This document and the following review are the same, so feel free to read whichever one is more convenient.
Spoiler Warning
Man of Steel, a widely anticipated but controversial film from 2013, is very divisive for fans, with some loving it and some hating it. For me personally, I believe that this was not only the greatest Superman movie ever made, but one of the top three DC movies ever made, and it even ranks highly on my overall list of movies.
Am I crazy for thinking this? Probably. If nothing else, though, I do have legitimate and well-thought-out reasons to back up my opinion.
One of the most common complaints levelled against this movie (at least when it was first released) was how much of a departure it was from the Christopher Reeve Superman films from the 70’s and 80’s. While Man of Steel is markedly different from those movies, I don’t view this as a problem. There are numerous examples of movies and TV shows that are made specifically to counter another movie (usually one that came before it). This often leads to disastrous results, such as the two Joel Schumacher Batman films that were made to be more kid-friendly and comedic after the poor reception of Batman Returns, which was deemed too dark and violent. Oftentimes, this process can also lead to movies that feel soulless, with no real identity of their own.
However, Man of Steel is not one of those movies, because it establishes its own, unique identity that is neither a copy of the original Superman films, nor an intentional opposite to them. At first glance the world presented in Man of Steel is about as much of a polar opposite as the one presented in the Christopher Reeve films as you can imagine. However, the one unifying factor to the two films is the central character. Superman remains essentially the same person with the same values (not Clark Kent, as Henry Cavil never adopts the reporter alter ego except for the very last scene of the movie). The movie isn’t designed to make an excessively dark and violent story simply for the sake of doing so; its main focus is on showing such a world through Superman’s eyes.
And, in a weird sense, the original Superman movies used a similar concept, but in a much different way. The world that Superman finds himself thrust into in the original 1978 Superman movie – with Metropolis, the Daily Planet, Lois Lane and Lex Luthor – is a cynical place that he doesn’t fully understand, one that his values stand in stark contrast to. In these films, director Richard Donner went for a mostly comedic tone, but was still focused on the idea of a character like Superman living in a real world with real people who didn’t share his beliefs or values. Man of Steel explores the same idea, but with a more intense look at what effect this would have on Superman… and admittedly with roughly 50 times the action.
And this is where I think a lot of people lost interest in the film who had this criticism. It’s not always clear that this was what director Zack Snyder was going for in the movie, because he also uses this idea of Superman living in a dark world for the purposes of making entertaining action sequences and the like. This is best shown through the destruction of Metropolis, in which countless buildings are destroyed by General Zod’s world engine and many more destroyed in the fallout of the battle between Superman and Zod.
This is a very common trope of movies, especially at the time, including in other comic book movies such as The Avengers. Man of Steel, however, has probably one of the most extreme examples of this trope, and sometimes it can seem as though it’s more style over substance, rather than focusing on Superman and how he sees the world. I do think there’s definitely some merit to this criticism, mostly because they missed opportunities to show Superman actually using his powers to save lives during the battle, rather than just battle Zod, so it’s easy for Superman’s character to get lost during the finale.
However, who he is as a person is made clear throughout the movie, such as earlier in the movie when he almost dies whilst saving a burning oil rig or his mourning for Zod after his death (more on this later). Zack Snyder didn’t drive home the point as well as he could have, but since he was also trying to juggle this with the action that many felt was essential to invigorate Superman’s character for the modern era, I believe he had a truly daunting challenge. While he did not perfect this juggling act, I still maintain that he did a very good job.
I’m going to argue that even with some flaws in the story, the movie is still a very strong entry into the franchise, and to do so I’m going to move through the movie in more or less chronological order (to make things easier, I’ll just discuss all the flashbacks at once, rather than trying to tackle them as they arise in the story).
Actually, one of the first criticisms I heard about the movie was the extended startup sequence on Krypton.
Many people viewed this as extraneous, filled with unnecessary battle sequences between Zod’s rebel army and the Kryptonian government, with Jor-El caught in the middle, trying to safely evacuate his son, Kal-El. However, I think this sequence was very important to the movie. This showed us what type of society Krypton was, with their genetic engineering resulting in people being pre-assigned their purpose and role in life, as well as a ban on natural birth. It also shows Jor-El steal the genetic template for the entire species, the Codex, which would later be revealed to be transmuted into Kal-El, a very important plot point later.
