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Dec 11, 2023

10 Harsh Realities Of Rewatching Man Of Steel, 10 Years Later

Zack Snyder's Man of Steel started DC's divisive shared universe, and watching it back after a decade highlights several issues with the film. After 10 years and a great deal of turmoil within the

Zack Snyder's Man of Steel started DC's divisive shared universe, and watching it back after a decade highlights several issues with the film.

After 10 years and a great deal of turmoil within the resulting franchise, rewatching Zack Snyder's Man of Steel highlights a number of harsh truths about the film. Snyder's movie marked the beginning of DC's shared movie universe, introducing Henry Cavill's Superman as its core hero. Written as a slightly grittier take on the eponymous character, Man of Steel tells a Superman origin story in which the hero must stop the Kryptonian General Zod from conquering Earth, beginning his journey as the world's most important hero in the process.

Though the film was somewhat divisive, Snyder's unique style made Man of Steel a success, putting a fresh spin on the hero's well-known origin story. However, the franchise-building sequels that followed were fraught with issues, many of which began with Man of Steel. For all the film's merits, there are distinct problems with its tone and the nature of its story that, in hindsight, simply do not hold up and have prompted the necessity for Superman: Legacy to fix its mistakes. Here are 10 harsh realities of rewatching Man of Steel 10 years after its release.

At his core, the character of Superman is most often written to be the embodiment of hope and goodness. However, Snyder's film fails to really capture that, owing to the fact that it's relentlessly bleak. The aesthetic decision to tone down the often bright and colorful world of Superman lent the film an edge that made it feel gritty and interesting, but reflecting on it years later reveals that it undermines the essence of the character. By making Superman's world so gray and bleak, Snyder failed one of the character's most important attributes.

Related: Every Upcoming Movie & TV Show Confirmed For The DC Universe

As an origin story, Man of Steel introduces a version of the hero who has yet to fulfill his potential. However, as Henry Cavill's only solo outing as the character, it also proved to be a rather narrow representation of the hero. Snyder's unfulfilled plans to build up to a villain turn for Cavill's Superman only exacerbate the issue, as it's clear that he wasn't heading down the hero's traditional narrative path. Though it's hardly Cavill or Snyder's fault that the character wasn't expanded upon, it's something that makes Man of Steel seem worse in hindsight.

In the comics, one of Superman's key qualities is his ability to lead - something that's therefore also crucial to a shared DC movie universe. However, Man of Steel paints a very different picture of Superman: he's conflicted and filled with self-doubt and even shows a reluctance to become the symbol of hope the character is destined to become. It makes it hard to picture Henry Cavill's Superman leading the powerful heroes of the DCU, especially as he was absent for the majority of Justice League, allowing Ben Affleck to assume leadership of the titular team.

Compared to Superman, Clark Kent is all too easy to overlook, but he's actually the key to any good Superman story. Kent represents Superman's humanity, and paying proper attention to his mild-mannered alter-ego is something that Man of Steel neglected to do. Naturally, Superman is the character who offers up all the action, but Man of Steel failed to balance the Kryptonian powerhouse with his human side, subtly sending the message that Cavill's iteration of the character was more alien than human. Though this is in keeping with Snyder's planned future for Superman, hindsight reveals it as a clear misstep.

Despite being one of the director's most popular movies, Man of Steel shares in a common criticism of Zack Snyder's movies: many aspects of the film are entirely forgettable. There's a lot of story packed into Man of Steel, and some of it is far more engaging than the rest. This is partly because certain aspects feel somewhat convoluted - like the Kryptonian Codex, for example - but also because Man of Steel's pacing is a little off. There are parts of the film that drag on for far too long, and they're thoroughly overshadowed by its epic action sequences and brilliantly realized visual effects.

Superman's alien origin story is almost as iconic as the character himself, but Man of Steel went a little too far in its exploration of this idea. Though science fiction is undoubtedly a part of any Superman story, Man of Steel was packed with spaceships, outlandish technology, and Kryptonian landscapes. This ultimately led to an overindulgence of CGI, which in turn undermined Snyder's grittier approach to the character. With there being a clear sense of realism to Man of Steel's narrative, too many scenes involving spaceships and ill-defined technology served to cause dissonance within the film.

Though Man of Steel features some perfect Superman moments, rewatching it reveals that despite starting a franchise, it was made with an apparent lack of foresight. One of the main criticisms leveled at Cavill's Superman is that his narrative arc feels rushed, and though that's most obvious in Batman v Superman and Justice League, it began with Man of Steel. The film barely features Superman's home of Metropolis before the city is all but destroyed by General Zod. Laying waste to an iconic DC location in the first film of the franchise seems distinctly shortsighted, looking back on Man of Steel 10 years later.

Related: 10 Best Superman Performances, According To Reddit

Man of Steel places most of its narrative weight on exploring themes of belonging and xenophobia, pitting a peaceful refugee against a violent one with the future of their new home hanging in the balance. The dynamic this creates between Superman and Zod is excellent: it examines their similarities while highlighting key differences. However, after setting up Zod as Superman's most dangerous enemy, Man of Steel then killed him off, wasting the opportunity to revisit Superman's final ties to his home planet. In turn, this forces the narrative theme of xenophobia to solely surround the hero moving forward, all in the pursuit of setting up the divisive Batman v Superman.

Though it leaned heavily on its sci-fi angle, Man of Steel failed to examine some of the most interesting parts of Superman's Kryptonian heritage and the results of his upbringing on Earth. Both the Phantom Zone and Kryptonian culture were loosely included but largely skimmed over, while Superman's own moral code hardly came into play at all. Man of Steel tries to examine Superman's willingness to do what needs to be done, but having him kill Zod in his very first movie made Cavill's Superman seem far less heroic than the character deserves.

Though it may not widely be considered the best Superman movie, Man of Steel certainly has its merits. Cavill's Superman is an interesting figure, with Snyder's film putting a fresh spin on the hero's story. However, after two underwhelming follow-ups, it's clear that Man of Steel will forever remain a high point for Cavill's version of the character. This unfulfilled potential is by far the harshest reality of rewatching Man of Steel because, for all of the film's shortcomings, it's clear that both Snyder and Cavill deserved a better chance at continuing Superman's story.

Niall Gray is a features writer for Screen Rant covering just about every film- or TV-related topic he's loosed upon. After spending his formative years soaking in as much pop culture trivia as possible, Niall started writing about film online in 2020, and contributes to numerous websites. When he's not writing for Screen Rant, Niall also writes for Corner of Film (where he also hosts a podcast) and sporadically dabbles in fiction with a focus on dark comedy and horror. Niall is also a certified boxing coach, which goes hand-in-hand with his encyclopedic knowledge of the Rocky franchise, and considers himself something of an expert on Batman. Though he takes a keen interest in the sci-fi, fantasy, and horror genres, Niall watches everything and anything, and his secret shame is consuming the many forgotten movies of questionable quality from the '90s and 00s. Niall can be found on Twitter @lordofthegray.