Critics are torn over Man of Steel, the new Superman movie, though the general public likes it a lot, enough to set a record for a June opening. This time I agree with the general public. The movie is pro-life, anti-Nietzschean, pro-Kansas, pro-church (Superman goes to a church and talks to a pastor when he needs guidance), takes a shot at evolution, and it’s filled with blatant Christian allusions and symbolism. That’s not enough to make it a good movie, of course, but there were other elements I appreciated.
Most treatments of Superman and other super-heroes work from the imaginative premise of “what would it be like for an ordinary human being to have super powers?” This version, on the other hand, stressed that the hero is not a human being at all. He is an alien, from a completely different planet, and the wonder of that came through the movie. He was raised as a human, and he wants to be a human, but he is something more by virtue not only of his powers but his mission.
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