Man of Steel – “Fate of Your Planet” Official Trailer

I’ve been very skeptical of what to expect from this summer’s Man of Steel movie. I’ve always felt the biggest issue with Superman films is the villain he faces. Lex Luthor is a pretty awesome adversary in the comic books, but that’s because you have time to build up all the little things to one large reveal. In a two hour summer movie I want to see action. You are taking one of the most powerful characters in comic books (I’ll leave the Superman/Thor/Hulk/any number of other character’s merit debate for another post) and having him face a foe that he can’t punch. Superman II gave us a small taste of what I wanted, but issues between the studio and director, not to mention being limited by the technology at that time, robbed us of what could have been. Now it looks like we will get what I’ve wanted to see.

Zack Snyder is not a perfect director, but one thing he does is great action sequences. Debate the fast zombie versus the George Romero walkers all you like, I enjoyed the Dawn of the Dead remake. There wasn’t much of a story to 300, but it looked beautiful up on the screen. Watchmen looked exactly like the comic book come to life on the screen (I think the big issue here was the way the movie was marketed to the general public making them think they were walking into what the Avengers became). Sucker Punch is the one movie where Snyder takes the most heat. Scantily clad girls, swords, machine guns, Nazi zombies, WWII aircraft, dragons and mech-suits with pink bunnies on them…not sure what type of story people were expecting, but again it looked beautiful up on the screen.

Sure, I’d have loved to have seen Superman face off against Bizarro or Doomsday or Darkseid or any other number of heavy hitters from the DC Universe, but I’m happy enough with Zod. It gives us the chance to see what could be one of the greatest superhero fights on screen. What I’ve always envisioned in a Superman battle is something along the lines of the Agent Smith vs. Neo fight at the end of Matrix Revolutions. Characters being thrown through buildings, punches where the shock-waves cause damage for miles and the utter destruction of everything around them leaving an entire city in rubble. That’s what I would expect from a battle between Superman and any character strong enough to take a punch from him. With each new trailer being released for Man of Steel, I’m thinking we are getting closer and closer to seeing a fight of that magnitude.

I’m going to keep my fingers crossed that the story is a good as rumored, as I really want to see this help launch DC towards some other characters getting their own movie and have it all lead up to a quality Justice League film, but for now I’ll be happy if Snyder can deliver some incredible action sequences.