So now, just as he did with Batman, producer Christopher Nolan has restarted Superman's cinematic life. This first new cinematic crusade is Man of Steel, directed by Zack Snyder.
Once again, scientist Jor-El (Russell Crowe) sends his young son, Kal-El, away from their doomed planet Krypton to Earth. Years later, Kal-El, now Clark Kent (Henry Cavill), travels the world. Clark was raised by farmer Jonathan (Kevin Costner) not to use his super powers in front of other people. But Clark uses them anyway when the time comes.
And that's all before he gets his blue suit.
The evil General Zod (Michael Shannon), who tried to take over Krypton in its last days, comes to Earth. He decides to build a new Krypton from Earth's ashes, but he needs a MacGuffin Jor-El sent to Earth with Clark. And he wants it bad. It's up to Superman to defeat the bad guy and save the day.
The "new and improved" Superman is quite visual. Its Krypton, in particular, has a creative assortment of creatures, spacecraft and geography. On Earth, Superman's super powers are displayed in some amazing scenes. The final fight scenes, though, wear out some of their welcome as they go on and on.
Much of the movie is all about Clark growing up Super. As a kid or adult, Clark maintains the audience's interest throughout the film. In fact, the earliest parts were so particularly captivating that I didn't notice at least 40 minutes had gone by.
The rest of the film's cast has plenty of well-cast characters. As Zod, Shannon is a perfectly brutal villain whose motives, though not methods, are actually understandable. Amy Adams, meanwhile, is great as the intrepid Lois Lane.
This new Superman is good, but misses some of the sense of wonder that Richard Donner introduced in 1978. Hopefully, the next one will make it really fun to believe a man can fly. Still, its ending, while long, doesn't raise a lot of logical questions as the first one did.
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