Given what’s coming out today, you know the internet’s sites, video bloggers and Reddit sites of this world will be taking this opportunity to milk the f**k out of anything to do with Batman Vs. Superman. You know, that silly little thing which got released today for the general public to ignore in favour of finishing off DareDevil series 2 on Netflix. Judging from the reviews and opinions released so far, it’s middling to borderline a war crime depending on who you talk to.

Do you think I would stoop so low as to do the exact same thing as everyone else on the internet? Do you really think…. Yes you’re damned right I would too and with great gusto! Except of course, it’s perhaps best to look at the film which proceeded the events of Batman Vs. Superman: The Quest for Marvel’s cash.

Which of course was the last Superman reboot, Man of Steel.

As it stands I’m not entirely sure if this is a must see, considering that we don’t know exactly if you’ve had to have seen Man of Steel before going to see Batman Vs. Superman. But to be honest, that’s the least of the concerns with what Warner and DC are going to be doing.

When if came to Man of Steel, the best way to describe myself was shall we say, meh? The only reason I watched this on Amazon Prime, was only for the possibility that this was going to be required in order to have a clue of what happens next in the new DC comics mega vehicle. At the time of release in cinemas, I completely bypassed this film, having been put off by the trailer and, to be honest, various other aspects.

I wasn’t interested in seeing a dark brooding version of a character which, let’s remember, is ridiculous. Batman may have worked in that regard with the Christopher Nolan reboot version, given it was still based largely in reality. Ok, despite everyone being confused as to how the hell Bruce Wayne came back to Gotham City in the Dark Knight Rises. Ok, despite a few other plot issues which has been talked over on the internet to death already. Ok, I’m going to stop saying ok at the start of sentences.

With Superman though it, was hard to forget what had come before; Christopher Reeves did a pretty good job despite some questionable sequels, Lex Luthor was played to great pantomime effect by Gene Hackman. Hell, even that Superman Returns film with Brandon Routh and Kevin Spacey wasn’t entirely the almighty car crash everyone seems to remember it for.

One day my boy, all this will be yours….now put on the silly suit we did for you.

So when it came to revisiting the superhero who doesn’t like green stuff and can time travel backwards (oh yeah, it was a thing in the first one, you won’t make me forget it), what were the creative bods going to bring to the table with this? From hereon out there will be spoilers for Man of Steel but to be honest, anyone who wanted to watch, has already done so by now.

You still here?

Sure? OK, let’s go speeding along as there’s quite a lot to get through and I guess I have to rush it all….

We start way back at the beginning with Clark Kent’s real mum and dad having great fun on the planet Krypton. Well his mum is squeezing out Clark from her lady parts. And the planet faces imminent destruction due to something bad they all did. Oh dear. But very quickly, they and the council of Krypton all face General Zod and his band of merry men who want to overthrow everyone despite the fact they are all about to die. Oh and they have dragons they ride round on because of reasons. The first few minutes I wasn’t entirely sure if I was suffering a stroke when I was seeing this but hey, let’s move on.

This leads to one of the parts of the film which made me smile, General Zod played by a not-sure-how-he was-being-directed  Michael Shannon. Zod is somewhat messed up in the head. He repeats over and over that he will find Clark at some point despite being himself and the band of aforementioned merry men launched into the Phantom Zone in penises.

Seriously when you see what they look like, you won’t get away from that image.

Russell Crowe plays Clark’s Dad, and remarkably he was pretty good in the role, being entirely believable in fact as the man who would send his son away to save the universe / his people / no idea what else. But don’t get too attached to his mum (played by Ayelet Zurer) as basically she’s buggered once the world explodes in possibly the quietest depiction of global destruction I’ve ever seen.

Oh before I forget, there’s a codex which could save the species, it’s a plot point which comes up later.

I will shout now! I will also just repeat myself! ROAR and other noises!

Clark Kent (played by Henry Cavill) at the beginning seems to just be wandering around the place, working temp jobs, breaking a guy’s truck because the guy was mean to him and, of course, saving people on oil rigs and then having flashbacks. The timeline in the film is a bit suspect at this point, so just go with it.

One flashback notably got people going into rage mode, as that was when Clark’s human dad (played by Kevin “If you build it” Costner) suggests that maybe he shouldn’t have saved a bus load of kids, in case he got caught. It’s even weirder when ol’ Costner says the world changes when they will see what Clark can do, basically saying he will save the world. But in contrast to another flashback, he doesn’t want Clark to do anything which would expose him. Make up your f**king mind dammit!

Somehow though he eventually arrives in the arctic, where the military and Lois Lane (played by Amy Adams) turn up because they found the Fortress of Solitude (ok, I really am just speeding this sh*t up here) where Clark has a nice chat with his dead dad via hologram to learn what he’s meant to do. Oh and then he can put on that silly suit because it was pre made to fit him.

We have some lovely scenes where Clark surrenders to the military to show he’s nice and gives the “sex wee” eyes to Lois Lane during an interview. Yeah, that S on his chest really does mean hope, doesn’t it? Or it just means he gets to show her how super he really is…ok, I’m getting sidetracked. It’s about this time General Zod and his band of trapped penis people fly to earth in the film’s doomsday plot device and ask Clark to come aboard. And Lois Lane goes too, because I have no idea.

