movie review--Man of Steel

There is a certain problem with giving a review of this movie, which has to do with one aspect of how it has been marketed. I'll deal a bit with both sides of it.


First, simply as a movie, the best way to express my take of it is "WOW!!!" Yeah, it's that good.

The story part of it is very good. We get a kind of coming-of-age story, where at various times we see Clark as a newborn on Krypton, a boy in Kansas, a young man yondering about, then finally as the guy working at the newspaper who moonlights as a hero.

In this, the conflict he works through is the question of how he's to use his developing powers while also maintaining a low profile. In that, he does a rather iffy job, not for lack of trying, but because he's put into positions where he must use them to save lives, or in one scene where as a schoolchild he has a minor breakdown when his senses become very sensitive.

I must confess to a bit of disappointment in the Jonathan Kent of the movie. When Clark had to display his strength to save some fellow students, his father hints that he maybe should have let them die in order to keep people from questioning who or what he may be. Then there's the scene with the twister, which I still think is rather iffy. But that's about my only disappointment in the movie.

And when it comes to the action and fighting, they are appropriately epic. Superman's fights with the previously banished Kryptonians are almost gratuitously destructive, as they go through buildings and structures like they were made of cards.

So, I would say, go watch this movie! You're not likely to be disappointed.

One thing the makers of this movie have done is to market it directly to churches. Many churches do sermon serieses based around themes like God in the movies, and it seems that the movie makers intentionally made this Superman a kind of allegory for Jesus. I'm just no convinced that it works very well at that, though.

The Bible gives us very little information about the childhood of Jesus, essentially only His birth, the coming of the wise men, and one incident when He was a young boy. But given that He lived a perfect, sinless life, we may say that there are things that He did not do.

Clark Kent in the movie is far from perfect. He struggles with how to act, and at one point gets more than a little snippy with his human parents. At another point, he pilfers a bit of clothing from the trunk of a car. He simply is not any kind of divine being, for all of his strengths.

There is one scene in a church, where Clark talks briefly with a pastor or priest. The best advice this priest could give him was something about having to make a leap of faith. Is that the best advice a religous leader could give a person?

The movie is very good, but it may be best to not expect it to carry the burden of being a Christian allegory.