WATCHING BUILDINGS CRUMBLE

Man of Steel can easily be divided into two films, the quiet epic and the mindless summer action outing. It is the case of the quiet epic losing out to the cash register.

The story of this hero’s birth is very well known, a certain genesis chamber in the planet Krypton can be compared to the more famous in Bethlehem. The baby of Lara and Jor-El, a natural born after many centuries in a planet that is not so slowly eating into itself, Krypton would not survive.

Krypton, far away in a distant galaxy accommodated a far evolved civilisation completely devoid of choice where every new born has his entire life charted out before him slash her <something equivalent to the sons and daughters who choose engineering on our planet #notsnide>

Understanding Krypton is essential to understanding its chosen one. The chosen one is the chosen because he has no choice but to accept the heroism thrust upon on him. A hero due to circumstances, Kal-El son of Jor-El is mostly at odss with himself whether to embrace his greatness or sweep the floors of merchant ships on his foster planet.

Foster planet and foster parents, Kal-El’s childhood now called Clark is seen as a sequence that have been borrowed out a Terrence Mallick teaser, high resolution nature shots of wheat fields, sleeping dogs, slowing filling buckets, women putting out dried clothes etc. This is the phase of hiding the hero, till he must reach ‘that moment of reckoning’.

The moment of reckoning is fast tracked by manic co-planetary military commander General Zod played by Michael Shannon, closely resembling a futuristic version of the villainous character played by Prakash Raj in the films of Hari.

Then there is the usual understanding love interest, mildly advising and understanding parents, the journey to self discovery, hopeless military agencies inept in handling humongous dung beetle shaped extra planetary objects.

Then comes the unending fights, extremely controlled to the extent of which debris should fall where, the third act of Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel goes into ‘look i know you love explosions’ mode and super powers of both the main characters demand these fights, making earth look like a boxing ring. There are sequences in mid air, ice sheets, alley ways and sky scraper tops. The movie descends into video game madness.

Adapting the action from comic books is no mean task people tell me, but I do not read comic books and I really want to know if we are to be amazed at buildings being blown up to the tune of Hans Zimmer’s addictive percussion for an hour.

In these battle of fists, Man of Steel loses its heart and with sketchier supporting characters there is really nothing to root for. Henry Cavill looks like he has trained alongside Hercules and makes his run in the suit likeable.

With shallow thought of hope<Hollywood’s biggest export> and overtly reminiscent plotlines, Man of Steel mid-wifed by Christopher Nolan from a script by David S Goyer takes off well, but gets lost in the turbulence, which makes wonder and appreciate how great Batman Begins really is.<which they wrote together>

<Batman Begins is the greatest super hero film ever type quote>

Mostly it is just watching how buildings crumble.

Yes yes, there is promise of Justice League also, ok quite boring