Had this not been conveyed through this sequence, we would have been left with a long, dry expositional monologue that Jor-El would give to Superman. Given we already had him give a brief background leading up to this prologue and Zod filling in the gaps through his own account to Superman later in the film, another such conversation would have slowed down the movie far too much. Could some of these scenes be paired down? Probably. However, I don’t see anything that happens in this sequence that’s completely extraneous.
My only issue with this is Jor-El’s inexplicable combat abilities, as he defeats Zod in hand-to-hand combat, just before his wife, Lara, launches the pod, carrying Kal-El to Earth. Given that Jor-El was genetically engineered to be a scientist, and Zod to be a soldier, how can he defeat him? There doesn’t seem to be any logical explanation, and given that Zod kills him just a bit later (while he’s distracted), I don’t even understand why this was included. It does create an annoying inconsistency, but ultimately the story is unaffected. We know what we need to: Zod is committed to the old order, including the birth ban and the genetical engineering, and the main thing he’s after is the Codex. Similarly, we know Jor-El’s primary focus is on saving his son and creating a new beginning for Krypton without the oppressive regime that had dominated the planet, even if it meant sacrificing his own life.
The end result, however, is much the same as the original film. Kal-El is sent to Earth as an infant, Zod is imprisoned in the Phantom Zone, and Krypton is destroyed. Unlike the 1978 Superman film, however, from there the movie jumps to Kal-El’s adult life, leading to his afore-mentioned rescue of the oil rig, while flashbacks jump through his past in an order that can get confusing. While I don’t normally like this style, it’s not utilized badly here. It does kind of make sense, given that we’ve already spent so long on Krypton, and it does keep things moving forward. It can be a bit confusing at times, but I think this was the best way to show his past without making the pace get too slow.
In addition to the complaints about the way the flashbacks were placed within the larger story, I’ve also heard several complaints about the characterization of Jonathan and Martha Kent, Superman’s adoptive parents.
To say the least, people were surprised about some of the changes made to their characters. The popular perception of the Kent’s is that they are the ones responsible for giving Superman the values that make him who he is as an adult. Here, while the Kent’s are still the classic, All-American family, there is a slight spin on things. Their primary focus is on keeping Clark safe, mostly by convincing him to hide his powers. One of the most frequently attacked examples comes in the scene where Jonathan speaks to a young Clark Kent after he rescues a school bus that fell off a bridge.
In this scene, Jonathan tries to reinforce the idea that Clark needs to keep his powers secret. When Clark asks if he was supposed to just let the other children on the bus die, Jonathan hesitates before replying ‘Maybe’. Contrary to what some people have claimed, this is not Jonathan being callous to the prospect of a bus full of children dying. He’s not even saying that Clark should’ve let them die. What he’s saying is that he doesn’t have all the answers to life’s problems. He’s not an omniscient mentor who can always give Clark perfect advice; he’s a real-life father whose primary concern is keeping his son safe. Jonathan Kent isn’t a bad person… he’s a real person.
The culmination of this comes at the very end of the flash backs, in which the Kent’s find themselves on a road in their hometown of Smallville that is being threatened by a tornado. Clark and Jonathan help get everyone to safety, before Jonathan hurries back to rescue a dog left behind in a car. After rescuing the dog, he sustains injuries too serious for him to escape back to the overpass where Clark and Martha watch. At the last second, when Clark is going to rescue him with his powers, Jonathan tells him to stop, allowing himself to be killed by the tornado to preserve his son’s secret.
While I think this segment could’ve been handled better, as I feel there was a way to have this same idea but in a less contrived way, I still really like it. This goes to show that the point I made about Jonathan Kent earlier is not simply made up. It’s not that he doesn’t care that those kids on the bus lived or died, it’s that his main focus is on protecting his son, even if it means laying his own life down. Is this a different approach on Jonathan Kent’s character? Yes. However, as with most things in the film, this is simply a much more realistic and serious take on the same, classic Superman characters. These are still the same people; they’re just handled in a slightly different way to make them feel more like real people.
