Man of Steel

Jonathan Kent: You’re the answer, son. You’re the answer to “are we alone in the universe”.

Clark Kent at 13: Can’t I just… keep pretending I’m your son?

Jonathan Kent: You ARE my son. And I have to believe that you were sent here for a reason. And even if it takes the rest of your life, you owe it to yourself to find out what that reason is.

Despite negative critical buzz, “Man of Steel” is the kind of movie whose success hinges upon your particular tastes. Yes, it doesn’t help that one of Snyder’s weaknesses as a director is creating nuanced pathos — that problem plagues him here, he has trouble knowing how to shoot a scene in a way that generates complex emotion, there are lines that fall flat — but the story by Goyer and Nolan at least gives him that chance that “Sucker Punch” never had.

It also doesn’t help that the movie breaks from established expectations for a Superman movie; while accusations of the tone being “brooding” honestly are overblown, it’s true that this Clark goes through his growing pains as a boy even while essentially on the same route to becoming the Superman the world knows and loves. It just seems difficult, in the eyes of many, for Cavill’s genuine earnestness to compete with Reeve’s understated sweetness of soul. The latter joined with Kidder’s tenacious but squirrelly Lois seemed to possess more chemistry than Cavill and Adams are able to generate here.

The best parts of the movie focus on Clark’s ever-maturing loyalties. The most important events in Clark’s childhood are revealed in flashbacks; the Clark who begins the movie is a young man still “searching” for himself, drifting through odd jobs across the breadth of North America. While he is aware that he is not human, the only definitive thing he knows about himself is that he often feels compelled to help those who are in need, even if it might expose him. When he finally runs across a simulacrum of his Kryptonian daddy, he can face the task of forging an identity that honors both sides of his heritage. The real dilemma is what happens when Zod and his mob of cray-cray finally comes earthside: Clark is forced to choose between an adopted home where he’s always felt untrusted as an outsider, versus blood relatives who are (in essence) total asshats. What should have been a Kodak moment becomes instead a family-holiday nightmare, but it’s through what follows that Clark finally comes to terms with who he is and what he values.

Yes, there are fight sequences, as one would expect in a movie about the mightiest mortal of them all. If you enjoy watching superheroes destroy large swaths of urban architecture, then this should be a veritable smorgasbord — the fights here make the Neo/Smith battle from Matrix Revolutions look like preschool recess. (The distance of the first knockback needs to be measured in miles, not yards; and whoever wins the Metropolis City construction contracts at movie’s end will be in business for at least the next century.) The only side that doesn’t stand a chance is (of course) us, the humans, even using our most advanced weaponry and battle tactics; and it doesn’t take long for the Kryptonians to recognize humanity as Superman’s only real weakness as well.

One honest disappointment of “Man of Steel” is that the supporting cast — many of them fine actors in their own right — are limited by the script and/or direction so as to be merely adequate rather than super. And the female characters so typically strong in a Superman movie don’t really get a unique voice here at all. (Diane Lane, as Martha Kent, shares a good portion of the female screen time with Adams, but her lines are sadly more paint-by-the-numbers than resonant.)

Only the two father figures of the movie — Jor-El and Jonathan Kent — fair decently; and of the two, Costner’s performance is easily the stronger despite Crowe’s trademark machismo. Jonathan Kent walks a tenuous line between hesitance and prudence, a simple man who places more value in character than achievement, and yet just when you think he’s holding Clark back needlessly, he lifts the boy higher so that he has a chance to fly. Although the Kryptonian father bequeaths his son with the coolest gifts (superpowers, advanced science, alien technology), it’s the human father who somehow creates a safe space around his son so that in the silence he can finally hear his own voice. (This is notably realized in a flashback scene with Martha, where she provides a safe focal point for Clark amid the sensory chaos he is experiencing during puberty while struggling to master his emerging abilities.) What Snyder lacks as a director of dialogue he often finds within a particular visual image, and this movie has a few such shots that are powerful without any words needing to be spoken. In the end, Clark might feel robbed by being stuck between two worlds , but in the process he has received a double-portion of something that some people don’t even have one of: A pair of loving parents.

While Shannon does not bring the same casual audacity and narcissism to the role of Zod brought so deliciously by Terrence Stamp, his zealot leader is almost more admirable, his motivations more accessible. Zod seems almost sane when explaining that everything he has done has been for the good of the people — well, his people. It’s the kind of justification that might even fly as long as you weren’t the one at the business end of the zealot’s brutal ministrations. But it does raise the stakes: The old Clark in “Superman 2” had no doubt that a Zod victory would be a disaster, while in “Man of Steel” stopping Zod means ensuring that the people of Krypton will be forever lost. It’s the general’s right-hand woman, Faora-Ul, who is the real amoral terror among the Kryptonian rebels, viewing mercy and restraint as evolutionary disadvantages that result only in extinction for those foolish enough to practice them.

How you feel about “Man of Steel” by the movie’s end will likely depend in part on how carefully you can track the human story through the movie, versus just the superpowered one. As a parent of both biological and adopted children, I could resonate with both sets of parents — the ones who gave away their son so that he might live, and the ones who invested and sacrificed to raise him regardless of where the boy would finally decide to hang his cape. Would that any of us had parents who loved us enough to provide us with the resources and freedom to, rather than bending us to their will, find our own answers and passions over the course of our own lives.