9 Reasons Batman Begins Is Better Than Man Of Steel (And 1 Why It Isn’t)

2. Change Things For A Reason

Changes Nolan did change a lot of things in the process of bringing Batman to the screen, essentially putting the title of the World's Greatest Detective to rest, but it always felt in service to the realism of the world; Batman Begins set out to bring the Dark Knight back through the shadows and into the new world of realism and any changes made (so long fantasy villains) were to aid that. Man Of Steel had no such general aim. Pre-release hype suggest it was going to reverse the Dark Knight formula - instead of showing how a hero would come out of the real world, it was how the real world would react to an actual super - but the inconsequential mass destruction severely weakened that claim. Yet Snyder still deemed it worth messing with pretty much every set up element of Superman lore, mixing together countless different origins (and his own stuff just for good measure). However, none of it felt genuine to the story, instead coming across as a desperate attempt to distance this version from the Richard Donner films (and more importantly the drivel that came afterwards). You can't criticise Man Of Steel for not being a new revision of the character, but I think you€™d struggle to find someone who€™d praise that for being purposeful.
Contributor
Contributor

Film Editor (2014-2016). Loves The Usual Suspects. Hates Transformers 2. Everything else lies somewhere in the middle. Once met the Chuckle Brothers.