121 - Man of Steel

    The infant Kal-El is sent from his dying homeworld, landing on Earth.  He grows up, learns of his heritage, and is eventually challenged by some remaining members of his homeworld's military force, led by General Zod.
    I've read some really mixed thoughts about this.  Even after seeing it, I feel very conflicted.  There's some nice direction here, and the overall look of the picture is nice.  Superman's appearance and movement is handled well.  He doesn't play the part with the same winking look as the original, and doesn't seem to be as confident,  which is kind of nice.
    The plot is good.  It's a bit more complex that prior Superman movies have been.  Zod is an interesting villain.  They've done a good job of giving him a reasonable point of view, but they've also matched him well to Superman.
    The things that weren't done right are a little more abstract.  There's a large scale fight near the middle of the movie, mostly taking place in the middle of heartland America.  I didn't like this fight.  Somehow, the level of destruction seemed overdone, and kind of wrong for the stakes at that point.  The ending battle, which is really massive, is way, way bigger than I think I've ever seen.  It's kind of… distressing.  Buildings falling all over the place.
    This made me think a little about what kind of destruction I can enjoy.  When I first saw The Avengers, I thought that it seemed like the destruction was kind of limited.  Then when I saw it again, it seemed much bigger.  The more I've watched that, I've realized what makes that destruction work.  We see people in peril, and we see the heroes do what they can to keep people out of danger.  Heroes don't just defeat the villain - they save people.  That's the weakness here.  Superman doesn't really focus on saving strangers.  He saves Lois Lane during the big finish, and during the last moments of his fight, he saves a few anonymous people.
    This kind of complaint is a little off.  One of the ideas that has been difficult for viewers to accept is that this movie is an origin.  Superman is only just discovering what he is, what he can do, and how he should be.  The problem is, it's still unsatisfying.

    I also have one other problem, but it's really weird.  I have issues with seeing Superman hovering.  He just floats, which I would be fine with, but there doesn't seem to be a reason why he can fly.  When he starts off, he tries just doing massive jumps, like the Hulk.  That makes sense.  Once he starts flying, I can't justify how it is that he's doing that.
    (I looked it up on wikipedia.  Somehow, the explanation isn't satisfying.)

    I don't know if I'll revisit this one.  I still enjoy the first two Superman movies, but this one just didn't resonate with me.