Man Of Steel: Ten Years Later - Do You Like It?

[Detective Conan]

As we eagerly await the next iteration of Superman-On-Film, today marks the ten year anniversary of Zack Snyder’s Superman reboot. This movie produced by Chris Nolan and written by David Goyer(who, of course, were involved. To say the movie was was controversial is putting it a bit lightly as elements varying from its portrayal Jonathan Kent to the third battle, and last not but least Superman offing Zod are still subjects of fiery debates online amongst the fandom.

For myself, ten years later, I still enjoy Man Of Steel a lot because while I do think it’s script is a little wonky and characterization could be a bit better I just love how epic the whole film feels. The movie is definitely a total 180 departure from those tongue in cheek Donnor flicks in tone(there’s very little humor to be found) and at times you can definitely believe it could take place in Chris Nolan Batman world given it takes the same “grounded” approach with Supes and Nolan did with Bats. I love Hans Zimmer score and my blistering hot take I think I prefer Zimmer’s score over Williams. And I enjoy a lot of the action, and I really think most of the cast is fantastic. My only major gripes is that the third act fight could’ve been shortened and I would’ve Superman at least attempt to save more people but enough about me what you guys. After ten years, do you like or dislike MOS. Maybe you’re in the camp that hated it but then grew to love it later on? Or perhaps vice versa? I’m eager to hear your thoughts on the film ten years later.

Or, and say whatever you will about this movie but you gotta admit ten years later and this trailer still rules:

 

[Milk Tray Guy]

I gave it a miss when it first came out. It was only when it became obvious how strongly BvS was gonna tie into the MOS storyline that I watched it. Cavill looked the part although I found him very wooden. I didn't like Amy Adams as Lois Lane. I thought Kevin Costner was a good Jonathan Kent - I wasn't so keen on Diane Lane as Martha. Laurence Fishburne was fine as Perry White. The standouts for me were Michael Shannon as Zod, and Antje Traue as Faora. Both big battle scenes were great. As for the neck-snap, I didn't have a problem with it. Probably because I'm not that invested in Superman as a character. Oh, Zimmer's score was pretty good. All in all, 7/10

 

[Pfeiffer-Pfan]

I didn't hate it... I didn't love it. Truly a mixed bag overall.

Cavill is at his best in this film, but I just couldn't warm to Adams as Lois Lane. They had zero chemistry despite Adams trying her best to create a spark.

I particularly dislike the cinematography by Amir Mokri, as well as the over-used shaky cam. Snyder was the wrong choice or this, and frankly, I'm not convinced Nolan should have been anywhere near this character either.

 

[OrbOfConfusion]

To date still my favorite DCEU film, much as I enjoy the subsequent DCEU movies. Zimmer's score is great, I dig Cavill as the Man of Steel, and First Flight is my favorite scene of the film. Between just the overjoyed look on Clark's face as he flies for the first time, but also that, until that point, we'd never seen Superman on screen fly like that in a medium that wasn't animation.

 

[Boom]

If I never saw it again I wouldn't be bothered.

There's some decent stuff in there, but the movie is uneven and ultimately weighed down by Snyder's worst tendencies as a director.

 

[The Batman]

So, I rewatched it yesterday to see if my thoughts had changed.

And...they haven't for the most part. Overall, this is still a mediocre movie. It's aggressively mediocre.

The movie is consistently dull throughout the runtime. A perfectly good cast is straight up wasted, save for Shannon and Crowe.

You'd think Amy Adams playing Lois Lane would be a slam dunk. Turns out it isn't. It's amazing, still, how much chemistry she and Cavill lack together.

The best way to remember this film on its anniversary is to just watch that great 2nd or third trailer.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

I thought it was a decent popcorn 6/10 type of flick that set things up alright for potentially better films going forward. Unfortunately they doubled down on the bad aspects instead.

