Critic Watch Blog: The Man of Steel

The critic I chose was Steve Persall from the Times. 

The review I read was about the recent new movie Man of Steel. Mr. Persall gave The Man of Steel a perfect score of 100. That being said he did bring up his critiques into why he did this. Mr. Persall says that this movie revitalized the Superman legend in tremendous ways. This is one point I have to agree with; This Superman was real, not in physics, rules of Earth's laws of physics, but of the realism of what it takes to live on Earth and the daily struggles many people have to deal with. Mr. Persall highlights that Superman didn't have to be super all of the time. That his Earth father played by Kevin Costner taught him to turn his cheek in the other direction so that he true powers can be a secret. A secret that needed to be kept that way because the society around him just would not understand nor accept this new reality that there is life beyond the stars. 

I could not agree more with that perfect score Persall gave this movie. I was instantly satisfied with the amount of work put into this movie. Persall brought up a great point and that was how this movie is similar to Christopher Nolan's remake of the Batman trilogy, which received great reviews. Persall stated that: "The movie projects an air of realism and myth expansion that Christopher Nolan's trilogy lent to Batman". That air of realism is what caught my attention and maintained it that way throughout the entire movie. I appreciate the fact that those who are 'comic bookies' are actually grown up and adults now and this movie is catering to them: an adult crowd. To see that even a young Superman went through what we know as a problem in our nation; bullying, was a way to relate to the audience and many out there watching this movie. Persall also made a good point about how this movie was not rushed. As per Persall: "Time is taken for conversations to go elsewhere than exposition and jokes don't come cheaply, if at all". This provided myself an ability to clearly understand what was going on. It was new to see first hand the origin of superman on film as in depth this movie did. No other Superman movie has done this. It clearly brought me in even more and I only left with a thorough knowledge and understanding on who Superman was and why he is indeed…Super.