We also get to see how much impact this has on Clark’s life. Because of who he is as a person, Clark can’t not help people, as stated clearly later in the film by Lois Lane when she finally finds out who he is (more on this later). However, the lesson that his father imparted to him convinces him that he has to hide this side of his identity. So, he becomes a lone figure wandering the planet, helping anyone who he comes into contact with. However, both he and Lois are drawn together as evidence is found that an alien space ship is buried deep beneath an ice cap. Lois is sent to investigate by the Daily Planet, just as Clark heads there in a search for clues about his past.
Both of them reach the ship, where Clark finds a holographic AI of his father, Jor-El, that has the ability to answer his questions. Before he gets the chance to, however, Clark is forced to rescue Lois from a Kryptonian robot guarding the ship, revealing his powers to her before he disappears.
Lois knowing his secret is something that received some criticism, at least initially, because of how it changed the source material. Personally, I think it’s too implausible for Lois not to know who Superman is, given that she’s working with him as Clark Kent and forming a close bond with him as Superman. Maybe the glasses disguise could work (which is a bit of stretch in and of itself) but for someone who knows both sides of his alter ego not to realize that Superman and Clark are one and the same seems too hard to swallow.
Anyway, while Lois begins to put together the pieces of who Clark is and where he comes from, Superman finds himself being told Krypton’s history by Jor-El. This is where we get a few details from the prologue (such as the ban on natural birth) cleared up. This scene, thankfully, doesn’t feel exposition heavy. It only lasts a minute or so and because the film has built up to this with a lot of personal confusion on Clark’s behalf of who he is, it feels like we’re listening to an actual conversation, not just a monologue about what happened.
However, this is when Clark finds his true identity, receives his Superman costume and unlocks the power of flight, joyfully testing out the full extent of his power in a well-handled sequence with great effects and a great score by Hans Zimmer.
There are two other things about this sequence, however, that I think are worth pointing out. First of all, a lot of times in comic book movies, the hero will be shown learning their powers and training with them through a simple montage. In Man of Steel, since Clark already knows what his powers are (as did the audience), it isn’t essential for them to depict all of them in meticulous detail. Instead, they are more organically showcased through distinct situations throughout the flashbacks. Here, we get to see him master his powers in a standard scene that shows his learning curve on understanding his flight. Montages aren’t inherently bad, but because they’ve been used so much, it’s nice to see this handled differently.
The other point I wanted to make is that this shows the culmination of Superman’s character arc for the first act of the film… but not the film as a whole. This is one frustration I have with a lot of comic book origin stories, because most of them focus all of the character development on turning the protagonist into the hero… and then they stop, leaving any further development for the sequels. The original Spider-Man film, for instance, focuses most of Peter Parker’s development on him becoming Spider-Man during the first forty-five minutes of the movie or so; his character remains pretty stagnant after that. Another example is Batman Begins, in which most of the changes that occur in Bruce Wayne’s character take place during the flashbacks and his transformation into Batman.
Man of Steel follows a similar structure, with flashbacks showing how he got to his current situation, and then him finally embracing his role as the hero. However, as we see later in the film, there’s more to Superman’s character arc and that keeps his character more interesting throughout the film. We’re not watching someone stay exactly the same for an hour and a half of the movie after one major change, but we’re instead watching a person slowly evolving over the course of the film. I’ll go into more detail later, but for now, suffice it to say that I felt this movie did a better job of developing the main hero than most superhero origin story movies do.
Also, at this point Lois finally tracks Clark down to Smallville and they have their first meeting in which he uses his real identity. This is when the flashback of his father’s death is included, ending the flashback narrative, as Superman recounts the story in order to convince Lois to keep his identity a secret (a move which will cause trouble for her later). On a side note, this is one thing that I think makes the flashbacks flow a bit better, at least in this scene. There’s a reason why this is being shown at this specific time; it isn’t just being included because the filmmakers wanted to wrap up the flashbacks before the second act begins, but because this is the point when Superman has to tell Lois why his identity remaining a secret is so important. It makes the story feel more organic and as a result the flashbacks don’t feel so jarring.