One issue I always had was I never liked Henry Cavill. He was so bland and wooden in this film that he really dragged things down. It felt like they hired a model because of how good he looked in a cape as opposed to a good actor. I also hated the message Jonathan Kent was trying to get across. But Crowe and the Krypton stuff I really liked as well as the Dragon Ball Z-esque fights in the second half.

 

[Gothamsknight]

Twitter will have you thinking this movie is a masterpiece of epic proportions. The truth is, it's a movie that attempted to do for Superman what Chris Nolan had done for Batman, and there lies most of it's issues. Superman isn't Batman. Is the movie terrible? No. I've made it clear I'm not a big fan of Snyder and the way he writes these characters. The cinematography is good, the score is great and the cast is great. Michael Shannon is a great Zod. The writing, the lack of color, and the lessons of the movie is what really drags it down for me. It almost feels like it's TRYING to make Superman a better character when in reality, Superman never needed to be "fixed". I think a sequel could have fixed some problems, but sadly, Batman vs Superman serving as a follow up and becoming one of the worst superhero films ever made ruined any sort of chance of that. I actually just picked up the 4k for Man of Steel to add to my Superman collection, but I'm unsure of when I'll sit down and watch the film again. The movie lacks soul, and the only great scenes in the movie are few and far between. The Krypton stuff, Clark and Martha on the farm, Zods threat when he arrives to earth, and the first flight. The rest of the movie is just meh to okay at best that could've built towards a somewhat better sequel instead of doubling down on cynicism.

I'm gonna agree with some others when I say it's a mixed bag overall. A very mixed bag.

 

[Iceman]

So, I rewatched it yesterday to see if my thoughts had changed.

And...they haven't for the most part. Overall, this is still a mediocre movie. It's aggressively mediocre.

The movie is consistently dull throughout the runtime. A perfectly good cast is straight up wasted, save for Shannon and Crowe.

You'd think Amy Adams playing Lois Lane would be a slam dunk. Turns out it isn't. It's amazing, still, how much chemistry she and Cavill lack together.

The best way to remember this film on its anniversary is to just watch that great 2nd or third trailer.

Yeah, I still LOVE those trailers and that's the best way to have a good time with this memory IMO.

 

[Blade Hoarder]

It’s still mid. They completely fumbled the nature vs nurture theme.

 

[MasterBoss]

It's an empty movie. It's very much trying to follow the Batman Begins formula, but the editing in the first half is disjointed with how the flashbacks are inserted, and the second half is action porn. On top that, it features some of Goyer's worst dialogue, and large chunks of said dialogue is exposition after exposition with characters talking about how Clark is either destined for greatness or destruction. Superman as a character hardly has any agency in his own origin story, the best example of this is when he puts on the suit. Him putting on the suit isn't earned at all, it just happens because it's time for him to go fight Zod, contrast that to Batman Begins.

I hope Gunn's Superman movie is good so we can finally have people stop trying to prop up this movie as misunderstood. Fans are just starved for a good modern day superman movie.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

It doesn’t help that we already have a much better Superman origin film than this one, and I’d rather just watch that. I had a similar issue with The Amazing Spider-Man, although I liked MoS better than TASM overall.

 

[mclay18]

I like large chunks of the movie, but Amir Mohkri’s camerawork was hit or miss—typical for a guy who worked on a Bayformers movie (replete with unnecessary handheld shots). Story needed tightening and a complete page one rewrite to ditch Goyer’s many clangers, no problem with neck snap. Snyder needed to rein in his worse impulses and he didn’t do that—what worked in Watchmen (his finest film) doesn’t in MOS.

Cavill was a good casting decision but paired up with Snyder did him no favors in terms of an expressive and joyful Superman. Ditto for Amy Adams’ Lois. I hate to say this, but a MOS directed by either Joss Whedon, Matt Reeves or Bryan Singer (with the same plot and Snyder cast) would’ve been better received by audiences and critics alike.

And while I liked Zimmer’s main theme for the movie, it could’ve been arranged in a more traditional superhero mold. (Like his phenomenal score for WW84.)