Clark’s not used to the alien atmosphere and gets a bit sick, but in the meantime Lois gets to escape with the help of the Russell Crowe hologram in one of the best scenes in the entire film, where he calmly directs her every move, even wishing her a pleasant trip in the escape pod! Seriously, I wish I had him helping me in real life, just imagine all the time saved if he could direct you to where the supermarket moved the stuff you wanted?

It’s at this point, the bit about the codex comes up and it turns out, Clark can help Zod repopulate the world with his race. Just that it destroys Earth in the process. Oops. Good thing that Zod tells Clark this and thinks that he won’t do anything to stop it… oh who are we kidding? Next time Zod, why not lie? Dozy bugger.

The insurance company will never believe this!

I suppose this is when you get down to the nitty gritty of what worked and what didn’t.

First of all, the reason the title of the blog post is remarking on Superman being a f*cking nightmare for the insurers as pretty much is that for the final third of the film, we see a huge chunk of Metropolis turn into what Stoke-On-Trent looks like on a good day. I suppose it’s par the course that everything must be destroyed, and to be honest there are tons of films guilty of this now, so we can’t exactly go after Man of Steel for that.

It was actually quite funny that we saw a fair amount of product placement during one of the fights too for various American outlets, but people seem to forget that the first Superman film had product placement all over the place, and actually far more cringingly obvious too. Then again, we’ve been seeing Turkish airline adverts for Batman Vs. Superman, so maybe we’re going to see Superman go to Ikea for a new table before battling the dark knight?

Anyway, back to the carnage and, I have to be honest, the only question I have is this; Why didn’t Superman lead Zod out of the city away from everyone? If this is typically what happens, I’d be amazed if next time everyone sees Superman coming with one of his people in tow, they didn’t just going to start running the f**k away! Please Superman, for the love of god, don’t save us!

Speaking of death within the film, this was another curious aspect as main characters seemed to just take death as a walk in the park when it comes for them. Seriously, you look back at Kevin Costner and Ayelet Zurer as prime examples. They just stand there and then just get swallowed up by whatever was happening. Trust me, if you were in that situation, it would be brown trousers time and you’d be screaming blue murder, but nope, they just take like noble cows getting sucked into a hurricane. Or at least Kevin Costner did.

I suppose we can only round this off by remarking on the one scene which a lot of people really didn’t like. Again this was only judging from what happened on them there internets; the scene where Clark breaks Zod’s necky wecky and Zod falls down. Just not standing there, taking it heroically like….I really can’t get away from that can I?

Given the context of the previous films, I can see why people would get jolly upset that Superman would do such a thing. But given what they were going for within the context of what else was going on, actually this made sense. Superman was forced to make a choice as whether or not to kill to save some people who Zod was going to laser eye to death, and he made a really tough call. As it stands, Zod was the last one of his people still around and now, old Superman’s sad face for being alone. It also perhaps will give some context in future as why Superman wouldn’t want to kill again (unless he does in Batman Vs. Superman in which case, ah f*ck it, who cares?).

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

The performances by everyone was alright, all things considered. Henry Cavill did have presence as Superman and carried himself very well. However, it seems to me, that I found him much better in the Man from UNCLE where he seemed to be having a bit more fun.

Amy Adams had a nice kickass attitude at the beginning of the film, especially when having it out with her editor (played by Laurence Fishburne, who was criminally underused) and the military about trying to do things. But clearly that was too interesting as for the rest of the film she was just wallpaper. In fact, I’m not sure what would have been lost if she didn’t turn up again in the rest of the film. I still not quite even work out why she was taken aboard Zod’s ship, seriously they did nothing with her!

And what about Michael Shannon’s Zod? He was calm for the most part and then just goes mental, so…. not even sure what I can make of that really. He was alright as Zod. Alright. There you go, Zod was alright.

I got nothing else.

The overall tone, was a bit weird, given we had a super hero who could fly against the cold hard reality of the world that DC and Warner Bros seems to want to stick with against the more comic nature of Marvel’s efforts. It was also strange that they seemed to dispense with a lot of the original story and combine a different plots to arrive at, well, a lot of things which I’ve forgotten now.

In essence, it was hard to get invested in the whole affair and I pretty much didn’t regret not rushing to spend money on watching this at the cinema either. I get why they trying to add some drama and realism to the mix, to spice things up in a way we’ve not seen too often when it came to Superman on the big screen. But a huge amount of it has ended up being hugely forgettable and if this was a taste of what was to come, I can understand why a lot of people are not bouncing up and down with glee for Batman Vs. Superman.

VERDICT TIME!

So Man of Steel, worth a watch? If you have Amazon or someone can lend you a copy, sure. It will fill time. It’s not a disaster or a filmic crime against humanity but it’s not a must-see and you will be fine if you never watch it too. For my money, Henry Cavill was a lot better in the Man from UNCLE, a film which is certainly more slick and enjoyable. Excellent music too I must say.

The next step now for everyone else who is still invested in the DC universe, is to spend about three hours in the cinema for Batman Vs. Superman and see if it’s truly meh for all the money that’s been spent. Oh my….