Movie Review – Man of Steel (2013)
Look, up in the sky!
It’s a bird!
It’s a plane!
It’s Superman! Yes, folks, arguably the greatest superhero of all time has returned to the big screen. 2013′s Man of Steel is a reboot of the Superman film franchise that began with 1978′s Superman. It’s an origin story that tells the history of the superhero and puts him against one of his greatest enemies, General Zod.
Directed by Zack Snyder and produced by Christopher Nolan, Man of Steel stars Henry Cavill in the title role of Clark Kent / Superman / Kal-El. Co-starring in the Superman film are Amy Adams as the news reporter Lois Lane and Michael Shannon as the Kryptonian warrior General Zod. Supporting them are Kevin Costner and Diane Lane as Clark’s adoption parents Jonathan and Martha Kent, Laurence Fishburne as Lois Lane’s boss Perry White, and Russell Crowe as Kal-El’s biological father Jor-El.
It’s been seven years since the release of 2006′s Superman Returns. Can Man of Steel bring the legendary superhero back to life and help create a restored interest and new franchise for the DC hero?
Man of Steel (2013) – (c) Warner Bros. Pictures
Man of Steel begins on planet Krypton, the home world of Superman’s race of people. Planet Kyrpton is dying. The people have mined all the krypton from the planet’s core and exhausted the natural resources. Jor-El (Russell Crowe) is pleading his case in front of the council for the survival of their race. He wants to send the people’s genetic code to another planet to ensure their existence for future generations.
Unfortunately, the council is against Jor-El’s idea. The meeting is then hijacked by General Zod (Michael Shannon) and his fellow warriors. Jor-El flees the meeting and races through Krypton, dodging General Zod’s attacks while racing to the sacred genetic codex. He acquires it and returns to his home where his wife, Lara Lor-Van (Ayelet Zurer), and infant son are waiting for him.
Jor-El’s son is a very special case. It’s explained that on Krypton, all children are specifically “manufactured” to fulfil specific needs on the planet, having a different set of genetic codes to suit those demands. People are literally born as farmers, miners, warriors, leaders, etc. In the case of baby Kal-El, he’s the first natural birth that Krypton has experienced in hundreds of years. Jor-El accepts this as a sign that their son was meant for something better on the dying planet.
Jor-El and his wife prepare to launch their son to planet Earth. They know that the Earthlings are similar to Kryptonians, though the young age of the Sun will give Kal-El exceptional powers, and he will be an outcast. They accept this and Jor-El “beams” the Kryptonian genetic codex into his son. Baby Kal-El is then loaded into the spaceship and it’s launched into space.
Man of Steel (2013) – (c) Warner Bros. Pictures
General Zod arrives and tries to stop the launch, but he’s too late. He kills Jor-El and is forced to watch as the future of planet Krypton flies away to an unknown planet. The general and his soldiers are captured, and the council sentences them to a long sentence in the Phantom Zone prison dimension in outer space.
After General Zod and his soldiers are sent to the Phantom Zone, Krypton’s planetary core finally explodes and the planet is destroyed. We later learn that that explosion frees General Zod from his prison, allowing him and his warriors to roam the universe. Meanwhile, Kal-El’s spaceship warps to Earth and it crashes in Smallville, Kansas.
Man of Steel then jumps forward to today and we see Clark Kent (Henry Cavill) in his early twenties as he’s serving on a crab fishing boat. He’s a greenhorn (rookie) and already annoying his crew members from his lack of experience. The ship’s skipper receives a distress call, and they head to an oil rig that’s caught on fire. A Coast Guard helicopter is also enroute to the scene, though the skipper mentions that they’ll probably be too late to rescue any survivors.
Man of Steel (2013) – (c) Warner Bros. Pictures
The camera shows the trapped oil workers on the oil rig when suddenly the door is pried open by Clark Kent (he’s wearing his street clothes, no superhero costume yet). He escorts the men to the landing platform and the Coast Guard helicopter lands and begins loading the workers. Suddenly, one of the towers begins to collapse and Clark runs over to stop it. He uses superhero strength to prevent the tower from falling onto the helicopter, giving the Coast Guard a few precious seconds to fly away from the oil rig. The helicopter successfully escapes and the man who saved everybody has disappeared.
