It is not often that one gets the privilege of watching
truly epic Sci-Fi. But you get to with Man of Steel. Like The Dark Knight, is
able to communicate good messages without making it a boring movie. And,
finally, it does what all the old Superman movies never could (or wanted to)
do: epicly strong characters beating on each other. Mid-air fights, awesome
punches, and an impressively animated destructible environment makes for great
fun.
Flight, for whatever reason, rarely feels real on camera
(and in video games, I might add). But this does. Like so many of our dreams we
wish were true, Superman really takes flight. And so does this movie. Great
acting, spectacular cinematography, awesome script, and a Hans Zimmer soundtrack
with lots of drums made for a spectacular movie experience.
The movie opens on Krypton and spends exactly enough time showing
you the planet and politics there. It makes you care about the place and the people
(and even the poor strange animals), and when then time was ripe, the planet was
destroyed and you felt sad. There were some awesome Kryptonian battles, with
Russell Crowe (as Jor-El) inspiring manliness with his words and punches before
the planet dies. The movie continues to show all the classic Supermanly
locations of Smallville and Metropolis, with characters that were true to the
original spirit, but not simple copies, of the originals. Henry Cavil (who?)
does a solid job as Superman, at displaying cool confidence through most of the
movie, but some powerful scenes of questioning his identity and showing moments
of despair.
I am no purist, and I hope some of the sci-fi faux pas were
because of Superman orthodoxy. Superman’s powers come from his cells absorbing
the “younger” sun’s energy. Though able to fly in space, he loses his powers in
a Krypton-like “atmosphere.” The DNA of his entire race was put into his cells
(the animation for this showed red blood cells, which are one of the few cells
in the body that don’t have DNA). But, aside from these gripes, I can accept Superman
as Sci-Fi with an emphasis on the Fi. At least we didn’t have to hear about
mitochlorians.
The Father of Superman
The aspect of the movie which was so endearing was the
relationship between Superman and his two fathers, Jor-El and Jonhathan Kent. His
adoptive father (played by Kevin Costner) tells him after he resists his
teenage impulse to murder a bully, “You just have to decide what kind of man
you want to grow up to be, Clark. Whoever that man is, he's going to change the
world.” But how? Clark Kent leaves home and for years wanders through the
wilderness of trivial jobs and superficial relationships. We see ourselves in
the young man searching for his identity. We all want to know: “Who are we? Why
are we here?” We have a renewed hunger for such answers. Sure, he helped people
along the way, but he didn’t really know what would finally satisfy him, how he
could truly use his powers to their limit.
Batman Begins was about mental and physical training. Man of
Steel was about moral training. What is the good life? The next section of the
movie was a very tender telling of Clark Kent’s early life in wrestling with
his identity and powers. It shows him struggling to both hide his powers while
developing his virtues. These are some of my favorite scenes in the movie, with
Kevin Costner (as Jonathan Kent) raises and mentors his son through normal
rebellions with the added twist that if Clark goes bad, it would alter the
course of the world. Jor-El tells him, “You've grown stronger here than I ever
could've imagined. The only way to know how strong, is to keep testing your
limits.” This is the inspiration for one of the coolest “learning to use your
superpowers” scenes in all movie history: Superman learns to fly. After his
first hop, skip and jump, he “falls” into a mountain. And then out of it on the
other side. And then the damage he does to it crumbles the top of the mountain.
Then there is an extended flight through canyons and valleys, up to space, back
to the canyons, all the while having the exhilarating music of Hans Zimmer
making it all the more engaging.
The Superman problem is a tough one. What does one do with (near)
unlimited power? Is the old aphorism “Power corrupts” actually true? Superman finally
accepts his mission from his father Jor-El, “You will give the people of earth
an ideal to strive towards. They will race behind you, they will stumble, they
will fall. But in time, they will join you in the sun.” Superman’s job is not
to fix all the problems in the world, but to lead humanity, to provide an
example. He is to be what we all aspire toward.
