This was my Superman. Man of Steel Commentary.

There have been many opinions out there about this new vision of Superman. There isn't one that I have read that I totally agreed with and many that if I had telekinetic powers I would have singed a few brains over. However, I need to write my opinion because, this is one thing that I am THAT passionate about.

What I love about this re-imagining of the Man of Steel, is that one, I am not a terribly sentimental person. I do not believe that everything should be held to canon. As we change and evolve in our society, the goal is to root out what doesn't work, what does. We do this with law, with culture, with language, etc. No, it doesn't always go the right way but that is change.

Each person who has taken to writing Superman has taken liberty with certain things here and there, some artists draw him in ways I find atrocious, and some nail it on the head. But these are my perspectives and film-making is the same. It is an interpretation of a collaboration of people who saw something in a character that just didn't fit with the current reality and changed it. For the better in my opinion.

Psychologically, it never made sense to me that Clark Kent was a bumbling idiot, because well obviously he wasn't, so he was faking it- acting like it, and that to me was always something disingenuous about the character. So to me that was the flaw in the writing of the character. A trait of a person high on the psychopathy spectrum is someone who openly and charismatically lies to the faces of people to achieve a goal in their own favor. The fact that it was not present in this incarnation of Superman was this movie's greatest triumph to me. It was real, visceral. There was a stoic manner, a contemplative and intelligent manner that Henry Cavill brought to it, a calm assurance of a man with immense powers and the patience to understand the right time to use them without flaunting them or pretending to be something he isn't. Superman was an introvert. Someone forced to hide his greatness, his intelligence, and his emotions in order for the greater good of a world he loved. He is genuine, thoughtful, and well mannered. He never needed to be dramatic nor showy like other superheroes that came after him. The deep level of humility and grace was overwhelming driven by Cavill's performance.

The other great thing about this film is we didn't need another regurgitation of the growing up of Clark. We all know his history, what made him who he is, and I am so glad that I was not forced to suffer a lengthy progression of his childhood development, but given pivotal moments that reaffirmed who he was. It made so much sense in terms of the Hero's Journey that after the death of his father, he traveled, he explored the world, and kept himself hidden until it was time not to. Goyer mastered the truth of the character and what he would genuinely do as a human or someone raised as a human.

The back story of Krypton, the speech of Zod about being a product of his world, so poignant. This was a testament to a blind love for a culture and being unable to see past it to the very devastation of themselves.

Zack Snyder has been a film maker who isn't afraid to push the boundaries, and I for one have adored everything that he's ever done. But his films are not those you can watch once. He performs a ballet of film-making that is aggressive and violent but if you step aside from prejudice is enormous and immense. There was not one moment of false bravado.

The battles were bombastic and people whined about the destruction and some crap about 9/11 reminders, so every movie that came before 9/11 that destroyed cities is apparently exempt from this? Are we that fragile? Are these same people griping about fictional body counts devastated at the demolition job we did to cities in the Middle East, or rolling around in their beds mourning Hiroshima, Nagasaki, etc.p or the lives continuously lost in Afghanistan, or are we only morning the soldiers that are from our country? You are really that upset and short sited about a film that has done the same thing every single movie has done in the last 10 years? Iron Man, Avengers, Thor... they were exempt because they apparently care less about damage control so this gives them a pass, but because you hold Superman to a higher standard; he is villainous? He was forced to kill Zod, because he couldn't let him kill people RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIM and it devastated him to do it. But these "fans" are all put off about it.

I am glad that this was not another attempt at telling the origin story. I love that Lois was not some easily bamboozled reporter, but that her prowess was portrayed as the daughter of a military man was explored by her reporting on war issues. I was tired of Lois Lane being the supposedly strong willed person but ended up being unable to see past a pair of glasses? Really? I don't remember Clark ever having the power of fairy glamour?? I love that she knows Clark's secret from the get go. It makes their impossible romance so much more real and not a product of some man projecting how he would live two separate lives.

I could go on and on, but mostly, this was my Superman and I am very happy that despite the NaySayers and hapless critics, I will have the version of Superman that was always living in my mind. That was the one I always dreamed of and imagined and was written the way I would have written him.