Clark is out floating in the water. As he’s floating he has a flashback to his younger days as a child in elementary school. Clark remembers sitting in a classroom and being heavily distracted by his x-ray vision and super hearing. This drives him mad and the young boy runs and hides in a janitor’s closet. While hiding he hears his classmates comment about how he’s basically a freak. Clark’s mother, Martha Kent (Diane Lane) arrives and calms the boy, telling him to focus his senses and gain control of them. It works and young Clark emerges from the closet.
There are more flashbacks throughout the film including a scene where young Clark is being picked on by a bully, Pete Ross, while riding on a school bus. The bus has a tire pop and swerves out of control while on a bridge. They crash over the railing and the bus plunges into the water. As the water is filling the interior of the bus, Clark climbs out the back and pushes the bus out of the water. We see Clark dive back into the water and return with the Pete, saving his life.
Man of Steel (2013) – (c) Warner Bros. Pictures
That night Pete’s parents meet with Clark’s parents and discuss the incident, but Martha tries to convince Pete and his parents that he was just imaging Clark rescuing everybody. It was just a product of his imagination from the stress of the incident. Outside the house, Jonathan Kent (Kevin Costner) has a talk with his boy about using his powers in public, even if it means saving the lives of others. If people knew his true strength then he would be made into an outcast.
Another flashback shows Jonathan finally revealing the spaceship to young Clark, showing the boy that he is literally not from this world. Clark doesn’t want to accept the fact that he’s an alien, but there’s nothing he can do about it. The spaceship is hidden in the barn and kept a family secret.
Another critical flashback has an older Clark Kent arguing with his father while they’re driving on a highway. Clark claims that Jonathan can’t tell him what to do because he’s not his real dad. Jonathan takes it personally, but he doesn’t argue back with Clark. Suddenly he stops his truck and they climb out and look at the sky. There’s a mesocyclone rotating and quickly producing a massive tornado.
Man of Steel (2013) – (c) Warner Bros. Pictures
Other vehicles have also stopped and Jonathan yells for everybody to seek shelter underneath the nearby overpass (something you NEVER want to do in a real tornado, BTW). Clark takes his mother there while his father stops to help a woman and her child. The tornado moves closer and Jonathan returns to their truck to rescue their dog. He does so as the tornado tosses a car onto the truck, partially collapsing it. Jonathan’s leg is injured but he opens the door and the dog runs to safety. Clark wants to run out and help his dad, but doing so would show his powers to all of the onlookers under the overpass. Jonathan waves him back to the shelter and lets the tornado sweep himself away and kill him.
In today’s time, Clark Kent is working odd jobs and finding his way further and further north. At one point he’s working on a crab fishing boat. In another town he’s cleaning tables at a small town’s bar. Finally, he’s working as an extra hand in a scientific / military dig site in northern Canada.
Lois Lane (Amy Adams) is flying north to the dig site in northern Canada. She’s an award winning writer for the Daily Planet, and she’s there to follow a hot story currently under a tight security blanket. She pulled a few strings to get herself there, and since the dig site is located in Canada and not the U.S., there’s nothing that the U.S. military troops stationed there as security can do about it.
The scientists show Lois some satellite images showing some sort of massive vehicle buried underneath the Arctic ice. It’s too big to be a lost Soviet submarine from the 1960s. Besides, the surrounding ice is measured to be around 20,000 years old.
Man of Steel (2013) – (c) Warner Bros. Pictures
That night Lois wanders out into the cold and begins taking photographs of the dig site. She spies a man (Clark Kent) wandering away and she follows him to see what he’s doing. We see Clark using his eye beams to bore a hole through the ice and straight to the ancient spaceship. She quietly follows his path though she doesn’t actually see Clark.
