The film itself is a bit of a mess, a combination of hard science fiction and endlessly repetitive action sequences interspersed with a few genuinely effective moments of pathos and emotion, most of which take place during Superman’s childhood in Kansas. This is not the Superman we see in Man of Steel. Superman, however, is supposed to a beacon of hope: morally forthright, acting as a guiding light to whom the people of Earth can look for honesty and truth. This modern obsession with making the unreal more real, darker, and more conflicted worked with Batman: he was always a more shadowy figure, lurking on the edge of society and doing the dirty work that others would not. Instead, he is a more angst-ridden, tormented alien soul, stranded on Earth, haunted by the reality of his super powers, and in no way sure of his place in the world or his role within it.
The original identity that creators Joe Schuster and Jerry Siegel originally gave Superman in 1938 – that of an infallible, just, noble, patriotic super hero – has been largely abandoned. In Man of Steel, director Zach Snyder gives us a Superman for the new millennium, imbued with the same aesthetic as Christian Bale’s brooding Batman.
Having said that, I think Man of Steel is a colossal failure of both musical ingenuity and conceptual approach.Īfter the success of The Dark Knight trilogy, rebooting Superman was almost an inevitability, as was the involvement of director/producer Christopher Nolan and writer David Goyer. I have a few issues with the way his Remote Control organization has come to dominate the mainstream Hollywood film scoring world, but I admire him as a shrewd businessman, and he did help launch the careers of John Powell and Harry Gregson-Williams among others, which is praise-worthy in itself. I think Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End is a masterpiece, and close to being the best score of his entire career. I absolutely adore many of his works, ranging from A League of Their Own to The Prince of Egypt, The Last Samurai and Pearl Harbor. He was a genuinely groundbreaking artist when he first emerged on the scene in the late 1980s, and broke the film music mould when he wrote scores like Black Rain, Backdraft and Crimson Tide. As a composer, I think he’s very talented. I’ve met him on a couple of occasions, and he’s an extremely nice and friendly man. Before I begin this review of Man of Steel, let me make one or two things perfectly clear.