6. Script
Written by David S. Goyer, Man Of Steel wanted to be a realistic Superman movie. Goyer said;
Were approaching Superman as if it werent a comic book movie, as if it were real I adore the Donner films. Absolutely adore them. It just struck me that there was an idealist quality to them that may or may not work with todays audience. It just struck me that if Superman really existed in the world, first of all, this story would be a story about first contact. Hes an alien. You can easily imagine a scenario in which wed be doing a film like E.T., as opposed to him running around in tights. If the world found out he existed, it would be the biggest thing that ever happened in human history It falls into that idea of trying to humanise the inhuman. Hes made out of steel, hes not made out of flesh, metaphorically speaking. We are portraying him as a man, yet hes not a man.
That approach is fine, after all Superman is an alien and to be outed would mean a colossal shift change in the way humans see their place in the universe. It is also something that hasnt been touched upon in a Superman movie before, Bryan Singer turned his Superman in to a celeb but a far more interesting angle is to see people react to Superman asan alien to fear. But for everything Goyer promised, very little was presented in Man Of Steel. Firstly you have to ask how easy a job it is to make a realistic film about an alien with superpowers? Obviously they were trying to Nolanise the film in the same way Batman has been Noalanised, but Batman and Superman are very different things. Where it sort of worked with Batman because for all extensive purposes, he was a man in a suit; Superman on the other hand is an alien who is indestructible. He is much harder to put in a realistic universe, you have to suspend too much disbelief to do it so you have to wonder why they even bothered. If fact, Goyer only half bothered. Yes Man Of Steel is much less campy than the other Superman movies, but like an excitable dog on a lead in a park, it cant wait to be set free. As soon as all the realistic origin stuff is out of the way, Man Of Steel runs off at full speed to much more familiar ground. Yes we see poor Clark struggle in a half-arsed way with the powers he has, but its the destruction and explosions Goyer and Snyder really want you to see. The origin story for Superman has been told so many times, it really doesnt need telling again. But Goyer does by interjecting it with flashbacks and voice overs. But all it really tells us is that Clark Kent is extremely unlucky and not a person you want turning up out of the blue. For a person who is desperately trying to stay incognito, he does seem to be in the center of a lot of disasters. With all the luck of a man who has lost a winning lottery ticket, Clark moves from place to place and attracts more than his fair share of attention. His school bus blows a tire and crashes into a river; an oil rig he is sailing near too happens to blow up; and even when he is partaking in a nice family drive, would you believe it, only a tornado pops out of nowhere to ruin his day. As a man, Clark is unlucky, even when he was born his home planet exploded. Like I said, if you fancy staying in one piece, it might be better to keep Clark Kent at an arms length. The people who are involved in those incidents do witness Clarks incredible powers. They all seem to have a WTF expression on their face when he saves them. From that I imagine that Goyer is trying to tell us that when presented with concrete evidence of alien life, people will act all WTF and then forget about it. Exciting stuff.
The script also fails because it is full of cliches, cheese and conveniences. When you watch Clark rescue a school bus full of children, you can go with it, but then he will go back underwater and pull out the bully who was conviently harassing him only 1 minute earlier. Everyone might be running from a killer tornado but damn it; the Kents have only gone and left their dog in the car, now someone has to go back and die rescuing it. Clark might freak out and run out of the classroom and go hide in a cupboard, but for some reason, the teacher will bring all of Clark's classmates with her as she tries to talk him into opening the door. Even when his mother runs in panicking and talks him into opening the cupboard door, the children are still standing around as witnesses, taking notes on how to torment him even more. During the climax, Zod is trying to cook a perfect, wholesome American family with his heat vision. Luckily Superman is on hand and shows us that he cares about innocent people dying because he shouts Noooooooo while General Zod is trying to microwave them. He also manages to stop Zod by breaking his neck and that shows us that he really cares. Just as long as you remember to ignore all the deaths Superman caused when he was smashing his way through large skyscrapers, two minutes earlier. But at least Goyer tries to be funny; Man Of Steel might be the least humorous Superman film but Goyer tries to inject some laughs into it. Like at the end when Superman delivers a tracking satellite right in front of the jeep the Colonel and a female soldier are traveling in. The lady soldier starts acting like she just let out an uncontrollable fart when Superman flies away and cant stop giggling; when her superior officer asks what she finds so funny, she tells him Im sorry sir, hes just soooooo hawt. Hilarious. And I can't have been the only one chuckling when Louis Lane decided to inform Laurence Fishburne that she was a a Pulitzer Prize award wining journalist in the most amateur script writing, sledgehammer to the face, type way. It was so that the audience knew that Louis Lane was a very good journalist. The script is full of moments like that, fist to the face explanation to give the audience information, it's quicker I guess. But it sounds unnatural because it's not how normal people talk. It was the kind of script writing that Damon Lidenlof loves to torment us with. Goyer may have written the scripts for Blade and Dark Knight, but he is also the man who gave us Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance. The man can write but he can also produce a large turd on occasion. Unfortunately the script for Man Of Steel is mostly a turd thats been dipped in Nolan paint. Dull and eye-rollingly bad in places, watching Man Of Steel feels like marathon through mud. Boring and a chore, 2 and a half hours have never passed so slowly.