There is a critical line in the personal showdown, near the
end of "Man of Steel”, between Krypton’s General Zod (Michael Shannon) and a
late-20s-something Clark Kent aka Kal-El (Henry Cavill) , when Zod says, “I
have no people”. That’s all that makes
Zod tick. The whole genome of his people
was synthetically stored (digitally) somehow into Kal-El’s body after he was
born and his dad Kor-El (Russell Crowe) shot him off to Earth on a hyperdrive
spaceship. That sounds rather silly, but it makes a point.
Kpryton’s crumbling "reich", shown in impressive opening scenes,
seemed to be a non-constitutional monrarchy with a feudal court, but all the
babies were conceived artificially, with genes deigned to make them fit into
the hive. Ordinary people had become
ants, social insects. In fact, the court
is accompanied by “people” who inhabit vertical pods, and show up inside the
bulbs as holograms. “People” had given
up on normal marriage and sex, and the end result was the ultimate planning of
a master race. George Gilder (in “Men
and Marriage”) had warned about this in 1986 he referred to Aldous Huxley and “Brave
New World”. Or perhaps this reminds us
of the movie “Children of Men”. The
setup seems like a perfect paraphrase of Nazism, and Zod was a caricature of
Adolf Hitler.
The movie tries to pull ten years of “Smallville” (or two complete "Superman" franchises) together
into 140 minutes. Missing is Lex Luthor,
as well as all the forms of kryptonite.. The story is stitched together with a
lot of flashbacks to Clark’s adoptive boyhood.
In this movie, hus adoptive dad (Kevin Costner) dies in a Kansas
tornado, and Clark has to let it happen to keep his secret. (The twister is quite well done, and
replicates what really happens in a mile-wide F5 tornado, much more so than the
1996 film :”Twister”.) The scenes where Clark learns of his origins
and has to keep his gifts secret are quite touching (after he saves all the
kids on a school bus that has crashed into a river).
The political confrontation happens when Zod comes to Earth
from the Phantom Zone and hacks the Earth’s power grid and Internet and
displays to everyone “You Are Not Alone”.
This is not your typical EMP (electromagnetic pulse) attack, as the
normal power and Internet come right back on.
Zod demands that the US turn Clark in to him. Clark turns himself in and Lois Lane (Amy
Adams) is allowed to go with him.
Needless to say, Clark and Lois talk themselves out of
immediate peril on the space station.
That leads to the ultimate battle back on Earth, at the Kent Farm in
Kansas, and then Metropolis. Now,
instead of KCMO, the film uses Chicago as Metropolis, and Hollywood gets a
chance to destroy Chicago’s Magnificent Mile, just as it did to San Francisco
in Iron Man III.
In the end, Clark gets to blend in as a typical geek with
glasses, and Lois gets him his job at the Daily Planet as a “journalist” where
he can jet around the world, become omnipresent, get paid for it, and have a
cover. Isn’t that Anderson Cooper does?
The film takes itself very seriously. It’s not a lot of “fun”, the way “Now You See Me” is. The music score by Hans Zimmer aspires with a
theme based on upward-jumping intervals. In the closing credits, Zimmer lets
the music die away (after quoting “Inception” once), rather than providing the
triumph that would have been appropriate.
Cavill presents a different look than did Christopher Reeve
and Tom Welling. The scene where he
(having become a journeyman laborer) rescues workers from a burning oil rig (BP
in the Gulf?) befits DC Comics, all right, but it present shim with a big
barrel hairy chest, impervious to fire.
The official site is here. The film, though produced by Christopher Nolan (largely speaking) is directed by Zack Snyder.
I've met one of two people (late teen to young adult) who can do things that seem like magic -- or else, evidence of extraterrestrial origin. Maybe we aren't alone.
I saw the film in 3-D (but not Imax) at the Angeika Mosaic
in Merrifield VA. Angelika is not
sticking to indie films all the time.
Major spectacles get booked.
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