Movie Review: Man of Steel

Man of Steel … Is it the best superhero movie of all time? Well, no… but it is by far the

best superman movie of all time. Why is it so hard to make a good superman movie? Well that’s because of superman’s near god-like powers (thanks to his ability to absorb solar radiation from yellow or blue sunlight) which are:-

1. By absorbing enough solar radiation superman can ‘effortlessly’ move planets
2. He has X-ray vision – can see through all objects except lead
3. Telescopic vision – can see far out into space
4. Microscopic vision – can see at the subatomic level
5. Supervision – can see objects moving faster than light
6. Multispectral vision – can see in the electromagnetic spectrum
7. Super hearing - He can hear sounds ‘millions’ of miles away and through the vacuum of space (huh)
8. Super flight  - can fly at 8 times the speed of light
9. Super strength – can punch with the force of a supernova (10 octillion megatons if you must know)
10. Super healing – practically invincible, can take being hit by 15 planets and keep on walking
11. Super breath – can simple blow away the bay guys
12. Freeze breath – can freeze everything around him
13. Heat vision – able to incinerate entire planets
14. Can vibrate his body to phase through objects and turn invisible
15. Super brain – can process information thousands of times faster than a human brain; has photographic memory; is a technological genius
16. Invincible – well this has not been stated explicitly but in the comics when he was apparently killed his body went into a healing coma and he soon recovered and was back to kicking ass

His only weakness is kryptonite which takes away all his superpowers and could eventually kill him after prolonged exposure. This why most superman movies involve kryptonite and it’s always the same old wine in a new bottle.  Man of Steel - however is different. It’s about superman, the person. It adds realism and personality to his character. For the first time we can almost relate to him. His struggle with his powers, his dilemma to help people yet remain hidden, his search to find out about his past. 

This movie shows a very human side of him and does it well. Then there’s the villain element. Here superman is up against multiple characters that equal him in strength. The fighting is truly epic with entire city blocks being leveled. The collateral damage adds to the realism. I did find the ending fight to be a bit too Neo Vs Agent Smith (from the matrix) but I guess that’s to be expected and is not necessarily a bad thing.

In summary Man of Steel does a great job in introducing the character. The detailed back story covered very effectively. The action is well paced and all the actors did an excellent job. However I did feel the ending could have been more dramatic. My biggest gripe with the movie though is the frequent use of a shaky cam effect which gets annoying to watch especially in the less action scenes. While it does add some documentary-like feel it’s clearly overused.

I recommend watching the movie. My rating:3.5/5.

Note: do check out DEATH BATTLE! - Goku VS Superman 

It’s a well researched and fun video to watch. I took the list of superman’s powers and abilities from that video and the guys at ScrewAttack put a lot of work into it. 

This was a guest post written by Prithvi Raj aka PR.