Man of Steel

A young itinerant worker is forced to confront his secret extraterrestrial heritage when Earth is invaded by members of his race.

After the dire reception received by the last attempt at rebooting the franchise, one would hope that some of the previous film's failings might be addressed in erasing it from memory, revitalising the character to fight another day. Man of Steel, though not quite as dreary as its predecessor, still treads familiar ground, battering audiences with clumsy storytelling, and drawing an uncomfortable amount of inspiration from some of its contemporaries.

One of the film's biggest problems is that of the exposition. As the movie gets going, it's not long before a pattern develops - we see an event, some time passes, and we are then forced to sit and listen to a recounting of that same story to another character. If there were some kind of different insight to gain from this, it may offer some value, but this is rarely the case. As you might expect, this irritation soon becomes tedious and the potential impact of later scenes is outright flattened by boredom. There is also a troubling reliance on cliché in some of the presentation of Clark's journey to becoming a man. This isn't the only aspect of the film that is plagued by such concerns.

Artificially inserted lens flare is something that earned 2009's Star Trek no small amount of ridicule. I hadn't thought it possible for this to be trumped, until now, that is. The frequency with which it occurs in this picture is positively distracting. Almost every shot that contains a light source has received the treatment, absolutely reeking of trying too hard to attain the aesthetic of the J.J. Abrams picture. This made any attempt at beautiful vistas redundant, swiftly turning admiration to a roll of the eyes, as the obvious desperation to appear epic in scale inspired a cringe at every turn.

As far as the cast is concerned, there are no disasters to mention. Most perform well, the majority of faults that exist being down to the writing itself. More than a handful of these characters would have been better off being omitted completely, rather than being the blank placeholders that they represent. A generic scientist whose sole function seems to be to express his disbelief to the heavens when a big special effects scene is imminent is the low point, but this is only the tip of the iceberg.

If there is one saving grace of the film, it's the action sequences. They are uniformly impressive, albeit somewhat repetitive in nature. The lightning fast brawls on offer are a sight to behold and are executed with exceptional style. Had the storytelling been better, these scenes could have served the purpose of enhancing the plot. As things stand, they are left as one of the few highlights in an otherwise dull affair.              

The Verdict:

5/10
A film full of clumsy exposition and poorly written characters. The action is largely superb, but comes too late to save the film from plummeting into mediocrity. Disappointingly average.