Look, its a bird, its a plane, its SUPERMAN! Thats right, unless youve been living in a giant ice fortress for the last year or so, you know that the past few weeks saw the release of Zack Snyders Man of Steel, the Superman reboot weve all been waiting for. The film, of course is the re-telling of Supermans origin on a scale of epic proportions, directed by the mind behind Watchmen and 300, which were both mind-blowing movies in their own right. There have been a lot of reviews that have said that the film is generally bad, and I'm afraid I have to disagree. There were some truly amazing moments in this movie that contributed to it being one the best movies of the past year, matching both excitement levels and the its huge potential.
SPOILER ALERT: Obviously in explaining certain moments there will be some spoilers from the film, so be warned...
5. Flight
"You'll believe a man can fly" - The tagline of the original Christopher Reeve/Dick Donner Superman film. A wonderful tagline for a film that was a pioneer in the Superhero genre and also one that redefined superhero films as we knew it. For its time, the movie's flying scenes were incredibly well done and executed, but with Man of Steel, we're talking a completely different ball park. From the very first trailer we saw how powerful and how fast Superman's flight can be: he breaks the sound barrier whenever he flies, and this is where Nolan's touch of realism comes into play. Yeah, yeah, I know men can't fly, but let's assume they can: Superman is known for flying at incredibly high speeds and often breaks the sound barrier in doing so and we see this in the movie. Furthermore, to do such a thing he must lift of with a huge amount of upthrust, which we also see in the third trailer just before the epic music kicks in. However, that's not to say the Superman cracks the ground every time he lifts off, but since this was the first film, we can assume that Clark is still trying to get 100% control of his powers, so I would say that his ground-breaking (get it) lift-off is allowed. I loved the flying in this film for two reasons: firstly, it was more realistic in that it showed the science behind the flight, and secondly, and more importantly, it really enhanced that feeling of exhilaration that you get when you feel the wind through your hair as you move extremely fast.