![]() ![]() In enormous effects-driven films, this is often a counterproductive approach, in that it can either have a numbing, deadening effect, as in the Transformers series, or terminally suffer from a strained attempt to keep topping itself scene after scene, as in the last Indiana Jones adventure.Īlthough it does go over the top toward the end, when Zod embraces a genocidal program and attacks Kal-El with giant metallic tentacles that are more ridiculous than scary, Man of Steel mostly plays it smart by mixing its action deck-of-cards style. ![]() By now it’s clear that Snyder’s and Goyer’s intention is to have no downtime at all, just spectacle on top of spectacle. When a real-time action sequence can’t be generated narratively, Kal-El experiences a nightmare vision of the Kryptonian dystopia Zod would impose upon Earth, which provokes him to attack the general in what is wittily staged as an old-fashioned Main Street showdown in Smallville. ![]() Not much more is made of this, but the subtext persists. ![]() Here the Jesus parallel asserts itself, especially when it’s stressed that Kal-El has spent 33 years on Earth anonymously before being asked to sacrifice himself. Suddenly, there are two more, a Midwestern twister big enough to send not just a house but a whole town to Oz, and the spectacular spaceship arrival of Zod, who breaks Kal-El/Clark’s cover by giving him 24 hours to surrender. “You’re the answer to whether we’re alone in the universe,” he confides upon showing Clark the old pod that brought him to Earth.Īt the same time, ace Daily Planet reporter Lois Lane ( Amy Adams) gets on to a story about a foreign object that’s been buried in ice for 20,000 years, while Jor-El abruptly rematerializes to teach his sprig more Kryptonian history and present him with his long-awaited suit and cape so he can begin his entertainingly staged flying lessons.įor a film that has thus far spent an hour basically setting the table, writer Goyer and Snyder have found a way to sneak in at least a half-dozen big-time action sequences. When Clark saves the day yet again by lifting a school bus out of the water after it’s gone off a bridge, his adoptive father ( Kevin Costner) realizes it’s time for a heart-to-heart. The youngster later sees his classmates in disturbing X-ray vision and, not long after the renamed Clark Kent asks his adoptive mother (Diane Lane), “What’s wrong with me, Mom?” a parade of topless shots of the young man reveal far from anything wrong but, rather, that the actor playing him, Henry Cavill, would have been fully qualified for a major role in Snyder’s 300 without any digital musculature added. Scarcely has Kal-El emerged from his projectile after a long flight when he rescues workers from a burning oil rig. Snyder doesn’t miss a beat once the tale spins down to Earth. As Jor-El ( Russell Crowe) lays it all out about the planet’s road to ruin, its failed intergalactic colonization efforts and his discovery of a planet to which he can send his little son, we’re witness to both large-scale calamity and the intimate treachery of the rebellious General Zod (a ferocious Michael Shannon), whose murderous campaign gets him packed off to the deep space equivalent of Siberia. Visually and rhythmically, however, Snyder has gone his own way, summoning up memories of Dune in the sculpted architectural look of Krypton, echoing Jesus by underlining the sacrifice Clark Kent is called upon to make for the good of mankind, and simply by hardly letting five minutes go by without inventing some new excuse for a staggering action scene - any one of which undoubtedly cost more than the combined budgets of all of this year’s Sundance competition lineup.Įven the inevitably expository first 18 minutes on Krypton are spiked with an amazing amount of visual stimulation. ![]()
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