Inside the spaceship, Clark begins examining it and accidentally triggers the security system, a menacing robot with a whip-like tail. He defeats it and inserts his “key,” a black device with the “S” symbol from the spaceship that carried infant Clark to Earth, and the spaceship comes to life. Jol-El appears in holographic form and speaks to Clark, telling him about Krypton and showing him parts of the spaceship. The ship turns out to be a Kryptonian scout ship that was sent to Earth many thousands of years ago.
While Clark is being given a tour by Jol-El, Lois Lane enters the spaceship and also triggers the security system by accident. She’s badly injured and Clark Kent destroys the robot. He then uses his eye beams to cauterize the bloody wound on Lois’ abdomen. Lois later awakens outside in the snow as a helicopter is landing to rescue her. Clark and the scout ship have flown away to a secret location.
Lois Lane returns to Metropolis and the Daily Planet. She submits the article about the spaceship and her superhuman rescuer to her boss, Perry White (Laurence Fishburne), but he rejects it. Disgraced, Lois turns around it hands her story to one of her friends, somebody who publishes conspiracy theories on a website.
Man of Steel (2013) – (c) Warner Bros. Pictures
Back at the scout ship, Clark Kent continues communicating with the electronic hologram of his father and learning more about his people and why Clark was sent to Earth. At one point Jor-El presents Kal-El with a uniform for him to wear on Earth. It’s something that will help transform Kal-El into a symbol of hope for the people. It’s something that they can look up to and strive to follow.
Kal-El wears the suit outside and practices flying. He starts with jumping until he’s jumping farther and farther, though at one point he makes a crash landing into a mountain. Kal-El keeps practicing and soon he’s flying. He flies low-level at supersonic speeds, racing through canyons and everywhere else.
Man of Steel (2013) – (c) Warner Bros. Pictures
Lois Lane leaves Metropolis and heads out in search of the mystery man who rescued her from the robot and stopped her from bleeding to death. She follows the stories and ultimately finds herself in Smallville at the Kent residence. Lois is visiting the gravesite for Jonathan Kent when Clark appears. She recognizes him from the Arctic and knows that he has secret powers that he’s hiding from society. The two of them talk and Lois agrees to keep him a secret. She returns to Metropolis and lies to Perry White, telling him that her leads into the mystery superhuman turned out to be nothing.
Over in NORAD, trouble is brewing as the military satellites have noticed an alien spaceship orbiting the Earth’s Moon. The spaceship appeared out of nowhere and it’s just a matter of time before amateur astronomers also see it. The big question though is what is the spaceship going to do next?
Man of Steel (2013) – (c) Warner Bros. Pictures
That’s answered one night when a breaking news story interrupts the regular television broadcasts. A UFO has been spotted flying around the country. A live television feed shows the spaceship slowly flying above the surface as if it’s in search of something. Suddenly, all television feeds and cell phone signals are hijacked by a mysterious force. A message is broadcast in all languages claiming that we are not alone in the universe.
General Zod’s image appears on the screens and he speaks to the Earthlings. He mentions that an alien from his planet his hiding on our world. He is demanding that alien to surrender himself or the entire planet will be destroyed. The transmission ends and people scramble to find out who exactly is hiding on Earth.
Perry White remembers Lois’ story about her superhuman rescuer, but she lies and tells her boss that she couldn’t find him. The person she gave her story to is interviewed on a news show, and he fingers her as the person who knows where the alien is hiding. FBI agents swarm into the Daily Planet and Lois is ultimately captured.
Man of Steel (2013) – (c) Warner Bros. Pictures
Out in Kansas, Clark and his mother also saw the message from General Zod. Clark speaks to a minister at their local church, and he decides to turn himself in for the safety of the Earth. He flies in his costume and allows the military to take him into custody, but only if he can speak with Lois Lane first. He’s allowed to speak with the news reporter, and Lois is in awe when seeing Clark in his Superman costume.