Shortly after this, however, General Zod arrives at Earth, having at last tracked down Kal-El’s location. He issues an ultimatum to the planet: hand Kal-El over to him or he will attack the planet. The army captures Lois in order to force her to reveal his identity, while Superman weighs his options. Despite his distrust of Zod, Superman surrenders himself to the military on the condition that they free Lois. This doesn’t do much good, however, since Faora (Zod’s right hand ally) requests Lois accompany them anyway. This is one part of the film that I’ll admit doesn’t make a lot of sense. On the surface, they seem to want to use their mind-reading device to learn about Earth from Lois’s memories… but considering they already use this device on Superman and he’s lived here essentially as long as Lois… there seems to be no reason to bring her along other than the fact that the plot demanded it.
Nevertheless, there are a lot of good things about this sequence. Throughout most of the film, we see Henry Cavil playing Superman in a way in which the audience is very clued in to what he’s thinking and how he’s feeling. This is one of the three aspects of Superman’s character and, ironically, the one that is the most frequently ignored. The other two aspects include his reporter alter ego (which we see only a few seconds of at the end of the movie) and his public persona as Superman, which is how he displays himself to the outside world. The point of this is tangent is to say that this is where Henry Cavil gets to show this persona the most. Most of the movie shows him interacting with people who know who he is (Lois, Martha, Jor-El, even Zod), but here we get to see him through the eyes of the military.
He has the classic Superman style of being polite and cordial, but also exuding a kind of confidence that lets the audience know he’s always in control of the situation, down perfectly.
After Faora takes Superman and Lois out of the army’s custody and to Zod’s ship, we are re-introduced to the main villain of the movie, General Zod. It is also here that we uncover what Zod’s plan is: he intends to reshape the planet using Kryptonian terra-forming technology known as the world engine and create a new Krypton for his people, with him as their ruler. This is the point where we get to see the next step in Superman’s character arc.
Normally, movie supervillains are portrayed as being all bad, and there’s no doubt who the hero is and who the villain is. There are times, however, when we get to see part of the villain’s point of view, even though it’s clear that they’re still the bad guy, which is what we see here. What makes this extra interesting however, and what makes it relate to Superman’s character arc, is the fact that it’s obvious Superman is actually considering Zod’s viewpoint. He wants his people to have a new home and he wants to have a chance to connect with his own people, however suspicious he may be of Zod. He only turns fully against Zod when he realizes that his plan will wipe out the human race in the terra-forming process.
This is where we get to see the next glimpses of Superman’s conflict over where he belongs in the universe and who his people really are. The culmination of this arc comes later in the story, during the third act.
Upon learning the specifics of Zod’s plan, Superman and Lois escape back to Earth and return to Smallville, only to find that Zod has gone to the Kent farm, accompanied by two of his lackies, Faora and Nam-Ek. Zod searches the farm for, and interrogates Martha Kent as to the location of, the Codex, the aforementioned template of Kryptonian DNA and the crux of their society. This is where we get the first hints that Zod needs this for his plan to resurrect Krypton and also that Superman has the Codex implanted in his DNA (which is explicitly revealed a few scenes later).
However, Superman arrives and attacks Zod, drawing all three Kryptonians away from Martha and the Kent farm. The helmet that Zod wears to keep him insulated inside his own atmosphere is broken, exposing him to the Earth atmosphere and the X-Ray vision and super-hearing that Clark had such trouble mastering as a child and overwhelming him.
Faora and Nam-Ek are left to fight Superman alone, as the military intervenes in the first major action sequence of the film.
There are a few complaints that were levelled against this scene, both of which I will address before proceeding into the reasons as to why I liked it. First of all, the destruction was criticized for making the film too dark and violent. I’m not going to spend much time on this since I’ve already addressed this previously, but I do think that this is a realistic depiction of what a battle between these people would look like. People who are indestructible, who can fly and who can hit each other so hard that they go flying for several hundred feet aren’t going to have a very contained battle.
