Movie Review: "Man of Steel"

 

Tonight, I went to see Man of Steel with my husband, John, a Superman aficionado. Let me just start off by stating that we have 3 Rubbermaid containers in our closet full of comic books – mostly Superman ones – from when he was younger. Every time we move I ask if it’s time to sell the comic books, but I don’t think he’ll ever cave. He really likes his comic books. So, of course we had to buy the tickets for the early Wal-Mart preview of Man of Steel. I love that we got to see the movie at 7:00 pm, rather than having to stay up for the midnight showing!

I went into the movie expecting to enjoy it, since I have enjoyed quite a few of the superhero movies that have come out lately. I didn’t really think I would love it as much as I did! Here are some of the things I loved.

1.       The Actors and Actresses. They were all fantastic. There wasn’t one that I ever thought, “He/She could have been better cast.” Really, they were all great. Also, rest assured that there were no singing parts for Russell Crowe. He definitely redeemed himself from Les Miserables. (We love Russell Crowe, by the way. He’s one of our favorites.)

2.       Action/Love story balance. Actually, it was a little heavy on the action. The action scenes were fast-moving, and since Kryptonians are fast-moving, that was appropriate. They were also loud and intense. John was in heaven. I was on the edge of my seat waiting for the love story to develop, and it did! Amy Adams was the perfect Lois Lane, even though I wouldn’t have originally pictured her playing the part.

3.       Back Story. Since I haven’t read though those Rubbermaids full of Superman comic books, I don’t know that much about the history of Superman, the comic book character. I feel like Man of Steel taught me a lot about where Superman came from. I felt for his Mother, choosing to send her new baby away from their soon-to-be-destroyed planet! I really liked how Clark Kent was portrayed before he knew where he was from. He really went through a lot of soul searching:  standing down to bullies as a kid, and taking odd jobs as an adult, before he developed a sense of what he should do with his gifts.

4.       The villains. They were totally loath-able.  And very evil. Just what a good villain should be.

5.       The family-friendly factor. John and I were both keeping track of swear-words so we could judge whether or not this would be an appropriate movie to watch with our young kids. As far as language goes, there were 2 or 3 mild swear words. No “F” word. Pretty good.  There were a few scenes that might be a little scary or intense for young children. I think we will probably let our 5 and 6-year- olds see it once it’s out of theaters.

If there’s anything I didn’t like, if might be that they replaced Jimmy with Jenny. If they wanted to replace a male character with a female character in order to make it more modern and politically correct for the 21^st century, they should have had a female General. Not a wimpy newspaper employee. That’s all I can think of. Not too shabby!

So all in all, we loved Man of Steel. We loved the overall look and personality of the show. And as for me, it wasn’t too difficult to have to sit and watch Henry Cavill on the3D big screen for a couple of hours. I’m just saying. Good thing John looks just like Clark Kent. Lucky me!