BEFORE: Comic-Con may be over, but the superhero movies keep rolling on - from Iron to Steel, get it? Knowing that this Superman film was going to be released in late June was a great motivation for delaying the superhero chain, and then of course I delayed it too much, because this film's been out for a month now, and I'm just getting to it. I'm still easing back into my routine, so I may only watch 4 films this week - I'll have to see how I feel. Linking from "Iron Man 3", Guy Pearce was also in "L.A. Confidential" with Russell Crowe (last seen in "Les Miserables" - hmm, Crowe was in 2 of the 4 films I've seen in the theater this year...)
THE PLOT: A young Clark Kent is forced to confront his secret extraterrestrial heritage when Earth is invaded by members of his race.
FOLLOW-UP TO: "Superman Returns" (Movie #538)
AFTER: My first impression is that this is not "my" Superman, and I'm going to need some time to get used to this new version of the hero. What do I mean by "my" Superman? Aren't all Supermans (Supermen?) the same guy? Sole survivor of a doomed planet, able to leap tall buildings, more powerful than a locomotive, etc. etc.
Well, no, not really. The Superman of 1938 comics and radio doesn't resemble the Silver Age hero, which isn't like the ones on TV, and the one from the comic books now is a lot different as well. This is a reboot, a chance to start the story anew, like "Casino Royale" for James Bond, it's very popular these days.
In fact, the DC Comics company decided to reboot Superman in print as well, thanks to a crossover event titled "Flashpoint" in which Flash (Wally West) ran so fast he went back in time (I'm guessing) and changed history, in a bit of a riff on "It's a Wonderful Life", and then they changed things back again, only a lot of things were made different. Dead heroes like the other Flash (Barry Allen) were alive again, and the new writers could pick and choose which elements of the previous reality would move forward into the new one.
(ASIDE: Regardless of what you may read in the entertainment magazines, the decision to change Superman's costume, losing the red briefs, had (perhaps) nothing to do with aesthetics, it connects to a lawsuit from the estates of Superman's creators, which awarded the Superman name and character to one party, and costume and origin to another, in the hopes those two parties would work together going forward. Didn't happen, so a cynical person might say they changed Supes' costume and backstory to save on some royalty checks.)
I've written before about when I really got into Superman comics, it was the previous reboot in 1986, with a miniseries similarly titled "The Man of Steel", written + drawn by John Byrne. The DC Comics Universe had been relentlessly cluttered over the years, with alternate universes, Earth A, Earth 2, Earth Z, Bizarro Earth, Counter-Earth, etc. Plus there was Supergirl, Superboy, Superdog, SuperMonkey, the bottled city of Kandor - which all kind of went against that "sole survivor" idea. So they consolidated the realities and killed off a bunch of heroes, wiped the slate clean and started fresh with a rocket from Krypton heading towards Earth.
(ASIDE #2: In those first Superman comics, Jor-El didn't really "aim" for Earth, he just wanted to get his baby Kal off of Krypton before it exploded. But then other writers came on board and suggested he called the shot, which started to bend the bounds of credulity, even by comic book standards. So, this guy 1) somehow knew about Earth, 2) somehow knew what effect Earth's yellow sun would have on his son and 3) somehow managed to hit Earth with a rocket from light-years away? That's like aiming a peashooter at a beach, trying to hit one particular grain of sand, while the tide is coming in.)
Now DC Comics did their own reboot two years ago, essentially telling me that the stories between 1986 and 2011 no longer mattered, which is a slap in the face to older fans but a fresh start for new young ones. I understand it, but I don't have to like it.
My point is, the Superman story, or any superhero story for that matter, is a framework, upon which hundreds of writers get to hang their stories over the years, and each one changes the story by a little or a lot. You have to hit certain story beats - he was born on Krypton, flew on a rocket, was found in a Kansas cornfield by the Kents, and eventually becomes a newspaper reporter/superhero in disguise. Now, you can add little bits and take away others when you tell your Superman story - this film just happens to be one without Lex Luthor, Jimmy Olsen, Supergirl, plus just a tiny bit of Lana Lang and Pete Ross (who's Caucasian again, but I guess since Perry White is now black, it balances out...). Some versions have Ma and Pa Kent alive, some have them dead, this film decided to split the difference (as the recent comics have, with them alive in Action Comics but dead 5 years later in Superman Comics)
It's a lot like "Hamlet", where a dramatist might look for a new way to present the play, and find that he can't really change the lines or the plot points, but he can change the inflections or the stage directions in order to bring some new meaning to it. Or maybe the story of Jesus is a better analogy (I've also written before of the many similarities between Superman and Jesus, too many to list here) because people can make films about different aspects of the Jesus story ("Passion of the Christ", "The Last Temptation of Christ", "Jesus Christ Superstar") in essence telling the same story, but in almost completely different ways. I feel more comfortable making the Superman/Jesus analogy since the film at one point places Supes in front of a prominent stained-glass window with Jesus on it, praying in the garden of Gethsemane...
Now, the first half of this film takes place in one of the spaces in-between the story beats - Clark Kent is out of college (or high school, not sure which) and is traveling around the world doing odd jobs, like fishing or bartending, only using his superpowers when needed, because he believes that the world will not accept him as a hero, that they'll be suspicious of such a powerful alien in their midst. That's an interesting stage for Superman to be in, and I wish the movie could have spent more time there. (as with Jesus, the years between childhood and his early thirties are something of a mystery) But the constant use of flashback, showing scenes from his childhood almost randomly, do affect this stage, because we don't completely feel the years of isolation from his parents and friends.