The UFO lands and Kal-El is taken into General Zod’s custody by Faora-Ul (Antje Traue). She also takes Lois Lane, and they are flown to the main spaceship in Earth orbit. Lois is given a special mask to wear as the atmosphere in the spaceship is similar to that from Krypton. In the Krypton atmosphere on the spaceship, Kal-El discovers that his powers have been greatly diminished.
Man of Steel (2013) – (c) Warner Bros. Pictures
Lois is held in a separate area of the ship while General Zod deals with Kal-El. The general tells Kal-El that when he activated the scout ship, it acted like a homing beacon and directed the general straight to him. He wants Kal-El to reveal the location of the genetic codex that Jor-El stole from Krypton and sent to Earth with his son. General Zod needs the codex to restore the now destroyed race of Kryptonians. He also intends on using terraformers to transform the Earth into a planet similar to Krypton, even if it means killing all the Earthlings in the process.
Man of Steel (2013) – (c) Warner Bros. Pictures
While in her separate section, the hologram of Jor-El helps Lois escape. He informs her that he designed the spaceship and knows its weakness. To destroy it they’ll have to use the spaceship that brought young Kal-El to Earth. Jor-El makes an adjustment to the spaceship’s environment to help give Kal-El his powers back so he can escape from the ship. Lois safely ejects from the spaceship and Kal-El follows, saving her from crashing into the Earth’s surface.
Man of Steel (2013) – (c) Warner Bros. Pictures
Faora-Ul and her associate fly to Smallville and battle Kal-El in the streets of the small town. It’s a massive fight as both Faora-Ul and her associate have strength and powers similar to Kal-El. The military is also involved as a few A-10 Warthogs try to stop the three aliens from Krypton. The A-10s are merely distractions and Faora-Ul and her associate destroy them. The fight continues and Kal-El ultimately defeats Faora-Ul, though she isn’t killed.
At this point the military realizes that Kal-El is a friend, and they no longer try to stop or harm him.
Over at the Kent house, General Zod interrogates Martha Kent on the whereabouts of the codex. She doesn’t know, and just as General Zod is about to injure her, Kal-El flies into the general and carries him a few miles away. They crash into some structures and Kal-El beats him repeatedly. General Zod’s mask is removed and he’s subject to the Earth’s atmosphere. He’s overwhelmed by his new senses but he escapes from Kal-El and returns to his spaceship in Earth orbit.
Man of Steel (2013) – (c) Warner Bros. Pictures
General Zod proceeds with his plan to terraform the Earth and change it to planet Krypton. His main spaceship descends over Metropolis while a second ship needed for the process is situated on the opposite side of the planet in the southern part of the Indian Ocean. A powerful laser hits the ground and passes through the Earth’s core, going from one ship to another and slowly converting the planet.
Lois Lane is able to talk to the military and tell them how to defeat General Zod’s terraforming machines. The spaceship that brought Kal-El to Earth can create a portal, and that can transport General Zod’s ship and crew back to the Phantom Zone. Kal-El flies to the Indian Ocean to defeat that machine while the military uses a C-17 Globemaster III to carry the small spaceship for an airdrop onto General Zod’s spaceship.
Zod’s ship causes a tremendous amount of damage to the buildings and structures in Metropolis. The military sends in some F-35 Lightning II aircraft to attack the spaceship, but their missiles are thrown off by the intense gravity field around the machine. The F-35s are later destroyed by Faora-Ul flying a smaller attack spaceship.
Kal-El defeats the spaceship over the Indian Ocean and it’s time for the military to carry out the attack on Zod’s ship over Metropolis. Lois tries to activate the spaceship on the C-17, but it won’t activate. There’s a problem and the “key” is stuck. Faora-Ul tries to attack the C-17 and she manages to get onto the cargo aircraft. One of the scientists manages to get the key into the spaceship, and with just moments to spare before he’s killed by Faora-Ul, Colonel Hardy (Christopher Meloni) takes the controls and crashes the C-17 into Zod’s ship. The aircraft’s flight crew is killed upon impact, but Zod’s ship and its occupants are transported to another dimension.
