Man of Steel

It took nerves of steel to sit through this torturous tribute, homage to pyrotechnics and digitalization; actors were crucified on an altar of inane, embarrassing mediocrity; obscene, flagrant waste of 250 million dollars,  but admittedly some audiences will relish it. Being a lifelong fan of Clark Kent (“Superman”) this glossy, plastic composite was monumentally detrimental to his iconic, mild –mannered, super-endowed image. Henry Cavill (“The Immortals”) is a  perfectly-proportioned beauty and if this is a sample of the male population on the planet Kryptonite, it might be worth recreating.

The movie is insufferably slow in the “messianic” birth of the mighty “S” (“Kal-El”) and the destruction of Kryptonite; the battle between Jor-El (Superman’s father; a robotic Russell Crowe) and demonic General Zod (laughably dead-pan performance by Michael Shannon) was the commencement of one implosion, explosion, cataclysmic event, followed by ubiquitous, ceaseless climaxes.

Overbearing biblical comparisons, “Clark” is a dash of Moses and Christ; his manger stored in his surrogate parents barn in “Kansas” (enough citations to make one yearn for “Dorothy”); a shallow script leaves little for “Martha and Jonathan Kent” (once glorious Diane Lane and Kevin Costner) to imbue or incite interest in their folksy awe of their uninvited, stratospheric progeny. Enter “Lois Lane”, Amy Adams epitomizes the “cute” in “cute”; but is unconvincing as the bright reporter, protecting the anonymity of the world’s most sought after,  maligned hero; also, barely a dollop of chemistry between she and Superman; takes a leap of faith to envision a man beneath the supersonic suit.

Tiring, tedious, enervating , recalling “faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. Is it a bird? Is it a plane?”  NO,  it’s peneflix poll -vaulting to the nearest exit!

ONE STAR!

For Now………Peneflix