Partner and I saw “Man of Steel,”
the new Superman film, last weekend.
As a film, it mostly stinks. The more you think about it,
the worse it gets. Imagine Pa Kent telling young Clark that he maybe shouldn’t
have rescued a schoolbus full of children, because he might have revealed his
secret identity!
It’s basically a
redo of the second Christopher Reeve movie from 1980. General Zod is back
from Krypton. There’s a big battle for the planet Earth. Guess who wins?
Many critics have pointed out that this Superman doesn’t
seem to care much about collateral damage. His extended battles with the
villains take out a big chunk of Manhattan, ahem, Metropolis. This is strange
for someone who, to paraphrase him, “just wants to help people.”
And so on, and so on.
But there are two bright spots.
One is a new plot point: Lois Lane (played by Amy Adams) is the
first one to figure out that Superman is Clark Kent, very early in the movie.
There’s a cute scene at the end of the movie when she’s introduced to him in
disguise, and she does a very comical little double-take at him. This, for me,
is a relief; the whole secret-identity thing is a little exhausting sometimes,
and – let’s face it – if you can bend steel in your bare hands, you really
shouldn’t be all that worried about people knowing your real name.
The other bright spot is Henry Cavill.
You know I tend to gush over beefily handsome actors. Well,
here goes again. Henry Cavill is just about perfect. He has an adorable smile
and a wonderful profile, and he has the face of an angel and the body of a
Bengal tiger on steroids.
All through the movie, all the while I was hating the
tiredness and confusion of the plot and direction, I was loving me some Henry
Cavill.
If you haven’t seen it on the big screen yet, skip it. Wait
for the DVR / Blu-Ray / Netflix version.
Because you don’t need to see it on the big screen, but you really
owe it to yourself to see Henry.
He is the stuff that dreams are made of.