Secondly, Superman’s ability to defeat his two opponents has been criticized as being unrealistic. However, there are a couple of important things to note about this. First of all, Faora and Nam-Ek spend most of the fight split up, one facing Superman and the other facing the fighter jets that are attacking them. Before the military arrives, Superman is outmatched. He puts up probably more of a fight than most people could in this case, but heroes overcoming impossible odds in action movies is nothing new, and Superman is still shown to be at a disadvantage for most of the fight. Even while facing Faora one on one in the IHop, Superman is having trouble landing a hit as he gets thrown around, and later through, the building.
Finally, both of them manage to attack Superman at once, pinning him to the ground, where Superman utilizes his main advantage: his other powers. Unlike Superman, these two don’t have heat vision because of the atmospheric helmets they wear, nor do they even know Superman has it, and as such they have no defense against it. Also, worth noting is the fact that Faora and Nam-Ek only retreat after her helmet is broken and she takes a direct hit from a missile, incapacitating her; Superman doesn’t physically overcome two Kryptonians in a direct fight.
Overall, I think this action scene works very well because of the intense pace and how much it upped the ante from previous depictions of Superman action in live action films (though this isn’t surprising given that it’d been over thirty years since Superman 2). Also, I like that we see Superman fighting these two instead of Zod; it builds more anticipation for that inevitable confrontation and it also utilizes a different set-piece as he faces two of them at once, rather than a one-on-one battle.
After Faora and Nam-Ek retreat, Superman and the military set aside their differences and become allies. However, this does lead in to what I think is probably the weakest segment of the film.
A lot of things happen at once, first and foremost the heroes discovering that Zod has set the two halves of the world engine on opposite sides of the planet; one over the Indian Ocean and one over Metropolis. They discuss their options of how to stop this, leading to a lot of thinly veiled and inorganic exposition, laying out what they’re going to do in painful detail. It just sort of slows the movie down when all it really comes down to is: the pod that sent Clark to Earth can create a black hole that destroys the world engine. It’s that simple, but it takes way longer for it to be said in the movie, and the scene isn’t handled very well.
Another problem is the destruction that’s shown in this scene: with the world engine levelling Metropolis, crushing entire buildings instantaneously. As I said, I don’t really take issue with the destruction, but in this scene, we’re just left watching Perry White run away from falling buildings and it feels like they’re just showing destruction for the sake of showing it. It’s not that it’s bad, it’s just that it isn’t overly interesting.
Finally, Faora’s death doesn’t really make any sense. She has super-speed and yet can’t do anything to stop Colonel Hardy when he decides to ram the plane that they’re fighting on into Zod’s ship? It’s just kind of a lazy way to kill off her character and that was pretty disappointing.
There is another segment of this part of the movie that I have mixed feelings on, and that’s Superman’s battle with the world engine over the Indian Ocean. The ship deploys a defense mechanism in the shape of massive tentacles that can reform themselves again and again. It’s a bit random, but at the same time, I think had Superman just flown there and destroyed the world engine without any obstacle, that probably would’ve been worse. It isn’t a bad scene, but it does have the appearance of something that was added on at the last minute and serves no purpose beyond just adding more action into the film.
Thankfully, however, there are some other things going on during this segment that do work really well. The first centers on General Zod, who has now discovered that the codex has been implanted inside Superman’s DNA, meaning all they need is to retrieve said DNA from Superman (dead or alive) and he will have the genetic template to create a new society of Kryptonians. The only thing he needs is a Genesis Chamber, which can now only be found on the same ship that Superman discovered at the beginning of the movie. Zod travels there, willingly removing his atmospheric helmet when he arrives.
This is a nice scene where we get to see Zod’s determination and the strength that it gives him, as he overcomes the overwhelming rush of sight and sound from his newly discovered enhanced senses. This also brings us to as good a time as any to go more in-depth into Zod’s character and why I think he’s not only the best on-screen interpretation of Zod yet, but also a very good movie villain in his own right.
