Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird... It's a plane... It's... Batman?
And that's my whole review in a nutshell. This isn't a Superman movie. It's a Batman movie with Superman in it.
I can't be the only one that sees this. Between Zod doing the infamous television scene from The Dark Knight, to playing up the more tragic aspects of Clark Kent's life, to Clark becoming a drifter trying to find meaning to his life, to the eventual blunt force trauma of a moral to the story... everything looked and felt like I was watching The Dark Knight. So, was I surprised to learn Christopher Nolan and David Goyer wrote this? Absolutely not.
But let's be fair. How was the movie? It was okay. Nothing great, but not bad either. It had some great ideas and I would say more often than not they worked. The biggest problem I have though is that I'm starting to wonder if Christopher Nolan is a one-trick pony. He did such a masterful job of re-imagining Batman. He took a character that had been raked over the coals and worked magic. He recaptured the gothic feel and grittiness that Batman needs to be a great movie. Batman belongs in the shadows.
However, Superman is the exact opposite. Superman belongs in the limelight. He is a symbol of the best and greatest of humanity. He is the Olympian ideal of what a superhero is supposed to be. How can Clark Kent embrace the best of humanity if all we see of his childhood is persecution? Where are the happy times? Instead we get his best friend being a bully to him, we have the parents of the other children look on him as some kind of demon because he... saved their children's lives? I don't get that.
It really starts to speak to what kind of person Christopher Nolan is. Here is my question: Does he like humanity? Everyone in the Batman movies and in Man of Steel are so quick to anger. They are so quick to respond out of fear. Is this Nolan's critique of humanity? Are we all knee-jerk, primitive, child-like cowards in his eyes?
It's why I say he doesn't understand Superman. Superman is a symbol of hope. He is supposed to see the beauty of humanity and fights to save it. He is a boy scout and proud of it. He wasn't sheltered from humanity, he grew up in it. Superman isn't a tragic figure. He's an orphan from a dead planet who was raised with love all around him, not just from his parents. He dated, he played football, he had childhood friends... Superman is NOT Batman.
Let's talk about the movie a little. The movie itself is exhausting. It's about 2 1/2 hours long and it feels that long. The climax is just like in The Dark Knight Rises in that it just keeps going. It goes on forever. The shaky camera mixed with the animated fight scenes is just so tiresome. Everything moves too fast, it's almost impossible to take anything in. If the directors were going for that war-like atmosphere, they nailed it. But the problem is that the scene is so long that at least for me, it became a chore to watch. The camera never stood still and I can't begin to tell you how much I hated that. I've said it in so many reviews now. It's time to fire the epileptic holding the camera.
As for the story, it's fairly solid. Other than the things I mentioned already about how the writers don't understand Superman, the idea of including Zod into the movie was pretty good. And never let it be said I don't give a movie props when they deserve it. The way they wrote Zod was masterful. I understood his motivations and he actually becomes a very interesting character. He's not just some megalomaniac like he is in Superman II, but actually has a tragic story. He's a lot like Magneto from X-Men: First Class. You don't agree with the things he does or the way he does them, but at the very least you can understand why. The character is identifiable and not just some villain for the sake of being a villain.
In the end I just can't recommend this movie. I felt like I needed a nap after watching it. I couldn't enjoy it because the second half of the movie is just relentless. Some might enjoy that, I didn't.
