Man of Steel - Washed Out, not Up

DC and Marvel have a bit of a rivalry.  They’re the two biggest comic book companies.  DC’s been at it since 1934, with titles like “Action Comics” (where Superman started) and “Detective Comics” (the title that introduced Batman).  Aside from WWII era heroes like Captain America, Marvel’s most well-known characters didn’t come around until Stan Lee and a couple of collaborators started creating the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, the Incredible Hulk, and more in the 1960s.  These two companies publish all except four of the American comics I buy on a regular basis.  Right now, I think DC is doing a better job of giving its universe a clear direction and overall story.  And, for the most part, I’m enjoying DC titles more than Marvel titles.

But this blog is about movies, right?  And in the movie department, I think that Marvel is doing a better job of giving its universe a clear direction and overall story.  Marvel obviously has a plan with Iron Man, Thor, Spider-Man, Captain America, and the Avengers.  And the movies have been really fun!  Last year’s Avenger’s movie was absolutely amazing, and one of my favorite movies of the whole year.

I’ve already written about my thoughts on Iron Man 3.  And even though it upset me in a big way, it was still really well done.  And even though Thor has never been one of my favorite characters (I’ve never bought a Thor comic book), I’m looking forward to Thor 2 in November.  (As an aside, the X-Men and Wolverine movies seem to be unconnected to the Avengers movies… at least so far.  But I have a feeling that Spider-Man will be meeting up with the team eventually.)

Lately I’ve been thinking about why I like the Marvel movies so much.  What I’ve come up with so far is that they still feel like comics, even though they’re live action on a big screen.  The heroes and the villains are colorful and larger than life.  The plots involve grand, evil schemes that need to be foiled by the good guys for the world to keep spinning in a nearly-normal fashion.  And even if there’s some darkness, there’s also light—literally and figuratively.  The big battle in the Avengers happened in bright daylight.  There’s plenty of humor to lighten the mood.  And the heroes, while they have to face difficult moral decisions at times, are able to keep themselves relatively unsullied.

Don’t get me wrong.  I loved the most recent Batman trilogy.  It was dark and brooding, and it really fit the character.  It seemed like there was some effort to make the characters and technology more realistic than they are in the comics:  the Batmobile was a small tank; Ra’s al Ghul wasn’t immortal; the Joker wasn’t quite as colorful, but he was definitely evil; and Bane, while a really big guy, was just a really big guy.

Superman is almost a polar opposite to Batman.  He’s solar powered.  He thrives in the light.  There’s nothing dark or brooding about him.  He works to inspire hope, not fear.  I believe that he only keeps his Clark Kent persona as a secret identity so that he can have normal interactions and relationships with people.    Besides that one (admittedly large) secret, he’s completely open and honest.  He doesn’t even hide his face.

While dark and brooding works well for Batman, it’s a bit out of character for Superman.

Not that “Man of Steel” was really dark or really brooding.  There were parts of it that were very light—literally (a big daylight battle) and figuratively (Clark’s smile, for one).  But the colors were washed out,  not as bright as previous Superman movies.  Superman’s costume was muted in tone.  The villains uniformly wore black.  And, strange as it sounds for a movie about an alien with superhuman powers, it had the same “realistic” feel to it that the Batman trilogy had.  Maybe that’s going to be the signature of DC superhero movies.

I want to be clear that I really liked the movie.  I thought that, with one exception that I’ll go into shortly, it was very well cast.  It had superb special effects.  The design of the Kryptonian technology, costumes, and ships was really cool!  There are a lot of movies where sci-fi armor looks cheap, plastic and cartoonish.  That wasn’t the case with “Man of Steel”.  The whole thing felt grounded (another funny thing to say about a movie with a main character that flies), and that isn’t a bad thing.  It just didn’t blow me away like the Avengers’ movie did.  I loved it, but I didn’t LOVE it.

I have to say that, until “Man of Steel”, Christopher Reeve was the best Superman portrayer in my opinion.  But Henry Cavill was spot on.  To echo the words of one of the female characters, he’s kind of hot!  Michael Shannon, who I think I’ve only seen once before, was a great Zod.  Some actors are just made to play bad guys.  He’s one of them.  Superman’s two fathers, Jor-El played by Russell Crowe, and Jonathan Kent played by Kevin Costner, were very well cast.  Even though it was a smallish part, I thought Costner’s Jonathan Kent was one of the best performances I’ve seen from him.  Perry White was played by Lawrence Fishbourne, and there’s nothing I can find wrong with that casting.  The only cast member I had a problem with was Amy Adams as Lois Lane.

Lois Lane is nearly as well known as Superman.  In every portrayal of her that I’ve seen—in movies, TV, or comic books—she’s assertive, no nonsense, confident, and fiery.  She’s got steel in her.  Amy Adams had probably three-and-a-half out of those five characteristics.  She was no nonsense and confident, somewhat assertive, and she definitely had steel, but she just wasn’t fiery.  She was too gentle and quiet.  She was more like water than fire (if that makes any sense).  I think it’s generally a good thing for actors to make a character their own.  But in this case, Amy Adams wasn’t a good fit for me.

In the last decade or so, the action in action movies has become faster, more frenetic.  Sometimes it’s difficult to tell the combatants apart because they’re moving so fast.  To some extent, that was the case in “Man of Steel”.  But I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing.  Fights between superpowered individuals should be fast.  They should be messy.  The makers of “Man of Steel” did a good job of helping out the audience, though.  Even muted, Superman’s costume had enough color to it to see who had the upper hand and who was taking the hits.

I liked the story of the movie.  I liked that it showed how Clark Kent became the man that he is.  I liked the initial attitudes of people toward Superman, and then seeing how they changed.  I liked that Zod had a reason for what he did that was beyond vengeance.  There was some funny science, but I can usually forgive that in a comic book movie.  Also, the movie makers seem to have forgotten that bullets ricochet.  I kept wondering why people kept shooting, even when the ammunition seemed to have no effect at all.

So, to sum up, “Man of Steel” was no “Marvel’s Avengers”, but it was still a very good movie.  Henry Cavill was a great Superman, but Amy Adams was a mediocre Lois Lane.  The action was spectacular, and the design of the Kryptonians was really cool.  I’m looking forward to a sequel!