Before we get into the movie, imagine that you are throwing a Super Bowl party for about 50-ish of your friends, big enough that you might not know everyone who walks through your doors. You see someone you don't recognize and you ask one of your bros if he knows that dude. He replies, "I don't know, but he brought a case of Tecate so it's cool." . Before you even get to the part where you question how bringing Tecate is a qualifier for anything, a group of dudes bust into your house and want to beat the Tecate guy down. They tell you if you throw Tecate guy out, they'll TCB somewhere else and leave you alone. Tecate guy is cool with this, so you say "Aight" and go back to your Super Bowl festivities. A few minutes go by, the group of dudes come back and decide that they want to fuck with you instead. They go all The Passion of the Christ on your crib. Your TV? Smashed. Your couch? Eff'd. Your walls are caved in, your floor boards are cracked, anything glass is shattered. Everything you own, destroyed. Still you and your buddies manage to fight off the group and Tecate guy comes back to help and ends the fight by snapping the ringleader's neck to save some of your cowering buds. When all is said and done you are now left living in squalor and at the mercy of your homeowner's insurance. You and your friends are emotionally scarred since the Super Bowl and/or house parties will never be the same. So what does the future hold for you and Tecate guy? Do you appreciate that he did you a solid and saved some lives by snapping a fools neck? Probably. Do you ever want to hang out with Tecate guy again? HELLS NO!!!!
That, in a lowbrow nutshell, is my biggest problem with MoS. The one thing that most people are missing about Man of Steel is that the film fails to address a huge societal element that is necessary if Snyder and Goyer want to bring a stark, gritty, realism to the Superman story. The confrontation portion of the plot centers on a group of Kryptonians who come to Earth solely for the purpose of reclaiming Kal. Without Kal's presence on Earth Zod wouldn't even know about Earth since the movie explains that Kal's beacon led he and his platoon right towards Earth. Every Earthling is aware of this as a result of Zod transmitting to every TV in every language that they are there for the sole purpose of reclaiming Kal. Of course, the Zod army decides they want to turn Earth into New Krypton after scoping out the place. I mean who wouldn't? The Earth rules! Kal then goes into action as Superman for the first time and with the help of Army led by Chris Keller, thwarts Zod's plans. This doesn't happen without astronomical damage and loss of life as estimated here. In reality, Superman doesn't save the Earth from anything, but rather Superman prevents the Earth from getting destroyed from the wake of his own personal drama. There is a difference, and I'll defer to Nature Boy Ric Flair for a second.
To be more precise, Naitch, the answer is SUPERMAN!!! You have what seems to be DAYS of Metropolis, on screen, going through a disaster that dwarfs 911, caused by Kal's presence and his people that are there to claim him. According to the storyline, Zod would have never known about Earth if it weren't for Kal!!!
After The Metropolis Disaster of 2013 and all the Metropolis Strong shirts have been sold, there is no mention of outrage or debate regarding Superman's presence on Earth and whether or not it's citizens accept his Earthling application. This can't happen, especially in modern day America! This is a country that will split in opinion over how to deal with handguns when a tragedy occurs that involves much fewer deaths and less property destruction than the one we saw in MoS. Again ,the Metropolis disaster was initiated by Kal's presence on Earth. Kal hasn't built up any good will prior to his debut, since his ID has been secret and his good deeds were limited by a father with fucked up priorities. Earth was doing just fine before he showed up. All the citizens of Earth know about Superman is that he is the harbinger of your cities being wrecked. The more I think about it, there would be no debate, the consensus would be "Get the Hell off my planet!!!" I'm all for gritty realism in the Superhero universe, if it's not half-assed. The Dark Knight Series dealt with this issue well, since we constantly saw public reaction to Batman and the relevance of that opinion over the course of three movies. The Spider-Man reboot dealt with this as we saw a ham-fisted approach to how public opinion and goodwill is important to Spidey functioning in New York. In MoS, we have a 33 year old drifter who finally gets his shit together, but he's also the indirect cause of the biggest disaster in the history of the United States.Sure, he may or may not have (since it's not shown) have helped rebuild the city with his superpowers. I'm leaning towards the latter, since he couldn't even spare the time over the last decade or so to paint his Mother's house.
