world, though tales of his heroism follow him and he becomes somewhat of an enigmatic legend.
Through flashbacks, we see that he's done a whole lot of saving lives over the years, from pulling buses out of the water to saving dozens of children to rescuing stranded refinery workers that everyone assumed were already lost. Clark may not have much of a social life, but he's done his fair share of good deeds over the years, and it's only a matter of time before he's recognized.
Enter a no-nonsense and lively young reporter named Lois Lane, played by Amy Adams as a woman who was born to shoot down the chauvinistic men who stand in her way. While every man she meets seems to need a quick reminder that she's to be taken seriously, she stumbles into the wake of Clark when he's reminiscing with what can be best described as the ghost of his father. Though not a revolutionary part of the on-screen history between Lois and Clark, "Man of Steel" still finds a nice beginning for the famed duo, even though it could have used some more inspired dialog to make it all a little less obvious.
But it isn't long before we're back to the never-ending array of action sequences, which eventually revolve around the threat of General Zod (Michael Shannon), the ex-leader of the Krypton army who is now hell-bent on forming an alliance with Superman. For anyone who knows of Shannon, it's not a surprise that he's menacing as the villainous Zod, who threatens to annihilate the entire planet if Superman doesn't cooperate.
While Shannon does what he can with a loosely written character, Cavill does the same with his Superman. True to the spirit of Christopher Reeves, Cavill has an uncanny ability to come off as unabashedly sincere at all points, making him the perfect centerpiece for a morality tale about good and evil. In a better script, Cavill should be able to shine as the superhero of superheroes, though he's allowed only brief moments to show us the charisma and charm that he was clearly chosen for. As the story comes together and the forces of good and evil clash for the inevitable climax, we end up in yawn-inducing territory as two nearly immortal beings whack away at each other and take out half of New York City. Zack Snyder, who apparently is a devout member of the Michael Bay school of filmmaking, has never met an explosion that he hasn't liked, and here we get bludgeoned with as many collisions and things blowing up as you can possibly squeeze into a 143-minute runtime.
The shame is that there might have been a good story to develop, if Snyder and company had paused long enough to tell it. Snyder's universe mostly looks great from a visual standpoint, but there's so much action crammed together that it feels like Superman's greatest hits. A blending of action clips loosely link together and rob of us any actual character development. Superman may be the beacon of hope to the entire world, but here he's mainly reduced to grinding his teeth and flying into things real hard.
And when we aren't in the middle of one explosion or another, we end up with a bouncy, unstable camera that is as oddly placed as it is completely unnecessary. Though hand-held cameras can provide a proximity to the action in the right circumstance, it doesn't do a whole lot of good during most normal conversations. Yet it's a device Snyder returns to over and over again in "Man of Steel." The dialog may be campy and character development scarce, but it also tries to fabricate the look of a gritty film to no avail, leaving us stuck between the usual action spectacle and an underlying story that isn't given much of a chance to succeed.
"Man of Steel" is just one of those movies that looked really great on paper, or in the two-minute snippets the audience was given in the months leading up to its release. Though it does find the right tone on occasion and remind us briefly why Superman has become such an icon, "Man of Steel" ends up like every other big-budget movie that favors all-out demolition instead of imagination and storytelling. Having Cavill and Adams in the main roles provides at least a glimmer of hope for the franchise, but a better formula is needed if this Superman is going to continue saving the world.
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