Man of Steel
A review by Glenn Duenas
If you don’t know how enjoy yourself in Man of Steel, you don’t know how to live life. Because life is long, loud, painful, and pointless. That’s what “Man of Steel” showed me. The whole entire movie shitty things were happening to people just so superman was forced to help (does this sound like the Dark Knight to anybody?). He was forced to show his power, but then he ran away, upset. It’s the Christopher Nolan mentality that a character in peril is more interesting if he is never shown happy. Even when Superman found out who he was and was encouraged by his real father to develop flight, he never smiled! And in what should have been the greatest moment of wonder and joy, Hans Zimmer’s music held you back. Yes, I said it: “Hans Zimmer’s music held back Man of Steel”. Instead of a theme that lifts you up, it loops on four notes in pairs, holding on only the saddest notes, and in the two or three movie moments I truly expected a moving ballad of joy, I got a sweeping, noisy swath of melancholy.
I blame Christopher Nolan. It was Nolan’s choice to take this intense and joyless approach to Superman, and his decade of collaboration with Zimmer (since the 2005 Batman) that has brought Zimmer to this point. A point where a melancholy four note theme reminiscent of Batman’s two note theme is Superman’s theme. A point where he is intentionally minimizing the number of notes in the “theme” in a mis-guided belief that this makes things simpler. And simpler is better.
In any case, the paradox is that Zack Snyder clearly enjoys the opposite approach. The visual effects in this movie were like Transformers 3 and the Avengers on crack. It was just awe-inspiring. The duration of the destruction, the scale, and the detail all contribute to what appears to be the largest undertaking in Hollywood yet. It was clearly an attempt to win the Blockbuster crowd seeking entertainment. Seeking fun. But at no point were you allowed to marvel at the moment, cheer for superman, or smile. Because superman did none of that. There were three moments in the movie that caused me to laugh. Three one-liners that were so out of place that they felt like they were written on location by Zack Snyder in an attempt to save the movie from the screenplay. I can’t help but wonder if Michael Bay could have saved the movie from the screenplay. I think he could have. Step number one would have been to fire the screenwriters and bring on six more (provided there wasn’t a writer’s strike going on). I’m sure the thought had passed through Zack Snyder’s head, “how do I save superman from these guys”. The problem is that the story/screenwriter was also the producer, and he couldn’t make the movie if he fired his boss! So he went ahead with his vision of delivering the grandest action scenes in Hollywood yet, but it was undermined intrinsically by the story.
And unfortunately, the music corroborated the screenplay. Even at the moments of visual wonder and awe, moments to celebrate, or clap or cheer, it said “nope, this is sad; this is not the time to smile”. After all it is music that tells the audience what they’re allowed to do. It can’t tell you the story, but it will tell you the purpose of a scene. It tells you how to feel, and the whole movie it said “superman is in a bad place; he doesn’t believe in himself or in what he thinks is right; this is bad”. And part of me can’t really blame Zimmer because the screenplay said exactly that!!
At the end of the day the fault lies in the screenplay, written by one of the guys who wrote the Dark Knight with story overseen by Christopher Nolan. It was constructed as exactingly and dramatically as Inception or Dark Knight: by asking themselves “What’s the worst possible thing that can happen?” Hey, this is okay. Armageddon did the exact same thing. All great movies do. But instead of a hero that excels with grace (think of any 80’s or 90’s action hero), Superman simply does his job then hides in fear. And the strange thing was that in both Man of Steel and The Dark Knight, the protagonists seemingly refuse to kill without explanation, except in this movie Superman finally does. Whereas Batman is given this wholly out-of-place and therefore artificial spine that he will never kill, Superman mans up and says (emphasis added) this fucker needs to die! As my brother says, in that way, he’s a true American!
It was amazing though that even at the end of the movie, they were still doing flashbacks to scenes of “character development”. As audience members, we all accept 15 to 30 minutes max of exposition. We put up with random scenes, flashbacks, that serve to illustrate a single don’t-hit-me-over-the-head-I-get-it point. But the Nolan team just doesn’t get (or refuses to accept) that exposition is only acceptable when it’s done comedically!! Instead, this movie (like Inception) is still explaining the character to the bloody end of the film. We are stuck in ACT I until the titles come on screen!! This was such a problem that halfway through the movie, I noticed what was happening! When nauseatingly shaky handheld camera work in a scene where two characters were simply talking quietly to each other caused me to briefly look away from the screen, I realized why I felt so uncomfortable. I said to myself “holy shit, I’ve been sitting here for well over an hour and they’re still doing exposition!” Fifteen minutes later I asked myself, is this ever going to end?” and then we were in the middle of the most epic blockbuster sequence in the world and I just didn’t connect with the character. What happened? Isn’t exposition supposed to quickly set you up so you can do just that? Connect with the character. This time, it didn’t.
The phenomenal thing is that the Dark Knight trilogy was EXACTLY the same, and Inception was an even worse offender of exposition to the bloody end, and audiences ate that shit up! The problem here is that audiences were expecting something different. Something uplifting. This is Superman after all. And even Hans Zimmer was telling us that musically (i.e. emotionally) this movie would be the opposite of the Batman trilogy and would inspire us as Americans. He lied.
Other notes:
There seemed to be serious production inequality. It’s as if they spent $10 on production and a billion dollars on post. There were at least three scenes ruined by hand held shots that should have been on a dolly or at least a tripod. What blows my mind is that it would have cost them nothing to get a dolly because they probably already had one in the D.P.’s truck. Instead, they probably thought “ooh, this adds energy to the scene”. But what they didn’t remember is that this image was going onto a sixty foot screen – in 3D, besides the fact that it makes the movie look amateur!
And then my brother noticed as much as I did that there was an obnoxious hiss during everyone’s dialogue. It was like pristine music and sound effects and then when the characters opened their mouth, the hiss would fade in with their voice and fade out at the end of their dialogue. This means the audio mixer heard the hiss and was trying to avoid it. Maybe it was only audible in IMAX, but audio mixer heard it. And when two people spoke over each other, I could actually hear the hiss double. I noticed it in like three different scenes with Russell Crowe. It was so obvious! I couldn’t understand why they couldn’t spend a few extra dollars to get the actors on a sound stage and re-record the scenes – which is standard in practically EVERY OTHER MOVIE. I guess no one was going to be that guy who said “Uh, guys we need to redub this stuff” to Russell Crowe.
It was like “Look at these visuals! We spared no expense. Except for good audio and a dolly.”
In discussions with others who agree (“Well, Man of Steel killed my inner child. I wish I could fly around the world to reverse time and NOT see it.”) I added this:
That movie was just so cynical. And I’ve been saying it since Batman. Christopher Nolan makes cynical, depressing, dark movies that kill you inside more than they inspire. I expected a different movie than Batman when I heard Zack Snyder was on board and what the composer was saying about how this one is the opposite of Batman and about hope. I would recommend against seeing not only this movie, but every single Christopher Nolan movie ever made!! Take a look at Memento, Inception, Batman, Prestige: all movies where the protagonist has terrible things done to him and many where the protagonist does terrible things (Prestige, Inception). Never has the protagonist been happy about anything, nor have any of their achievements been celebrated. Always a cynical, “this is life” attitude. This movie should have been a popcorn, stand-and-cheer movie. Instead we get this. I am boycotting all Nolan productions from now on. I SWEAR. I NEVER swear, but this is the last straw!
Excuse me if I sound upset. This is just what Christopher Nolan films do to me. What do they do to you?