The saddest thing is that this failure of logic and common sense would have been easily remedied if the script explained that Zod ending up in Earth's grill was inevitable. That's all. Then Superman is actually saving us from something. If you remove him from the equation in the remedied scenario, Earth is doomed. The way it's written in MoS, if you remove Superman from the equation, Earth isn't affected at all.
As far as the neck snapping scene that seems to be getting all the attention, I really don't care either way. I mean it's important to me that Superman is the ideal and should look for alternatives before killing. Ultimately though, it's DC Comic's call, and I think that's where the finger should be pointed. You can choose to support it or not support it with your money. Still, Goyer and Snyder knew what they were doing when they put Kal in a position to kill or not to kill. It's a giant smokescreen that polarizes fanboys in an attempt to hide all the flaws in the story. For the most part it's working since that's what comic related sites want to talk about. For me, it's a story choice, if they didn't want this debate they would have rewritten that scene.
Now for some hit and run.
Anytime Russel Crowe was on screen I wanted to parrot his lines out loud in his nasally Javert from Les Miserables singing voice.
About Johnathan Kent's death scene... it's so cloying and manipulative that I actually burst out laughing while the little kids behind me were bawling their eyes out. Johnathan Kent has a responsibility to both his family and for ALL OF HUMANKIND to ensure that he remain a positive and nurturing role model to Kal, as he will inevitably help direct the course of Man's fate. If you haven't seen the movie let me spoil it.for you. The Kent's are driving on their way to Branson (maybe) and all of a sudden, it's a TWISTER. Kal gathers Ma Kent and takes her to an underpass while Pa Kent leads all the other people on the road there. When they all meet at the underpass Ma realizes that they left the dog in the car. So Pa Kent decides to go get the dog, the car gets crushed and he breaks an ankle and refuses to let Kal help him . Then to sad music Pa kent gets swept away to OZ (The "land of" not the prison where he'll be Chris Keller's prag). Such bullshit! So Pa Kent is willing to put himself in harms way, after he had already reached shelter, FOR A FLIPPING DOG ?!? He's the Father of the alien Jesus! Does he have that low a self worth that this is the only lesson left to teach him? Say what you will about the choice for Kevin Costner to pull out his best Diana Ross pose, the thought process that put him in that situation to begin with is beyond ludicrous and undermines any gravitas that scene was meant to possess.
The scene with Grabby Trucker also stands out as another one that missed the mark logically. In this scene Kal intervenes and saves a waitress he is fond of from excessive fondling/sexual assault from a trucker who we saw earlier was hauling timber. Kal lets the trucker beat on him and throw a beer can at him which doesn't faze Kal at all. Kal is forced to eat it and walk away Witness style. The next shot we see is Grabby Trucker's rig hoisted up on the logs it was hauling, effectively destroying both the truck and the haul. This got exactly one loud guffaw from the audience. Probably because I live in a blue collar town and people understand that the truck is the guy's livelihood and he's on the hook for the the damage to the freight. So yeah, Superman just cost this guy his income for the next few weeks and if the guy has children they aren't going to be living well. How is this a better alternative then roughing the guy up a little with just a smidgen of your super strength? Bruises don't keep you from earning a living. Little brother the guy until he collapses from exhaustion, don't cripple the guy economically. Asshole.
The last big nitpicky thing was the unveiling of the iconic Superman costume, dark and edgified for 2013, but still in primary color glory. Okay, that's fine, but according to the movie, Jor-El designed the uniform. That works to explain the S=Hope family crest since they established that in the the Krypton opening scenes. In fact, we spent almost a half an hour in a Krypton that is is essentially colorless with the exception of shades of grey and bronze. Its so drab that it makes Tatooine look like Disneyland palette wise. Even their telecommunication devices use a greyish-black liquid metal that morphs to facial shapes rather than a video image. So why the fuck would Jor-El color the costume blue and red? All it would have taken is one line to explain why he chose the colors for his son. If you're going to take the time to explain the crest, the colors are just as important to the symbolism and shouldn't be ignored.
For all it's huge flaws, I still enjoyed MoS more than I disliked it. The action scenes are stunning and in a vacuum or in a movie less serious in tone would be enough to polish most of the flaws in the script. I'm also happy that they stuck to the mythos and had Superman waste at least 40 hours a week as a journalist, as opposed to being on patrol saving people and averting disasters, essentially for the sole purpose of tapping the well of journalistic poon. The idea that the omnipotent can boldly shit where they eat will always keep me coming back for more.
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