Man No Feel - audience disconnect in Superman

It has been a while since I've posted anything. Christina and I just returned from a short vacation in Oklahoma City visiting my grandparents. Now is a good opportunity to make up for lost time.

While in Oklahoma, we went to see Man of Steel. There were some other good options, but I figured since Steel had already made so much money and since my older brother had talked almost non-stop about it since the first trailer appeared, I figured we should see what all the fuss was about. I came away just a little disappointed that it didn't live up to the lofty expectations I'd gained for it.

It's a reboot, for sure. Just about every superhero has gotten a reboot lately: Spiderman, Batman, Iron Man, Thor, and there's even a Wonderwoman movie in the works.

This movie, however, falls short from some of its better peers in a number of ways. I'm going to try to organize them here:

1. There are too many story lines going on simultaneously.

For a rebooted first film, there was just too much that the filmmakers tried to cram in. Don't let the trailers fool you. This is not a film about Clark Kent's childhood, although it tries to be. It also tries to be a film about Clark finding his identity, about discovering his father, about the success and failures of Krypton,  about Lois Lane finding Superman, about Clark discovering his powers, about General Zod's quest to redeem Krypton, etc. etc.

This makes the film into the "Golden Corral" of movies. Instead of serving up just one storyline well, it tries to do everything and ends up with poor quality. Ideally, the film would have focused almost exclusively on Clark finding his identity just so that his character could be solid for any sequels. Clark wrestles with what kind of a person he should be. But there is no specific point in the movie you can point to as the place where this issue is solved. As a result, you don't get a sense for how he relates to his inner turmoil because you can't pinpoint any exact change.

Batman did the "inner turmoil" bit to perfection. His parents are murdered by a thief and he wrestles with seeking revenge versus honoring his parents' memory by promoting justice.

Steel could have done this as well, but for whatever reason, decides against it. He could have had daddy issues and the film could have built his turmoil around that. Batman did it. Iron Man did it. So did Spiderman, Thor, the King's Speech, and EVEN HARRY POTTER. It works.

But the film doesn't devote the time to rounding out Superman's character that way or really in any way. The result? You don't care about Superman near as much.

2. Too much kablooey.

There are a LOT of explosions in this movie. I mean, I expected there would be an occasional destroyed building, but this started to feel like a Michael Bay movie after a while. I might be alone in this, but sometimes I think this is the film equivalent of dangling aluminum foil in front of the audience. It starts to feel lazy, like the relationships and interactions between the characters aren't enough to keep us interested on their own. Plus, I'm not that impressed by visual effects anymore. When too much of it is used, it becomes sensory overload. All that's important is that Superman fought someone and he eventually won. That doesn't need to go on for 20 minutes because then it starts to get boring.

3. Dads are good. Moms not so much.

The best part of the film was the first 20 minutes. Russell Crowe plays Superman's father, Jor-El and he takes the lead for the first portion of the movie as the scientist who foresees Krypton's doom. He simultaneously works to save his son while also fighting off a coup by General Zod, and he carries the focus quite well. Crowe manages to pull off the most floaty dialogue with gravitas ("You will give the people an ideal to strive towards...they will join you in the sun." - really though, how can you relate to an ideal of human perfection?)

Jonathan Kent is also pulled off superbly and he has the single best line in the film (Clark: "Can't I just go on pretending to be your son?" Jonathan: "You ARE my son!" - oh man, tear-jerker if ever there was one.) He even sacrifices himself saving people in a tornado so that Clark can keep his identity a secret.

The moms, however, are not as relatable and aren't as well acted. Lara Lor-Van, his biological mother, seeks justice for the murder of her husband at the hands of general Zod, and so she ensures that Zod is imprisoned in the phantom zone for his crimes...even though she KNOWS that Krypton is about to be destroyed and therefore this imprisonment will likely save their lives. She next appears grief-stricken and despondent as the planet explodes around her. You'd think she'd be a bit more concerned that Zod might succeed in his threat to find and murder her son.

Martha Kent is just tough to relate to. We're just sort of told that Clark loves her, but we don't really ever see that love. The best comparison I can think of is with Forrest Gump and his mother. He loves his mother, he and others in the movie tell us that, but we don't ever really SEE that love and experience it because she's absent most of the time from the movie. It's Jonathan who takes up the vast majority of the bonding moments, and once he's killed off Martha is all that's left to pick up the slack. It's just sort of assumed from that point that there was a relationship there, but unfortunately, we the audience aren't asked to join in.