Man of Steel

Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel is a tale told by a -- bunch of special effects wizards, full of sound and fury, signifying -- well, perhaps a few things:

1. Superman’s experience comprises less exultation than pain. From his mother’s excruciating birthing, through his own Kansas boyhood alienation, to the loss of his earthly father (Kevin Costner), this Kal-El (Brit Henry Cavill, you know, the guy with my bod) measures out the pain in the human condition. He sure gets beaten up a lot, too. 
2. By his Krypton father Jor-El (Russell Crowe), Superman’s mission is not just to save Earth but to be a bridge between two cultures, the dead Krypton and our humanity. This may allude to the burgeoning tension between radical Islam and Western civilization.
3. This is a post-feminist exercise. This Lois Lane (Amy Adams) very quickly twigs to Superman’s nature and identity, shares his Clark Kent pose and is such an active agent that she enables Superman’s conquest of the villain General Zod (Michael Shannon). She even has some deft gunplay. For his part Zod’s second in command is the sultry invincible Faora-Il (Antje Traue). She gives even Superman a hard fight in hand to hand. Unlike our women, though, Faora claims the historic advantage of not being impeded by any sense of morality. In a dramatic break with tradition, neither heroine breaks a heel when fleeing. But both still need to be saved by their respective superstuds.
4. This is a post-9/ll exorcism, an exercise in apocalypse. As the Japanese scraped at their Hiroshima scab with all those radiation mutant monster disasters, American citybusters (that’s a block buster blown up to exceed Manhattan) amplify the urban cataclysm of 9/11. Whole skylines of towers crumble. Even a two guy punchup rips through buildings, leaving a landscape of smoldering ruin -- as a sign the good guy won. This doesn’t just remind us of 9/11. It flatly says that America’s fight for its values would be worth a geometrical progression of 9/11s. It also addresses the vicarious pleasure of witnessing an apocalypse, even our own. As both villainess and good guy claim, “A good death is its own reward.” Here there are no promises of posthumous virgins. 
5. The villains are impervious to traditional warfare. Bullets and bombs don’t hurt them. This may align them with the new enemy -- which supplanted the traditional army of the national state -- the terrorist. The villains are a small band of superpowered outlaws who are completely dedicated to serving their “people.” In this case, their land destroyed, they seek to reestablish Krypton on Earth, preferably with the genocide of Earthlings (that’s us). 
6. Despite the colossal destruction, the film pretends to environmentalism. Krypton imploded because its core had been irresponsibly mined away. Take that, Keystone Pipeline!!
7. Like any superhero film, from Nietzsche through Austin Powers, this one flirts with fascism. The people are supposed to embrace the strong leader who has offered to save them and to adhere uncritically, whatever his actions and their consequences. Indeed, there’s something implicitly wrong, undeveloped, in a people who refuse to accept a super-gifted leader in their midst. In this case the hero happens to be a good guy, but history abounds with evil leaders who similarly required and received mindless faith and obedience. In fact, Superman could share Zod’s line: “No matter how violent, every action I take is for the greater good of my people.”
8. It’s an American film, so it has to pay lip service to that inconvenient ideal, Individualism. Jor-El runs afoul of the Krypton folk by arranging for the first natural (hence so painful) birth on that planet in a century. Superman will supposedly be able to choose his own life, aims, nature -- though in fact his special gifts and mission are as proscriptive as the Krypton babies, engineered in pods to serve particular roles in life, with no personal choice. Indeed perhaps the primary conformist impulse in American society -- from the cheerleading corps to the boardroom and the Tea Party -- is to pretend to believe in individualism. They will find this film nourishing.
9. It manages to be oh so current. At the end Superman shoots down a $50 million drone because the friendly US government keeps trying to figure out where he lives. That catches both the drones-against-civilians lobby and the myth that the government spies on its innocent citizens.