The Ethics of the Man of Steel
Superman: Man of Steel is appropriately titled. Superman is a super man; that is, he is the
embodiment of masculine virtues. He is physically and emotionally strong. He is
bold and confident, but not arrogant. Time and again, he allows others to
insult him without fighting back. He is a defender of the weak. He is willing
to sacrifice himself for those he cares about and even those who are strangers
to him. Most of all, he shows his masculinity with laser vision (a power which
definitely gets an upgrade in this movie). OK so maybe laser vision doesn’t
make a man.
The central virtue of Superman is his sacrificial
compassion. He cares deeply about humanity. This is a virtue which both Jor-El
and Jonathan Kent demonstrated, each by laying down their own lives for him. At
an early crisis of the movie, General Zod demands Superman reveal himself and
surrender or he would make earth suffer. Superman seeks the counsel of an
anonymous priest. Should he give himself for the sake of humanity? In this
dialogue with the priest, there are large stained glass images of Jesus in
Gethsemene (where Jesus wrestles with whether or not he should sacrifice
himself for humanity) and Jesus the Good Shepherd (where Jesus is in the role
of gentle leader and guide) in the background. The priest tells him “You must
take a leap of faith. Trust will follow.” And so he does. He gives himself up
to humanity, who, in turn, gives him up to Zod. Despite the humans constantly
trying to get control of Superman, he continues to gently remind them (i.e. by
taking down a drone that is spying on him, or by breaking out of handcuffs) that
he will help them but, “It’s got to be on my terms.” The Man of Steel teaches
us that the only way to approach a super man is on his terms.
In addition to these moral themes, the plot wasn’t without
its philosophy. General Zod was no stereotypical crazed villain; he was a
patriot for Krypton and, in his political theory, a Platonist. The conflict was
between Zod, who wanted to give Krypton another chance and Superman, who didn’t
want to extinguish earth’s chance. Zod was fighting for Krypton’s system, with children
born into their given roles as scientists, soldiers or leaders; Jor-El wanted
to let his child make his own path. And, while reading a book by “Plato,” young
Clark Kent resists using his powers and, throughout his life, rejects the crown
of the Philosopher King.
Man of Steel, Christianity and Myth
Check out this trailer.
There are enough lines that make explicit comparisons to Jesus that, when they
are all edited together, it’s pretty clear that the Director wanted Christians
to look at his Superman and say, “That’s just like Jesus.” They’ve posted a
website with sermon notes and other resources to aid pastors in preaching about
The Man of Steel. CNN
writes about this with an emphasis on the greedy movie studio (which, as it
turns out, is owned by the same greedy parent company as CNN) trying to extract
money from unwitting Christians. On this subject, I would like to say the
following to Hollywood: What took you so long? I’m thrilled that you’re finally
making an effort to produce something that we like and want to see. Some of the
$125 million that came in this opening weekend (i.e. the biggest June
opening in cinema history) came from people going directly from pew
to theater after hearing the pastor talk about the parallels between Jesus
and Superman. Keep it up. Tell stories of heroes that look like Jesus, and help
us out by telling us what you’re doing. We’re totally into that. We’ll reward
you with our dollars.
The wonderful thing about mythology is that, like Jor-El,
Superman’s corporeal existence is not necessary for him to accomplish his
mission. He can lead us as Homer’s Odysseus and Virgil’s Aeneas have led us. Superman’s
original mission was to uphold, “Truth, Justice, and the American Way” and as
any cultural hero, we have poured into him our goodness and virtue. Superman,
as our first superhero, represents us on the mythological scene. I am proud to
stand behind the man in the red and blue. In a great scene, Lois asks him what
the “S” stands for. He explains, “It’s not an ‘S’. On my world it means ‘hope.’”
And let us look to that symbol which we first raised in the darkness of the
Great Depression and take its meaning to heart. Let us have hope.
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