Yesterday, I picked up
Man of Steel at Target, and today I watched it for the first time in close to two years.
It has what I would call "pilot problems" -- it spends time introducing us to characters who would probably show up in later films and do stuff, like the
Planet staff, when they aren't strictly speaking, necessary for
this film. Setting that aside...
I really enjoy this film. The cast is pretty much perfect. The story hangs together. (And the only destruction that can be squarely laid at Superman's feet is Smallville; he was the one who escalated that situation.) It has a fairly strong emotional pull. Zack Snyder basically made a Terrence Malick
Superman movie.
I know that people criticize the ending of the final battle, but there's no other way it could have ended. Zod had made it more than clear that he wasn't going to stop his destructive rampage. It was clearly not the choice that Superman would make if he had a choice, but the point was that he
didn't have a choice.
The "happy ending" codas didn't really work for me. Not that they're bad; they just feel out of place. A Malick-y flashback, maybe to Jonathan and Martha discovering the rocket, followed by Superman in space watching the Earth and then the fade to credits, would have felt truer to the film for me.
I'm curious how this will lead to
Batman v. Superman, and I hope there's a
Man of Steel 2 after that at some point. I want to see more of Amy Adams' Lois. Hell, give her a solo spin-off movie.
