Space Jesus, Darwin and the death of Metropolis *cough *cough New York *cough *coughA look at man of steel

The Superman reboot is here, and its good, but ...

     I don’t want to take a look at what the movie did well as much as I want to take a look at what awkwardly stood out to me. As they say “The devil is in the details:” In summary the movie was a fun ride, managing to elicit genuine emotional responses  in the beginning as we see a young and totally ripped Henry Cavil as Clark Kent searching for his true self. In my opinion it totally resonated more to the DC fan-boy in me than as a casual movie watcher. The action scenes were well done (although a bit too flashy for perfection) and the prop and costume design deserves an article of praise on its own (General Zod’s armour was a masterpiece), A solid film with very few notable downsides throughout its 3 hour running time.

Props to the props =)

     What really struck me throughout the movie was how very “American” they depicted the titular character as. In the beginneing Jor – El played by Russell Crowe keeps saying that his his son Kal – EL (Superman) was to become “the light” or “the beacon of hope” of the whole human race. But throughout the movie the travels and adventures of our Man of Steel only ever does revolve around America with a little detour to the Arctic and the Indian Ocean once he had finally figured it all out. I understand that this is after all an American movie and Superman is an iconic “American” character but still with an opening scene as spectacular as the one presented and characters as epic as the set-up gave I was kind of hoping for a little more depth. Once a Kansas country boy always a Kansas country boy I guess. As the movie picks up one of the ground breaking fight scenes even leads the character to the front of a Sears outlet. What can be more American than that? 

How about a McDonalds in A Wal-Mart in Texas which unfortunately does not make it into the movie. Sigh.

     You could say that since this is just the first movie in a possible series of Man of Steel movies you won’t get to see Superman come into his own as “the savior” of the human race. But when Metropolis looks a hell-a lot like New York (Grand Central Station included) you can’t help feel that this Man of Steel wouldn't look out of place restoring the Star Spangled Banner on the top of a ravaged White House ala the end of Superman 2.

     Another scene that I found to be worthy of this commentary because of my status as a non-believer was when Superman comes out to his local padre that he was the one the bad Kryptonians were looking for. As the world came under threat by an ominous alien spacecraft holding orbit overhead an uncertain Clark Kent seeks counsel from a pastor at a nearby church, the camera pans and represented in a clear mosaic is an image of The Saviour next to “the saviour  as I was mentioning earlier. I cringe, that was just one among many other factors like Kal-EL being the last “child” of Krypton that really hammered home the idea that the writers were trying build this Superman as a form of space Jesus character, and sure enough the man of the cloth advised our intrepid hero to take a leap of “faith”.

The Saviour unsurprisingly much like the story of Superman.

The last scene that kind of ticked me off was during the fight between Sub-Commander Faora and Superman. As a powerful  fighter she is at the core of the fiction a member of a powerful technical civilization that had overcome every challenge that we as a Type 0 civilization is only beginning to confront (every challenge save for the one that eventually became their demise of course). As the two mighty powerhouses brawled in the streets of a country town Superman’s female adversary actually said something along the lines of  “You will lose Kal-El, your morality makes you week. Evolution has shown it.” which induced a second cringe on my part. I don’t really know where that line came from but if I have gotten anything from watching Richard Dawkins documentaries like The Root of all Evil and Sex Death and the Meaning of Life is that morality doesn't make you weak, it’s one of the  traits of an intelligent species that actually makes that species stronger. It adds to survival value in critical situations. It is not a crutch to it.

A cold an efficient killer, But a character without morals?

All in all, looking past the religious connotations and opposition to "morality" I really enjoyed the amount of legitimate Sci-fi that made the movie stand out. I wish there could have been more. This type of new age approach to superheroes brought to life by powerful digital effects and cinematography has a lot of potential. I actually came to take this movie as “First Contact” Sci-Fi scenario foremost and as a superhero flick second despite it featuring the most iconic of all modern caped crusaders. That’s how appealing that these stories can become and that’s where I think the future of these movies is.

Sincerely, 
SonOfTerra92,

23/6/2013