Zombie Column: Man of Steel

Evan was in town this past weekend, and due to extenuating circumstances (like, our city got nice and flooded), we were able to take in a movie after church. We decided on Man of Steel (over This is the End and World War Z) and dragged Amy along with us, because of course we did.

Honestly, I can’t remember what most of the trailers were. Pacific Rim, maybe? White House Down was the first, and Evan called that as we entered the theatre, so bonus points for him. I think I got the others, though, so I’m not entirely sure who wins that round.

Anyway, the movie opens with a mother giving birth, while Russell Crowe helps. I’m not entirely sure he should be around any births, since he might snap and start hurling phones at various medical personnel, but maybe that’s why he’s assisted entirely by robots here. After that, the movie shifts into a fairly long action scene. General Zod (Michael Shannon) leads an insurrection right before Krypton blows up while Jor-El (Crowe) sends his son to Earth. This is totally how every movie should start. Way over the top action scenes with a ton of explosions to get us invested in it.

Then the movie slows down a lot, but by that time we’re already hooked. It spends about an hour letting us get to know Clark Kent (Henry Cavill, whom we recognize from Immortals, but that’s about it. He’s my kind of guy, though – he almost missed the call from Zack Snyder because he was busy playing World of Warcraft) while he gets to know himself.

Eventually the action starts back up, again in tremendous manner. Say what you want about Snyder, but he can sure do special effects. They’re almost Bay-ish in their size, intensity, and frequency. I didn’t really have any quibbles about the action, just a question. If two invincible beings face off, can one defeat the other by punching? Has punching ever been the answer to invincibility? Has punching ever been the solution outside of movies, TV, and boxing? Not that that’s a small sample, mind you. Right now I’m going through Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and there’s an awful lot of punching of immortal beings. Some kicking too, just to mix things up.

Well, tangent over. One thing I really liked about this movie is the number of people I recognized. You’ll probably know Amy Adams as Lois Lane, and Kevin Costner as Pa Kent, and possibly Diane Lane as Ma Kent. And Morpheus – sorry, Laurence Fishbourne (but really, will he be known as anyone else?) – as Perry White. There’s also Richard Schiff (Toby from The West Wing) as a military scientist, and Michael Kelly (Mark Snow from Person of Interest) as a reporter from the Daily Planet. I mean, his character in the credits is Steve Lombard, but he’s pretty much the guy at the Daily Planet who’s not Morpheus. Oh yeah, Christopher Meloni’s in it too (from one of the Law & Order spin-offs. Also, the really ugly guy from Harold and Kumar go to White Castle).

There are some jokes in here, but not a lot. The music is suitably heroic, but not quite to my tastes. I would have put slightly different chord progression in there, but Hans Zimmer is beyond reproach at this point, so you may as well pick up the soundtrack if you like his other stuff. I’ll stick with Audiomachine.

That’s pretty much my only quibble. The movie is fantastic from beginning to end. Not even the douchebag who answered his phone (twice!) could spoil it. Definitely a theatre movie for me.