令人失望的《超人 鋼鐵之軀》

'Man of Steel' certainly does take itself seriously as an origin story. It starts with a pounding heartbeat, followed by you-know-who emerging from his mother's womb on the planet Krypton. (Russell Crowe and Ayelet Zurer are the baby's parents.) That auspicious event is, we are told, Krypton's first natural birth in centuries. On our planet, however, the story proves to be a miscarriage, if not quite an abortion. Here's one more studio extravaganza brought down by numbing action and an addiction to generic digital effects. (I chose to see the 2-D version, so I can't blame the third dimension.)

《超人：鋼鐵之軀》(Man of Steel)當然是把自己看成是一本正經的原創故事。故事以砰砰的心跳拉開帷幕，接着那個你知道是誰的人從他母親的子宮裏降生到了氪星球上。（羅素•克羅(Russell Crowe)和阿耶萊特•祖瑞爾(Ayelet Zurer)飾演嬰兒的父母。）我們被告知，這件大吉大利的事情是氪星上數百年來第一例自然分娩。然而，在我們的星球上，這個故事即使算不上流產的話，也證明是一次失敗的生產。這又是一部被令人麻木的動作和癡迷追求數字特效的行爲所毀掉的電影大片。（我選擇觀看的是2-D版本，因此我不能對3-D版加以批評。）

It's a huge disappointment, since the buildup to the action is so promising, albeit joyless. The promise lies partly in Alex McDowell's elegant production design, which suggests that Krypton's civilization was influenced by cross-cosmos currents of Gothic and Gaudí, but mainly in the darkly revisionist premise. We will not, the long prelude makes clear, be seeing Superman as yesteryear's sturdy superhero in tights; he's to be taken more seriously than that. We won't even be seeing this iteration of Kal-El as Superman, a name that goes unspoken throughout, though it almost escapes the lips of Amy Adams's Lois Lane. Then what does that capital S on his chest stand for? It isn't an S at all, David S. Goyer's script reveals slyly, but a Kryptonic character that means 'hope'─i.e. hope for mankind.

這是一部極其令人失望的電影，因爲這部片子的醞釀過程是那麼地值得期待（雖然經歷並不快樂）。人們期待它的部分原因是亞歷克斯•麥克道爾(Alex McDowell)精緻的製作設計。在他的設計中，氪星文明受到跨宇宙的哥特式和高迪式潮流的影響，但是大多修飾得比較陰暗。從長長的序幕中可以清楚看到，我們見到的超人(Superman)與過去那個身着緊身衣、體格強健的超級英雄不一樣了，他將被塑造成更爲嚴肅的形象。我們甚至都不再把這位卡爾-埃爾(Kal-El)當成是超人。超人這個名字在整部影片中都沒有提及，雖然它差點從埃米•亞當斯(Amy Adams)飾演的洛伊斯•萊恩(Lois Lane)口中脫口而出。那麼他胸膛上的那個大寫的S代表什麼呢？戴維•S•戈耶(David S. Goyer)的電影腳本顯示，那根本不是S，而是氪星的文字，意爲“希望”──也就是人類的希望。

The steely man of the title, liberated from yesteryear's external underwear and played with unalloyed gravity by Henry Cavill, has come to us with godlike powers. Therefore the movie, which was directed by Zack Snyder, raises the question of whether we'll be smart enough to receive such a one with open arms. That's a fair question, even if the visual parallels between Kal-El and Christ are insisted on overmuch. And there's plenty to enjoy in the drama of the hero coming to grips with those powers as a confused youngster in the heartland (Kevin Costner and Diane Lane are his adoptive parents); meeting Lois, who learns quickly, for once, the truth of his identity; and preparing for the struggle against the evil General Zod (Michael Shannon), who arrives from Krypton with a gang of baddies and extremely bad intentions.

片名中的這位鋼鐵之軀不再是過去那種內衣外穿的形象，亨利•卡維爾(Henry Cavill)將其演繹成一個純粹嚴肅的角色，呈現在我們眼前的是神一般的力量。因此，這部由扎克•斯奈德(Zack Snyder)執導的影片讓人產生了這樣一個疑問：我們是否聰明到會張開雙臂接受這樣一個形象的程度。即使卡爾-埃爾和基督在視覺上的相似性渲染得有些過度，但這依然是一個值得研究的問題。對於這樣一個英雄人物影片中有很多看點：這個生活在美國中西部的年輕人（凱文•科斯特納(Kevin Costner)和戴安•萊恩(Diane Lane)飾演他的養父母）在意會到那些力量時心生困惑；遇到洛伊斯（她這一次很快得知了他的真實身份）的場景；以及爲迎戰心懷鬼胎、帶着一大幫壞人從氪星趕來的壞蛋佐德將軍（邁克爾•珊農(Michael Shannon飾演)）所做的準備。

Yet hope springs ephemeral in this production. First off, there's the problem of casting in the central role. 'I can do things that others can't,' Kal-El tells the grievously injured Lois as he cauterizes her wound with sizzling eyebeams. It's tempting to think that another actor might have done things Mr. Cavill can't, but there's no way of knowing, given Mr. Snyder's stiff direction and the generally turgid dialogue. (Lots of talk about trust, leaps of faith and initiating the phantom drive.) There's also the issue of Mr. Crowe's Jor-El, who keeps materializing with bizarre frequency as his son's holographic spirit guide and real-time strategist, never mind that the old man is long dead. Marlon Brando's Jor-El returned too, but only in obvious outtakes.

然而，在這部作品中希望只是曇花一現。首先，中心角色的演員選擇存在問題。卡爾-埃爾在用嘶嘶作響的眼睛光芒燒灼嚴重受傷的洛伊斯的傷口時對她說：“我可以做別人無法做到的事情。”這很容易讓人想到，另一名演員也許可能做卡維爾無法做到的事情，不過鑑於斯奈德執導時的拘謹以及影片中晦澀的對白（大談特談信賴、放心信任並讓人產生幻覺），換一名演員的效果如何也無從知道。克羅演的喬-埃爾(Jor-El)也有問題，他現身充當他兒子的全息式精神導師和現場軍師的頻率讓人匪夷所思，全然不顧這位老人早已去世的事實。馬龍•白蘭度(Marlon Brando)所演的喬-埃爾也在影片裏出現了，但用的是明顯能看出是以前片子剪餘片段的鏡頭。

Eventually, though, what seals the movie's doom─as inventive entertainment, though perhaps not as a commercial venture─is its surrender to the lower power of coarsegrained action and computer-generated images of inexplicable banality. It's 'Fight Club' cum sci-fi as Zod and Kal-El duke it out on the streets of Smallville, then do it again, just like barroom brawlers, during an interminable climax set against a background of a Manhattan seized by the usual chaos of fireballs, shattering glass, flying trucks and toppling towers. 'You know they say it's all downhill after the first kiss,' Lois tells her inamorato early on. She doesn't know the meaning of downhill.

儘管如此，最後判定影片失敗的──作爲娛樂創新，可能不是作爲商業風險投入──是它居然接受了低標準的粗糙動作以及平庸得令人費解的電腦製作圖像。它既是《搏擊俱樂部》(Fight Club)這樣的打鬥片，又是一部科幻片，因爲佐德和卡爾-埃爾在斯莫維爾(Smallville)的大街上一決高下，之後又重新開戰，就像酒吧裏的打鬥者一樣。沒完沒了的打鬥高潮背景設在曼哈頓，火球四起、玻璃橫飛、卡車騰空、高樓傾覆。洛伊斯早先對她的情人說過：“你知道，他們說初吻之後就每況愈下了。”相信她並不知道“每況愈下”意味着什麼。