Three Years Later, Man of Steel Is Still A Soulless Pile of 9/11 Debris
Man of Steel isn’t a bad film. Its filmmaking shows effort; its actors emote; its choice of villain a predictable, but logical one. None of these elements utterly fail or ruin the movie, or make things unbearable. But that isn’t the reason that Man of Steel still has continuously left me wanting. And for the past three years since I saw first saw it, the film still continues to haunt my soul. Not because it’s bad, but because it’s incredibly cynical, and yet, its chief crime seems to be that it is insufferably boring.
Superman movies are incredibly difficult to make, much less write for. I do not for one second envy the person who has to write a Superman film. It’s already a tall order in terms of just nailing down the character. Superman’s backstory needs to be told in a certain way for modern audiences that Superman doesn’t have as straightforward of an origin story, or a necessary motivation that’s easily understandable. Contrast him with Batman’s origin story, and it’s easy to see why Batman’s origin gets told a great deal more than Superman’s. It’s an easier story to tell.
With Superman, you basically have a godlike figure that can seemingly do anything. And the temptation for many writers is to write him as a Christlike figure. Which is precisely not what Superman is. Superman was created by two Jewish kids. In fact, his story is far more similar to Moses than Jesus. Going for the Jesus metaphor is not only lazy, it’s being untrue to the character’s ethnic roots.
Yet Snyder and David Goyer totally go for the Jesus metaphor. Case and point: Superman floating in space, posing as if he’s on a crucifix. It’s still one of the lamest things in the universe, and it makes my nerd heart die a little bit inside because of how dumb and stupid it is. It’s not because it’s easy, it’s because I don’t feel in awe enough of Superman for him to look Christlike. The meaning behind it is too thin for an audience to care.
Apart from its childish Messiah complex, Man of Steel also never features Clark Kent being Clark Kent. And that is a sad and missed opportunity. While it might not be the greatest Tarantino film, Kill Bill Vol. 2 has one of the best monologues about why Clark Kent is important:
Superman wasn’t made, he was born. He wasn’t a lab accident, and he didn’t really suffer the death of his family. He finds all of that out much later, and is raised by two loving parents. He’s a well-adjusted superhuman being who just wants to do good in the world and do it as a journalist and an übermensch (of sorts). But Man of Steel isn’t that. It’s a cynical take on the character who’s traditionally portrayed as a Boy Scout. That in and of itself isn’t a problem, but it easily becomes one when paired with the script’s other problems, like Jonathan Kent, whose weak sauce dialogue Kevin Costner tries to infuse with some dignity before he’s uncerimoniously killed off.
Kevin Costner is mostly relegated to spewing out expository dialogue telling our protagonist how special he is, and perhaps giving some questionable answers as to whether a young Clark should have saved the bus of kids that fell in the river. But that isn’t what really pisses me off about the way that the character’s handled. What is infuriating is that Jonathan Kent’s death is ultimately meaningless on an emotional level. I feel nothing in a scene that telegraphs to me to feel everything.
When I read the issue of All-Star Superman where Johnathan Kent dies, I still get emotional. I feel something. I’m able to feel Superman’s pain at being unable to save his father. I won’t tell you how he dies, but it’s a poignant moment that makes you feel for Clark, that you’re in tune with a character who can sometimes come off as unrelatable.
By the way, if you read All-Star Superman, you’ll probably cry multiple times because it’s just that fantastic. I can safely say that as a former Superman hater convinced that Batman did all the homework in the JLA, I was converted by Grant Morrison. His version of Superman is someone real, who is tangible, yet godlike. Morrison draws a great deal from classic mythology, particuarly the death of Heracles. It’s a beautiful story that blends Silver Age sensibilities with modern comic book themes, and damnit if it doesn’t nail it with every single issue for the maximum amount of emotional gut-punching that Man of Steel can only hope for.
My other reasons for disliking Man of Steel are more aesthetic than anything else. Everything in the film is decolorized, giving the film an almost pseudo-sepia pallatte. The film doesn’t feel alive, and everything looks like an old photograph from a the 1950s. It’s grim and really depressing to watch, and can leave you feeling emotionally numb. It’s like the complete opposite of a Steven Spielberg film. I can tell that we’re supposed to get this uplifting feeling when we watch the film, that we’re supposed to be lifted out of the gritty drabness of our world by the deeds of this godlike being from another world. But the world doesn’t need a savior. It needs a Superman. Someone who inspires people to be their best selves, who stands for something that ordinary humans can’t stand for.
In his olden days of yore, Superman defeated menaces like greedy executives who wanted to exploit the working class. He was a journalist who worked to expose corruption with his pen and pad as much as he did with his strength. This Superman is angsty and feels the weight of being a Messiah, and while that’s all well and fine of an interpretation, he never feels like he’s ever going to save people in the most un-extraordinary of ways. In ways that are profoundly unsexy, like journalism. Which unfortunately, we never see Clark do in Man of Steel.
Also, there’s the 9/11 porn, which is hilariously distasteful. And don’t tell me any different when you see clips of a skyscraper threatening to crush people. 9/11 is already burned into my skull, and if you’re going to use it, then make it mean something other than a cheap attempt at pathos. Honestly, Marvel has far, far less 9/11 porn, and as such, feels far less exploitative as a result.
I think the American zeitgeist is secretly longing for the Superman that we know is a cornball do-gooder who does the right thing because it’s the right thing to do. In this cynical electoral cycle, we need someone who stands for something we can all aspire to. But that is not to be found in Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel. Warner Bros./DC feels like they’re playing catchup with Marvel, rather than building their own world, and what you end up with are action figure fights and Superman punching the crap out of stuff until we can’t feel anything. All audiences can do is sit in the mutliplex and attempt to care about a character who is already difficult to care about in the first place.