In Man of Steel, Zack Snyder made a lot of alterations to Zod’s character that made him markedly different from Terrence Stamp’s Zod back in Superman 2. While many people weren’t happy with these and while I do think Terrence Stamp was really good as Zod, I still think Michael Shannon’s take on the character was very strong. One of the more obvious changes was the fact that in this film, they explore more of Zod’s motivations. In Superman 2, Zod had a very simple, one-dimensional motivation: he wanted to rule. While Terrence Stamp brought a lot of presence to the character, on paper he was just an egomaniacal would-be dictator. In this movie, Zod embodies the idea of returning Krypton to its former glory. He’s still trying to become a fascist dictator, but he now has a reason for doing so beyond just a simple thirst for power.
Because of this change, Michael Shannon gets to have a bit more range. He channels a desperation to Zod’s character that wasn’t present in Superman 2. He knows he and his allies are the last remnants of Krypton, and he knows that without the Codex and the Genesis Chamber aboard the ship, his people are doomed. Because he has such powerful convictions about what he’s doing and why it’s the right thing, his character is all the more dynamic and engaging. Obviously, he’s evil, but because he doesn’t think he’s evil, there’s a bit more to him than the one-dimensional, power hungry Zod we’ve seen before.
I also like that this version of Zod explores the connection between him and Jor-El, as shown in this scene when he meets the Jor-El hologram, arguing the merits of his plan, before finally deleting the hologram. As the original Superman movie’s trial scene did, this sets up the enmity between Zod and Jor-El’s entire family, making the ensuing battle between him and Superman all the more interesting and fulfilling. In this movie, since they have Zod and Jor-El as former friends, it adds a bit more depth to their scene together.
Anyway, Zod takes the ship back to Metropolis to defend the half of the World-Engine that’s positioned there, nearly destroying the military plane that’s going to crash Superman’s pod into it and destroy both vessels. However, Superman arrives, crashing through the ship’s hull and preparing to destroy it with his heat vision. This is the culmination of Superman’s character arc, as he finds himself faced with a choice: destroy the ship and the Genesis Chamber aboard, thus ending any hope for Krypton to be reborn, or let Zod destroy the military plane, dooming the entire human race. Obviously, Superman destroys the ship, but the brief hesitation he shows here (with his eyes powering down from using their heat vision) keeps things interesting. Superman’s character has always centered on him being an outcast, torn between two worlds, not really belonging to either one. In Man of Steel, however, we get to see this conflict played out within the framework of the movie, not just through scenes of him feeling lonely (as was seen in Superman Returns). Superman doesn’t feel like he fully belongs on Earth, and probably never will; a reborn Krypton might be his only chance at ever truly belonging somewhere, and destroying this ship is him giving up that chance to save his adopted home world.
However, ultimately, Superman still isn’t a human, but he’s not fully Kryptonian, either, at least not in Zod’s eyes. This sets the stage for their final battle in Metropolis, preceded by Zod saying that he is who he is because of the way he was genetically engineered on Krypton, keeping this idea going. What results is a battle between the old Krypton (Zod) and Superman, who represents what Jor-El believed Krypton should be. Superman is who he is because of individual choices: he was born naturally, instilled with values by parents that chose to raise him not with ideas implanted into his brain from birth, and ultimately, he chose to become Superman and chose to side with the humans and protect them from Zod’s attempted genocide. Zod, on the other hand, is a slave to his ‘programming’ and now that he has failed in his mission, he’s simply lashing out with his rage, trying to take revenge on Superman and the entire planet.
Now, while I greatly enjoy the fast-pace, the intensity and the overall epic feeling (from everything to the score to the stakes) of this final battle, it has come under fire for a couple of things. I’m not going to go on a third discussion of the destruction presented in the film, as there’s no need to make the same argument again, but there are two other issues I would like to address.
First of all, it has been questioned whether or not Superman could, in fact, defeat General Zod in hand-to-hand combat. I, unsurprisingly, am going to argue that he could. The first thing to keep in mind is that, though Superman wins, this is by no means an easy victory for him. I don’t know the exact length of the battle, but I imagine it clocks in anywhere between five and ten minutes long. Secondly, it’s Superman who is taking most of the hits throughout this fight. Zod lands the first hit, outfights Superman in hand-to-hand combat while they’re in the street and, now that he has also mastered heat vision, he’s neutralized all of Superman’s advantages…
Except for one: flight.
