Man of Steel: Was Anyone Represented Right?

That is always the question that is brought up after a comic book gets adapted into a movie.  I thoroughly enjoyed the dark romp with the Man of Steel and the portrayal of him as a hero.  Did they represent the Superman world correctly?

Ma and Pa Kent- Kevin Costner (actor who played Robin Hood) and Diane Lane are the home skillet, conservative foster parents of Superman.  They teach him homespun knowledge, while making sure he gets a  proper education.  The love they show Clark is so pure and supportive, but still a bit afraid of his super powers.  I liked the contrast between Jor-El's wisdom of Superman's divinity and Pa Kent's wisdom of Clark's humanity.  They get a B +



Lois Lane-  In the comic book Lois Lane is the hard nosed, workaholic, forgets-she-is-a-woman-sometimes reporter who will chase down any lead for her own curiosity.  In this movie she has it for about 5 seconds.  Then she meets Clark and becomes the damsel in distress who uses every minute to ram her tongue down his throat.  This feels more like DC trying to have their own "Thor babe" like Natalie Portman who gets to feel up the character.  For the purpose of this movie she couldn't be her hard nosed self, always leading Clark Kent on.  In that case, the female leading role could have been Lana or even Gwen Stacy.  If Zach Snyder doesn't care about who the real Lois Lane is than why should we care who he is macking on.  Also, they removed his secret identity from her, taking away the dual relationship between the clutzy Kent and the bodacious Superman.  This gets a D -

Clark Kent-  He doesn't exist in this movie.  Who we do get is an emo Chris Hemsworth who becomes Superman.  This deserves an Incomplete

Superman-  Zach Snyder wanted to focus on the young and studly Superman who uses his powers like a human battering ram.  Everything about Superman to his authority grabbing demands to the cops  to the fact that he charges into buildings without prejudice represent a more modern version of himself.  This guy does not save cats from trees, he only gets into galactic level fights with other enemies who cannot get hurt.  Despite the very literal interpretation of Superman's brawn they did nail the comic book character quite well.        This gets an A

Jor-El-  When you have Russel Crowe (actor who played Robin Hood) in your movie then you probably shouldn't give him the guy who dies in the first ten minutes.  Even when he dies in the first ten minutes he is given almost more screen time than Kevin Costner (who dies in the next twenty minutes).  The solemn, wisdom prophet of Krypton is well portrayed.  His purpose was more to explain the back plot to those who needed some interpretation between the galactic ramming scenes (AKA fight scenes).   Jor-El gets a B + for stilling being in the movie after he died.

Perry White-  I get it DC.  You need a man of color to even out the all white staff.  Who better than Laurence Fishburne, a man who has never been the star of any movie.  There was a homeless man outside of the theater that looked more like Perry from the comics.  He gets a C +

Zod-  I keep wondering why I liked this movie.  It's probably because Superman finally got a universe sized bad guy who had the power to mess up the world.   Zod was flavorfully crazy and irrationally upset, which added color to the very quiet and stiff Superman.  His plan was to destroy everyone on Earth so that Kryptonians would not have to painfully adapt to Earth's sun (a process that takes maybe 5 minutes of slight pain).  Zach Snyder is a genius when it comes to brooding and gloomy atmospheres and the movie would not have made sense if Zod was not there to fill that gloominess.  Zod gets an A+