Man of Steel (2013)

Superman is given the Zack Snyder treatment in this franchise reboot that aims to add some grit and darkness to the all American character. Dark Knight franchise director Christopher Nolan produces, and you can see what they are going for, but Superman is an inherently lighter creature then Gotham's masked detective. The film tells the origin story of the last son of Krypton, and while watching I couldn't help but wonder how many times we are expected to pay for the same story. Don't get me wrong, this is probably the most substantive and well-thought out version of  Kal-El's origin, we spend more time on Krypton then ever before, and I like the look of the place, and the fully spelled out context of Krypton being a civilization in decline that has become obsessed and dependent on Eugenics actually provides a much better motivation for General Zod (the always interesting Michael Shannon) the chief villain of the piece (no Lex Luther here, I guess they are saving him for the sequel).

Anyway as you know Kal-El is sent to Earth from the dying Krypton by his benevolent (but still kick-ass) father Jor-El (Russell Crowe, who kind of steels the movie with only twenty or so minutes of screen time). On Earth Kal-El is found and raised by the Kansas based Kent family (Ma Diane Lane and Pa Kevin Costner, who is just the physical incarnation of mid-western values) as their son Clark. Clark has great parents but a difficult childhood, being an alien trying to find his way in the world and all, and instead of tacking the typical CK rout straight to the Daily Planet, he kind of drifts around in an increasingly Northerly direction helping people until he comes upon his version of the Fortress of Solitude (an old Krytonian spaceship buried in the arctic ice). Activating the ship however alerts the exiled Zod and his followers to Kal-El's whereabouts and they make for Earth.

Lois Lane (Amy Adams, not a burnet by she's Amy Adams so we forgive her) stumbles upon Clark while doing a story on the military arctic dig in Canada, see's what he can do, and manages to trace his origin back to Kansas. Clark manages to prevail upon her to keep his secret, which is a refreshing because it doesn't require the award winning investigative reporter to be, well stupid when it comes to Superman's identity. But Clarks not Superman yet, but he becomes so over the course the film, which features a lot of good action sequences, and does in my estimation more damage to Metropolis then The Avengers did to New York. There is brief coda in the film where Clark goes to work at the Daily Planet that I didn't really think was necessary, I liked where the film deviated in a sensible direction from the established mythology, but there are places where it doesn't fell confident to deviate too much.

On the whole this is a very solid version of this story, but its still this story that has been done so often before that it can't help but feel kind of redundant. Sequels will obviously occur however and I do feel director Snyder has things going in a direction which will be fun to watch, if not really surprising or ground breaking. ***1/2