Off-Topic: My MAN OF STEEL Review (Caution: Some Spoilers)

Okay, I saw the film MAN OF STEEL today, and a review is in order:

Let me start off with the good: this is a good film. It was entertaining, and meaningful, and it was a far better film than the last attempted reboot of the series, SUPERMAN RETURNS. Most of the scenes really worked. All of the actors did their jobs and did them well, and most of the dialogue was solid. I liked the mythological scope of the film. I don't think there has been a film that explored the Messianic aspect of the character in more detail. This is a very Christianized Superman. And I mean that on a multitude of levels. The film has been very polarizing. People seem to mostly love it. Critics are split, some love and some hate it. I cannot imagine hating this film, it has nothing in it that commends such an attitude. I can only assume that some of the critics were turned off by the heavy dose of Christian imagery and references.

Now for the negatives: it was a good film, but not a great film. And it would've been easy to turn into a great film. The flashbacks made the film a little too jumpy. It was borderline too much. But some of the flashbacks were repetitive, and easily could've been edited out of the film. In fact, there were several scenes that didn't work or simply repeated something that had already been dealt with that could've been vivisected out with ease, and made for a much better film. It was about 20 minutes too long, and didn't have to be. Henry Cavill did a great job as an actor, but he's a hairy guy, and sometimes his chest hair would stick out of the costume. It was distracting, and weird, and easily dealt with.

In the end, I came out of this film feeling a lot like I did about BATMAN BEGINS. That was the weakest of Nolan's BATMAN Trilogy, and the problems in it were easily solved. One got the sense, though, that a strong foundation had been laid for the future, and that is indeed what happened. One gets the same sense about MAN OF STEEL. It has it's problems, but it was overall a good movie. Unfortunately the problems, though small, were numerous enough to lower the film in my view. I said that the endings of BATMAN BEGINS and THE DARK KNIGHT lowered the films (as opposed to THE DARK KNIGHT RISES, which had an ending that elevated the film. BATMAN BEGINS went from great to good in the last fifteen minutes. THE DARK KNIGHT went from one of the best films of all time to a great film. I feel the editing problem in MAN OF STEEL lowered it from a great film to a good film. But good is good enough, when you think about how badly DC Movies have been screwed up in the past, a la THE GREEN LANTERN. It'll do....it'll do.