 

[CaptainWagner]

What a mess. There are some things that work - good casting on paper (though Cavill and Adams have no chemistry), decent score from Zimmer, kick*** villain work from Michael Shannon, the First Flight scene...

But Snyder was a disastrous choice to helm this and the movie's main flaws point all stem from his vision. Cynicism is a non-starter for a Superman project, and yet that's what we get - a bland, depressed approach to the mythos that seems embarrassed of its roots and believes that Clark's spirit has no place in the real world of today. For all Snyder's "spiritual" posturing w/the overblown Christ analogies, its soul is an empty husk, and everything else crumbles without a foundation.

 

[mclay18]

It doesn’t help that we already have a much better Superman origin film than this one, and I’d rather just watch that. I had a similar issue with The Amazing Spider-Man, although I liked MoS better than TASM overall.

I didn’t really think much of Andrew Garfield in TASM until NWH. It’s like that with Cavill in the Snyderverse.

 

[Kane52630]

To quote a super ill-advised Pa Kent:

 

[moviedoors]

I loved it then and I love it to death now. I totally get why it doesn't work for many, but this movie hits me directly in the gut. It always makes me emotional. The score has a lot to do with that. It's maybe the score I've listened to more than any other. Also, still the best depiction of super powered beings going at each other and there's not a close second.

One of my all-timer memories is tied to this movie. I was watching it at home in the lead up to BvS and my daughter, who was still a baby at the time, was playing on the floor. She was still at that age where she didn't usually register what I was watching and only cared about shows with puppets. Well, it got to the first-flight scene and I noticed her watching the screen as Superman took off. Then she threw her little arms out in pretend flight and I (who was also going thru some **** at the time) had to choke back sobs. It was pure magic.

 

[Milk Tray Guy]

Also, still the best depiction of super powered beings going at each other and there's not a close second.

That I do agree with. If these kinds of beings were real it would be terrifying.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

I didn’t really think much of Andrew Garfield in TASM until NWH. It’s like that with Cavill in the Snyderverse.

Yeah, I liked neither portrayal of the title character. But I thought MoS looked a lot better and had better action than TASM did, so it is enjoyable on that level in a way TASM wasn’t. TASM was just ugly and annoying. Also, while MoS had a couple of times where I was just rolling my eyes (hello tornado scene), with TASM I was doing it throughout most of the movie.

 

[mclay18]

Cavill felt like a real Superman in the Whedon JL scenes (and his cameo in Black Adam) than in MOS. He has a natural charisma and screen presence that Snyder suppressed most of the time (except for the flight scene and a handful of others). The man would be on the level of Reeve and Hoechlin with the right script and direction.

 

[Scarlet Spider]

Cavill is terrible actor and was cast solely on his look. I've seen most of his other films and he's always the same. Stiff, uptight and dull. He should have never been cast.

 

[Kane52630]

 

[flickchick85]

It was a Superman movie made by a guy who admits he never got Superman's appeal, and it shows. It also seems to appeal to people with that same viewpoint - Superman for people who don't like Superman.

Unfortunately for me, I love Superman, so this movie is not for me.

Also, it's poorly-written and quite ugly at times.

But that Zimmer score is magnificent.

 

[Deck Rickard]

Yeah, Zimmer’s score deserved a better movie. And I really don’t know why it looked so dark and ugly. That Superman suit is magnificent and you can barely tell half the time. I remember the first time I saw it, I didn’t even realize he was wearing a black version of the suit in the dream sequence because the blue suit almost looked black half the time. I also remember reading that Snyder may have intentionally made some of the Kryptonian ships look like… reproductive organs and now I can’t unsee it. The pods that take Zod and his crew into the Phantom Zone… ummm…

 

[Blade Hoarder]

It’s because Snyder wanted Superman to wear a black suit. You can see this at the end of the Snyder cut. That’s what he wanted Superman to be.