Man Of Steel

Man Of Steel (2013)
Rated PG-13

If you liked: The Dark Knight trilogy, The Avengers, Green Lantern

Starring: Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Russel Crowe, Kevin Costner, Christopher Meloni, Lawrence Fishburne, Harry Lennix

Premise: Time for another gritty reboot! Director Zach Snyder (300, Sin City) and producer Christopher Nolan (Inception, Dark Knight trilogy) team up to take Superman in a very different direction than that of the classic Christopher Reeve adventures. Prepare for a dark origin story filled with a very big name cast with a lot of talent.

I'll say this right out: Walk into this movie with a healthy dose of willing suspension of disbelief. What I mean here is don't sit there going "Oh that could never happen. Oh that's stupid. Come on, that's not real!" Just enjoy it for what it is: a new movie of an age-old superhero.

The Heroic: We'll start with a pretty easy comparison: Watch Superman Returns (Bryan Singer's shoddy 2006 reboot), then watch Man of Steel. In this situation, you've got a gold star winner. Henry Cavill knocks the role of Krypton's last son out of the ballpark! But the big surprise to me was the solid performances by Cal El's supporting players. Kevin Costner gives a great performance as the Man of Steel's earthly pappy, Russel Crowe nails it as Jor El, Superman's birth father, even Lawrence Fishburne gives a solid go at one of the smaller roles in the movie as the editor of the Daily Planet.

But what really hooked me in was Michael Shannon's fantastic performance as Superman's enemy, General Zod. I had never heard of Shannon before this movie, but he plays the part very well, resulting in a rage-filled, hateful character that I had a hard time feeling bad for!

The story was solid, telling Clark Kent's backstory through a series of (sometimes unnecessary) flashbacks to his childhood. But of the whole movie, I have to say my favorite was the opening 20 minutes, portraying Snyder's vision of Superman's home planet, Krypton. No spoilers, but it sets the tone for a powerful movie.

Let's keep this PG-13 here...

The Villainous:  Amy Adams. There, I said it. Playing the role of Clark's love interest, Lois Lane, I didn't buy her part for a second. With a different actress in the shoes of this character, I feel like the movie would have been a solid gold winner. But as it stands, I think she needs to stick with playing Disney princesses, and take a break from the comic book movie realm. Amy, you have many talents, but cursing on camera is not one of them. Go back to PG movies, potty-mouth.

Another beef I had was the amount of flashbacks, and their placement in the movie. I think its a great way to tell the backstory without having to re-hash the origin over and over, but cutting these segments down could have cut this movie from a needlessly long two and a half hours, down to a more easily digestible two hour movie.

(potential spoiler ahead)

Finally, and I hate to say it, but seriously... Lois Lane is freaking indestructible!! I swear they put that woman through more dangerous situations than Superman himself! A small beef, but still took me out of the movie a bit.

Score: 8 out of 10
A great first outing for the new Superman, crippled only by a small dose of shaky acting, and some unnecessary length.

"Let's all go to the loooooobby!"