Man of Steel ***

The new Superman film helmed by Zack Snyder and Christopher Nolan endeavours to reboot the franchise in this loud action-packed origins story.

The last Superman film to date was Bryan Singer's largely overlooked Superman Returns(2006)  - a much darker, more subversive film than many gave it credit for. Snyder's new movie wants us to forget about red underpants and attempts to wipe the slate clean on the franchise, focusing on the genesis of the Kryptonian superhero. The high-water mark for reimagining a superhero franchise is Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins(2005) and it is particularly interesting that Nolan is back with ‘Dark Knight’ screenwriter David S. Goyer for Snyder's new movie; With Nolan and Goyer’s demonstrable ability to reinvent a superhero as interestingly as they did with Christian Bale’s Batman, one would expect a similar level of innovation in Man of Steel.

Synder’s origins tale begins as war and destruction is breaking out on Krypton – lit in refulgent gold light where dialogue takes place on top of huge towering structures as spaceships and winged beasts fill the frame - Synder’s vision of Krypton is at once awesome and spectacular and overly cluttered and indulgent. However, the elaborate CGI vista is just the backdrop for depicting the escape of Krypton’s first naturally born child in years as the planet subsequently explodes. The narrative shifts to Smallville where the baby (Cal-El on Krypton, Clark Kent on earth) is raised after his adoptive parents discover a crashed alien spaceship.

Man of Steel is a complicated film and not necessarily complicated in an intelligent way.Superman’s story is deliberately made more difficult and convoluted than it needs to be; the Superman ‘S’ no longer means ‘S’ for Superman and whenever the word ‘Superman’ is uttered – it is said out almost out of embarrassment. The film is preoccupied with the fact that Superman is a superhero on earth because the atmosphere is richer which makes him stronger because gravity is lighter. The problem is is that although the first hour of the Man of Steel fleshes out the character with lots of plot exposition, I never felt truly engaged or invested in the character in the same way as I was totally invested in, for example, the first hour of Batman Begins. Although there is a lot of plot to get through and Snyder certainly has an affection for the story he's telling, the nonlinear structure of the origins narrative makes it difficult to get emotionally involved in the superman character. Superman’s formative years are mainly told through a flashbacks inter-cut with the present-day narrative  which prevents you from feeling the true trajectory of the character developing and therefore limits you from becoming truly immersed in the emotions because of this lack of continuity. There are individual scenes, particularly with Kevin Costner, that have a sepia-lit, melancholic lightness of touch - but these moments are not sustained long enough to evoke anything particularly riveting.

On the upside, Man of Steel is certainly impressive to look at. Snyder is a director who is very interested in visuals and it is true that he does have a flair for creating arresting images onscreen. Whereas previously the director had just been interested in meretricious surfaces and lavish imagery – in the case of the fatuous Sucker Punch – the new Superman film does match the CGI tricks with some kind of thematic substance. This evocation of Superman is fallible and despite the fact that he isn’t human, he is still subject to very human emotional frailties. British actor Henry Cavill has the ability to convey a level of convincing naivety and sensitivity that is crucially needed to humanise an apparently indestructible man. The third act is a totally explosive orgy of devastation that starts off as a great piece of blockbuster spectacle, but descends into a baggy mess. The running time is overlong and Man of Steel suffers from having to wrestle with so much plot and whereas the enjoyment is derived from the CGI spectacle, ultimately, the film spreads the drama a little too thin.

The Purge **

Set in the near future, the ‘reborn’ United States Government have implemented an annual ‘Purge Night’. In order to control crime and unemployment rates, for one day, between 7pm and 7am, anyone can commit the most heinous crimes without facing any of the consequences. The film centres on Ethan Hawke’s character, a businessman, who has made his family wealthy by selling a security lockdown system to keep citizens safe during the purge – however on this ‘purge night’ he and his family are put in danger.

The film explores ideas pertaining to the American economy, the division of wealth and other themes such as repressed societal aggression leading to more intense, explosive violence. The Purge intends to consider the classlessness of violence as the opulent upper-class are portrayed as being just as bloodthirsty, and even more so, than the individuals revolting from outside their steel fortresses. However, although film is sometimes reminiscent of exploitation revenge-horrors like The Last House on the Left, Michael Haneke’s consummately uncomfortable Funny Games and even David Fincher’s Panic Room, writer/director James DeMonaco offers little in the way of substantial tension. The acting is largely inert, the narrative lacks a freshness of innovation – despite the fact that it facilitates the ideas proficiently – and the bloodshed consists of ineffectual splatter. The Purge has a compelling premise and yet proceeds to do nothing particularly interesting with it.

Hours ** One of Paul Walker's final performances is also one of his best, however this mystery drama is a mixed bag.

Set in 2005 as Hurricane Katrina hits New Orleans - Paul Walker plays Nolan Hayes, a father to a premature new-born who finds out that his wife tragically died during the conception. As the storms thrash against the outside of the hospital and patients and doctors evacuate the building, Hayes must stay behind and look after his incubated baby until help arrives.

The film proceeds to set up an array of narrative devices. First of all, a power-cut causes the hospital generator to kick-start, but Walker's character realises that the incubator relies on a faulty battery which he repeatedly has to wind-up by hand to keep the ventilator working. This, surprisingly, racks up a fair amount of tension as the film consistently keeps our minds hooked to the fate of the baby as the battery life threatens to count down to zero. At its best, Hours is a sparse depiction of human endurance against adversity that nods towards films like Terminal(2004) and 127 Hours(2010)  with its self-contained claustrophobic setting - however, despite the its ambitions, it never quite reaches the dramatic impact of these films. Walker does well in what is essentially a one man show, giving a particularly low key and restrained performance - but about halfway through, the film begins to feel overstretched as its central idea wears thin. To avoid having Walker just sitting in a room talking to a baby or himself, the narrative has to start introducing more and more unbelievable plot contrivances which climax in a very misjudged scene of violence. This horror sensibility could be largely explained by the presence of the film’s writer and director Eric Heisserer, who thus far has writing credits on Final Destination 5 (2011) and the redundant remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010).

Hours has a dark, shadowy, almost paranormal visual aesthetic which often works in its favour to accentuate the looming tempestuous presence of the hurricane as well as the metaphorical storms that the central character is experiencing. Although the film goes about its subject matter with the best of intentions, its brooding stillness too quickly becomes inert and even, at times, a little tedious as the emotional core is ultimately mired by the flagrant weaknesses in the scriptwriting.