Halfway through the fight, Zod takes off his body armor and levitates into the air, showing to Superman that he has mastered all of his powers. Except for one simple fact: Zod has only just now learned how to use this flight, whereas Superman was already shown to have gone through the learning curve of using this power. Now that the battle is in the air, Superman has an advantage over Zod that could, at least theoretically, counteract his military training. This is also the point where Superman begins to turn the tide against Zod, though it’s still a close battle.
Also, as regards this military training, I’m not convinced Zod is supposed to be a master of hand-to-hand combat. Remember, he wasn’t just bred to be a soldier; he was bred to be a general. Zod has likely never been a foot soldier in the Kryptonian army, but has probably been issuing orders to other soldiers and sending them into battle. While I still take issue with Jor-El outfighting him at the start of the movie, this goes to re-enforce this idea.
Finally, the reason Superman is ultimately able to win is because he manages to control their flight, sending Zod crashing into the ground inside a train station. Though he isn’t able to pin him down as he initially tries, Superman manages to get him in a headlock that he can’t break out of. I would also argue that this makes sense. A simple look at the two actors would show that Henry Cavil is likely far stronger than Michael Shannon, and his character is probably thirty plus years younger. Since they both have the same powers, Superman not only keeping him in this headlock but ultimately even breaking his neck makes sense if one accounts for the physicality of the actors.
This does lead us to the most controversial moment in the entire film: Superman breaking Zod’s neck to prevent him from killing an innocent family trapped in the train station.
I do, admittedly, have mixed feelings about this decision. On the one hand, Superman doesn’t kill people; this is a pretty integral part of his character. Him killing does kind of go against the ideals of hope that he stands for.
However, there are a couple of things worth noting. First of all, Superman also kills Zod for much less reason in Superman 2. That doesn’t excuse this decision necessarily, but it is an interesting aside. Secondly, this isn’t a decision that Superman makes lightly. He’s pleading with Zod not to kill the civilians before he eventually gives in and snaps his neck, only to fall to his knees and let out a harrowing scream, mourning for the fact that he had to take a life, even if it was the life of a mass murderer. He only kills Zod to save lives.
I do feel like this is enough justification for this decision, but what I really take issue with is the execution. I feel like those people could’ve gotten out of the way of Zod’s heat vision, thus making this entire situation irrelevant. However, I understand that they felt the need to find some way to kill Zod, given that there’s no real effective way for him to be incarcerated, short of sending him back to the Phantom Zone. Having Zod die isn’t something I really take issue with; I just feel like the situation they designed so that Superman would feel he had to kill him could have had a few less holes in it. Had the audience really felt like there was no other way for Superman to save those lives short of killing Zod, I feel like this moment would’ve been a lot less controversial.
However, I still like what they were going for with this scene. I just think the execution of it could’ve been a little better.
After that, there really isn’t a lot of movie left. What does happen, however, is Clark’s adoption of his reporter alter ego at the Daily Planet. While it might seem a little odd that the movie ends with the creation of his civilian identity, placing that after his superhero persona was already created, what I do really like about this is that it fully completes his character arc for the movie. Superman’s arc for this film is, essentially, him growing into the character that we’re all familiar with. We see him first learn of his heritage, adopt his Superman identity, choose to side with humanity over Zod’s idea of a New Krypton, and finally become Clark Kent, the reporter.
I just like that, even though the writers wanted to take the character in a different direction, they don’t just create an entirely new character that they put the Superman logo on. They just show him at an earlier point in his life, where he has to grow into the character we know. That growth is his character arc for the film, and represents what the movie is really about, so to speak. The writers aren’t ignoring what Superman’s character is about through all the action and destruction; that’s just their way of showing the audience who he is and showing how it changes him and turns him into the classic Superman, paving the way for us to see that character in future installments, only this time with more knowledge of where he came from and why he became the person who he is.
Man of Steel, for all its tonal differences, is still about the same Superman we’ve always known. While we unfortunately never got to see much of Henry Cavil playing the hero after he became classic Superman, Man of Steel remains a very promising beginning to Superman’s character.
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