Before that, the film opens with the traditional (but longer than usual) destruction of Krypton, preceded by a conflict over birthing rights and resources, or something, and a debate over who gets to rule the planet for the next few hours before it blows up. As for that "Man of Steel" miniseries, author John Byrne later said he made a storytelling blunder by starting the story on Krypton, and he wished he'd saved that part of the story for later, so the audience would find out about Superman's origin at the same time he did. It's the simple mistake of an omniscient narrator, born from an ambition to get the audience all of the information they need, at the expense of suspense. I don't think it counts as a mistake here, because Jor-El is an important part of the story on Krypton, and later on Earth as well. (OK, a hologram of Jor-El, but it's a really good and smart one.)
We all know what's coming, well, by "we" I mean Superman fans - General Zod is bound to escape from the Phantom Zone somehow and come to Earth to try and conquer it. And Superman is expected to give himself up, sacrificing himself in return for the salvation of the world (see? Jesus!), but since we know Zod is evil, it's going to come down to fisticuffs.
Now, here's where the movie kind of lost me, because the second half seemed a lot like a carbon copy of "The Avengers". Perhaps this film was in development first, but it got released second, so I feel the need to make the comparison. Both films feature an alien attack on Earth, and a villain connected to one of the heroes - just replace Loki with Zod, and "cosmic cube" with "world engine" and it's really the same deal. Plus a lot of skyscrapers get knocked down in both films, which doesn't call 9/11 to mind at all, really, Hollywood, keep doing this, I just can't get enough.
Speaking of which, the Zod/Superman showdown was, in my opinion, extremely repetitive. They kept knocking each other into building after building, never hurting each other, but destroying a heck of a lot of real estate. As the protector of Metropolis, and Earth, I wondered when Superman would find a way to move the battle elsewhere, so he wouldn't further harm the city he was trying to save. Really, I expect more of Superman, he needed to find a better way.
I also find fault with most everything in the film seeming just a bit too convenient. Right after Superman finds his purpose (and his suit), Zod shows up? OK, they explain that one, but it still seems like rather suspicious timing. The 4 or 5 people that Superman is working with (Lois, Dr. Hamilton, army guy and um, other army guy) just happen to have the exact combined necessary skill set to figure out a plan to combat the alien doohickey? Again, it's a huge coincidence. Deus ex machina (or at least "Jor-El ex Machina") times four because there were at least four alien doohickeys total, all of which were created by advanced aliens, but somehow humans are able to figure them out at just the right time.
In the end, what makes a hero? In this film, the difference between a villain and a hero is that a villain will kill without remorse, and a hero will kill when he has to, but feel bad about it later. I'm not sure that sends an appropriate message out to the kids - is that really how we want to think about Superman, shouldn't we expect more from him? I know I do.
NITPICK POINT #1 (and believe me, I have a bunch, even if I don't list them all here...): So, Superman's flight is just advanced jumping? I mean, he doesn't put out energy from his feet or anything, so maybe. But if you jump and just keep going, is that the same as flying? Douglas Adams wrote that the secret to flying is throwing yourself at the ground and missing - that seems to be what Superman does, only he jumps in the air and then just fails to fall. Isn't that what a plane does? It just moves forward really fast, and doesn't fall, and then when it keeps going straight and the curvature of the Earth makes the ground farther away, the plane is flying, right? (NOTE: I do not actually know how a plane stays in the air...) But, then, how does Superman hover?
NITPICK POINT #2: I've got major issues with the passage of time as it relates to space travel. Did Superman's rocket have a hyperdrive? If not, how long did it take it to get to Earth? How much time is "300 cycles" in the Phantom Zone? And how did Jor-El's technology interface with that of the scout ship? Did Kryptonian technology not change over 18,000 years? If not, why do I have to upgrade my computer software every two?
(ASIDE: They did a story in the comics where Superman got to watch Krypton explode, because his rocket ship DID travel faster than light, which meant that due to the time-space continuum, it took 20 years or so for light from Krypton to reach Earth, because the images we see of stars and planets are all years old. All of the stars in the Milky Way could have blinked out already, and we wouldn't know about it for years - that's how space equals time in the long run. But this is the point where the editor of the comic book should have said to the writer, "You are WAY too geeky, even by comic book standards, and the logistics of this story are over the heads of 99% of the audience..." NITPICK POINT about the ASIDE: So, how did the Kryptonite get here so fast??)
NITPICK POINT #3: The "S" on Superman's chest does NOT mean "hope". It means "House of El", which Jor-El said STOOD for hope. It's not a literal translation, it's more like how "IHOP" means "you can get pancakes here".
And speaking of hope, maybe you heard the news out of Comic-Con that the next Superman film will also feature Batman, though we don't yet know if they'll be fighting each other or working together (probably both), or much else about the film, but we hope it will eventually lead to a Justice League film, as a franchise and not a typical stand-alone DC Comics film.
Also starring Henry Cavill (last seen in "Stardust"), Amy Adams (last seen in "The Muppets"), Michael Shannon, Kevin Costner (last seen in "For Love of the Game"), Diane Lane (last seen in "Secretariat"), Laurence Fishburne (last seen in "Contagion"), Christopher Meloni, Richard Schiff (last seen in "Johnny English Reborn"), Michael Kelly (last seen in "The Adjustment Bureau").
RATING: 7 out of 10 satellites
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