20 Most Hated Film Remakes & Reboots In Movie History
12. Man Of Steel (2013)
As far as rebooted franchises go, there are few as contentious as Zack Snyder’s reimagining of Superman with a view to kickstarting a DC comics cinematic continuity.
Bryan Singer’s tepid Superman Returns in 2006 may have disappointed many fans as a film, but at least no one argued that Brandon Routh’s soulful reinterpretation of Christopher Reeves’ take on the character wasn’t Superman.
But that’s one of many charges levied at Snyder and his star Henry Cavill: that in obsessing over the messianic qualities inherent in Superman, they’ve utterly failed to understand the appeal of the character over the last seventy-eight years.
Snyder’s Superman is moody, unhappy, even belligerent in a childish, stroppy way. Cavill wasn’t hired only for his looks (and his pecs) - he’s an excellent actor, but when realising the role, if he was aiming for anything more complex than brooding, petulant angst, he he missed the mark by some way.
Snyder claims that his interpretation is based upon "the comics", and while there are any number of interpretations of Superman in comics continuity that are darker than usual (the character’s cameo in The Dark Knight Returns, Kingdom Come, Injustice to mention only a few), the key word there is ‘usual’; it’s a departure from the norm.
Superman is supposed to be an inspirational figure, not because of his alien, Christlike qualities - his godlike power - but because he’s one of us, the best of us. He represents the greatest qualities of humanity in a single person: he’s precisely the kind of hero who would rescue a cat from a tree on his way back from saving a crashing airliner and defeating Darkseid on the moon.
Zack Snyder’s Superman is a Man Of Steel because he’s been raised upon a pedestal. He’s not a superhero (let alone the superhero), he’s an alloy statue: a scowling, cruciform effigy in a red cape.