3. Purposed Flashbacks
This is an extension of the genres repetitive aping of the Begins origin formula, but is such a crucial flaw in Man Of Steel it deserves its own entry. Throughout the film we experience/endure out of order flashbacks to Clarks childhood that seem to be there to fill in the gaps of character motivation, but end up falling flat. Do we need to see Clark being bullied? Yes its a nice way to slip in
a Plato reference, but referencing that dropped plot thread isn'tt worth five minutes. Batman Begins used flashback liberally for much of its first half, juxtaposing the early days of Bruce Wayne with his League of Shadows training, but with Man Of Steel its random, normally to fill a narrative hole; if we distract audiences for five minutes they wont realise this doesn't make sense. Thats all fine if it adds something, but given this is a film with only one driving plot and a small roster of characters that comes in at almost two and half hours its like treading water in a swimming race. Theres another, worse side effect of this. If a film has to keep jumping around to explain itself, all it looks like is the writer doesn't think the audience can keep up without gentle reminder. Now were back to the extra territory.