2. So Is It A Drama Or An Action Flick?
Here we have another structural problem. A major one. Rather than giving this movie a healthy balance of action and drama, director Zack Snyder decided to spill all the drama into the first half, and cram all of the action into the second half. Act 1 is Clark moping around under the weight of Jor's and Jonathan's philosophies, and Act 2 is Clark taking that weight and using it as a battering ram to knock Zod and his goons all over Metropolis. It's like Chris Nolan half-heartedly attempted to guide Snyder through Act 1, then got bored and replaced himself with Michael Bay for Act 2. You know, I'm getting increasingly wary of Mr. Explosions. The third act of The Dark Knight Rises also suspiciously felt like it was directed by Bay. Could it be that... GASP! Has Michael Bay secretly been replacing directors half way through their movies? Is this part of some insidious Hollywood plot to bring down the credibility of all pop movies? Are they installing Bay to bring in millions of dollars in ticket sales from testosterone-fueled teenage boys? Probably. But Michael Bay aside, Man of Steel is seriously unbalanced. The major shifts in tone prevent the movie from maintaining a fluid structure, and any attempts to create real drama in the first half are watered down and cheapened in the second half. It's like Act 1 is Richard Donner's Superman I, and Act 2 is Richard Lester's Superman II. The major shift in tone was awkward enough between two movies from the same series, but such a shift occurring in the middle of one film is a minor disaster. Admittedly some of the action scenes are really cool, but they go on for so damn long that the bald patterns on the guy sitting in front of me started to show more variety. It makes it that much harder to buy Jor-El's and Jonathan's self-serious preaching when an hour later humanity's savior is casually demolishing buildings all over Metropolis. You can't have The Dark Knight and The Avengers meshed into one movie. It doesn't work.