Man of Steel: Pro-artistic Dysfunctionality

Henry Cavill
Image Courtesy: Google

Hope is born twin with desperation. When superman came to the earth, his enemy, General Zod survived as well. Although richly a quasi-computer game and pro-artistic dysfunctionality, Man of Steel can be read as an existential analysis of a binary opposition. Hope and desperation.

Man of Steel is scripted by David S. Goyer, in which Henry Cavill plays the title role. Amy Adams plays the role of Lois Lane and Michael Shannon plays the character of General Zod. This Warner Brothers movie is released in 2013.  

  

Spoiler: The only one possible in this movie!

Krypton is a dying planet somewhere distant in the galaxy, far away from the blue ball in the Milky Way. General Zod desires the control of the planet and plans to confiscate the genetic codes of all the Krypton’s future generations. There had been no natural births in Krypton, but artificial ones, for a long time now. The first natural born is, Kal-El. General Zod leads a coup to capture the throne, but was defeated by the state’s army. Kal-El’s father, the scientist Jor-El, and his wife Lara were killed while trying to protect Kal-El and the codex with embedded genetic codes. General Zod is deported to the Phantom Zone. Kal- El was sent away to a distant planet in a rocket ship.

 

Image Courtesy: Google

Let’s get back to the point

Apart from this prologue set in Krypton, in this Superman story, no other part of the movie demands audience’s anticipation. It is very clear who will survive at the end and perhaps, even how. However, the unwinding of the pre-written destiny of Superman aka Kal-El aka Clark Kent, is crucial. General Zod intervenes into Clark’s life during his youth, when he was learning how to reconcile his extraordinary individuality with his normal surroundings. This enemy of superman possesses the same powers as he, because General Zod too is from Krypton and has the same alien features, physically. Krypton is a planet with a greater density and this causes an organism from Krypton to have greater agility and levity upon the earth.

  

Image Courtesy: Google

General Zod’s arrival offers a proper opening for the legend of Superman, especially in showing clearly what powers and abilities our hero possesses. Clark Kent did not ask for it. However, finding himself in the middle of this extraterrestrial trouble, he manages to pull himself together from the state of a confused and lost individual. Although, still, the shock of watching all those buildings falling down and cities being demolished in the duel between Superman and Zod, is overwhelming in a silly manner. I remember a humorous Facebook poster that read ‘Avengers were more efficient, because they did not cause such damage.’

Along with the hero, comes the villain too. The place of origin of both these characters is the same. This perspective is more interesting, helpful mostly in enduring the almost two hours of epic dullness. Man of Steel is directed by Christopher Nolan. Much like the Dark Knight series, he made attempted to make this movie a little grim looking. It seems Superman too is dealing with some psychopathic situation of not being able to come to terms with life on the earth.

Henry Cavill’s performance is not a bad one, but if I asked myself why, then, this Superman could not leave a lasting impression; I would say that perhaps Cavill was not in his best attires. The film noir that Mr. Nolan experiments with in normal cases, and had a great deal of success in the case of the Dark Knight series, do not charm in Man of Steel. Most of the action sequences seemed like a computer game, only that the gamer was invisible and was showing us a recorded video of someone’s game. Perhaps game fanatics might like it. Obviously, though, Man of Steel is not a classic Superman-flick. This one, certainly, is not a Batman Begins either. How many of you expect a new series out of this movie?

 

Mr. Nolan

Post Postum:

Hey, I forgot to mention, I still have no idea what happened to Superman’s red brief (inner wear) that he always wears outside.