MAN OF STEEL – Certainly packs a few punches!

 
Directed by Zack Snyder and produced by Christopher Nolan.
 
Stars –
Henry Cavill – Clark Kent / Kal-El
Kevin Costner Jonathan Kent
Russell Crowe – Jor El

So here it comes Man of Steel another Superman Reboot. Will it do well? Most reboots haven’t of late. I have only seen Watchmen which is another Zack Snyder produced movie. Whilst I liked the movie it did seem quite boring in places and had scenes that were a little more drawn out than they needed to be. Knowing that Christopher Nolan was on board as a producer gave me hope that this would be something better than the critics were saying. Nolan’s Batman trilogy are dark and moody and have a lot of emotion behind them and a great sounding score to really lift the action off the screen and make you feel part of it.
 
So lately, in terms of the Super Heroes, we have had Iron Man make another appearance in the third movie which had amazing special effects and some great writing. We have The Wolverine returning this year along with Thor making his second appearance and other new action blockbusters in Pacific Rim. It makes you wonder, who will take the box office title for Special effects and Best Superhero of 2013?
 
Synder and Nolan have done something special with this movie. If you were born after 1985 you may not remember much about the original movies starring Christopher Reeves. Man of Steel is a collaboration of the old movies and Smallville (the TV Series) mashed up into the summer blockbuster of 2013.
 
So we know the story – Young Boy finds out he has special powers and then wants to use them for good. This adaptation started with us finding more about his backstory – starting with Russell Crowe as Jor El and his wife plotting their son’s future before he was born. The special effects team deserve an oscar alone for how they visualised Krypton would look. This was just spectacular and added a lot to the overall essence of this movie.

The opening sequence of this movie, probably the first time in a long time in the history of cinema didn’t have any opening credits/titles. Straight into some action. I like that it started off with a few explosions as this was then to dictate the pace of the movie from start to finish.

So we meet Clark as a young boy of 9 and then as a teenager mixed with scenes of him as an adult. All along the backstory of how he became Superman coming to the forefront more than I have seen in any of the older films. His relationship with his father Jonathan being displayed with the same amount of grace as in Smallville. He loved him as if he were his own biological son.

A lot of people have complained that they thought the SFX were great but the film was lacking a story. I don’t think this is true at all. Let me cast your mind back to Disney’s Wall-E. He didn’t say much apart from Wall-E and Eve-a so with that you have to think do motion pictures really need words. Yes they do for most parts but to leave some of it up to the audience immerses you into the film. I was always told a picture says at thousand words and in terms of this movie it did. We all interpret things differently so maybe its just my creative side kicking in making me think, ‘yeah that was like that or this bit was awesome because of that’! This film is borne from comics and they don’t speak to you either, its your adaptation of the action on the page and I believe Snyder/Nolan were clever to introduce this idea to the movie.
 

The action in the movie was spectacular and the SFX team did have their work cut out to put some of those effects in place, especially for the last 45 minutes or so of the movie where there was a lot of action.

All Actors play their parts well. Cavill is dashing and sweet as Clark Kent. Amy Adams is great in the role of Lois Lane, with Laurence Fishburne as her boss, Perry White. Christopher Meloni as Colonel Nathan Hardy. It was nice to see Russell Crowe redeem himself as Jor-El although at one point I thought he said his name was Javert. Kevin Costner was back on our screens as Jonathan Kent and it was good to have him back as other than the TV Series Hatfields and McCoys last year don’t think I have watched much he was in since the late 90s.
 
It’s funny how Disney’s Jack Carter had amazing special effects and was actually quite good but again not having a big household name didn’t help it, which is not the same here for Man of Steel. Cavill isn’t a big household name but he does carry off the main character well and there was one scene and shot where I actually thought OMG he looks like Christopher Reeves in that moment. I watched friends Facebook updates all weekend and nearly 75% of those I knew went to see the movie in it’s opening weekend.
 
As stereotypes go – there is action for the boys and swooning moments of a bare chested Cavill for the girls. Man of STEEL should be Steal, as Cavill will certainly steal a few hearts and the film some box office records maybe.

This is a true contender for the Crown of SuperHero Blockbuster of 2013, with only Iron Man 3 as a reference to go by. As for Wolverine and Thor 2 – they really need to pull something special out of the bag to knock either of those two off the top spot.

If you haven’t seen it yet, go see it and enjoy it!
 

Man of Steel 5 stars out of 5.

 

Viewed at the BFI IMAX, Waterloo.

As you can see I took my LEGO Superman and Limited Edition Jor-El figures to see the movie and I had a superhero t-shirt on too. It just had to be done.
 
 

Reviewed by Mark LEGOBear MacKenzie