Lois Lane was thrown out of the aircraft and Kay-El saves her again before she hits the ground. All seems fine and Lois and Clark share a moment of passion until it’s revealed that General Zod was also thrown clear of the crash. He’s there in Metropolis and now he has learned to focus his senses.
Man of Steel (2013) – (c) Warner Bros. Pictures
There’s a tremendous battle in Metropolis as Kal-El and General Zod battle each other. As Zod mentions, it’s a fight to the death since neither side is going to surrender. The fight takes the two men into a structure resembling Grand Central Terminal and Kal-El puts Zod into a headlock. The general wants to die taking down innocent people, so he tries to use his laser eyes to kill an innocent family. Kal-El stops him at the last moment by snapping his neck and killing the general. Kal-El then lets out a tremendous roar to let loose his feelings and emotions, from killing a powerful adversary to saving the planet.
Kal-El returns to the prairie where he’s confronted by General Swanwick (Harry Lennix). General Swanwick tries to use a UAV to learn where Kal-El (a.k.a. Superman) lives, but Kay-El defeats the unmanned aerial vehicle. He tells the general that he is an ally, but he will not tolerate the government spying on him. Kal-El confirms that he’s about as American as they come as he was born and raised in Kansas. The general accepts the answer and seems pleased to know that Superman is on their side.
Man of Steel (2013) – (c) Warner Bros. Pictures
Man of Steel ends with Kal-El using his alternate identity of Clark Kent and choosing a place of employment where he’ll be able to keep track of current events and any crisis around the world. He’s hired by Jerry White and becomes a reporter at the Daily Planet in Metropolis.
You can safely leave the theater during the end credits. There are no extra scenes or images during or after the credits have finished.
So is 2013′s Man of Steel Superman film a good movie?
That’s going to depend on how you feel about several factors involving Man of Steel.
First of all, Man of Steel is yet another superhero origin / reboot story in an already saturated market. We’ve already experienced this concept with films like Batman Begins, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, X-Men First Class and most recently in The Amazing Spider-Man. So now it’s Superman’s turn. Sure. Why not? After all, Superman is still considered to be the greatest superhero of all time, and it’s been a long time since the first Superman film premiered back in 1978.
Second, several classic parts of the Superman story have been altered or even removed. For starters, Lois Lane knows about Clark Kent’s secret powers fairly early in the film. Don’t expect to see too much of the Daily Planet or even Metropolis for that matter, and you can forget about Superman’s Fortress of Solitude.
Third, this is not a happy film. Don’t expect to see any bright colors, Superman’s classic costume, or too many heartlifting or comedic moments in this film. This is a darker story involving Kal-El learning about his true self, mastering his powers, and taking on one of his greatest and most powerful opponents of all time. On top of that he has to prove his loyalty to the American government and people around the world.
Do those factors make Man of Steel a bad film?
Not necessarily. You just need to know that this presentation is quite different than the previous Superman films that we know and love.
Man of Steel is a well written film. The cast of characters is fantastic, the action scenes are pretty awesome, and there’s enough damage and carnage (especially in Metropolis) to satisfy most bloodthirsty movie goers. For the city damage scenes, picture the ending of Star Trek Into Darkness where Khan crashes his ship into the city, only times ten. There’s that much total damage throughout Man of Steel.
I like this style of Superman as he learns how to fly and control his powers and live amongst the Earthlings. This is a much more realistic side to the superhero than we’ve previously seen, and for the most part it works.
Man of Steel (2013) – movie trailer
It’ll be interesting to see the route that the Man of Steel‘s sequel will take along with any connections with the upcoming Justice League movie.
Jor-El – “You will give the people an ideal to strive towards. They will race behind you, they will stumble, they will fall. But in time, they will join you in the sun. In time, you will help them accomplish wonders.”
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NOTE – This article was originally published on June 15, 2013. The screenshots were added after the film was released on DVD.