Man of Steel
2013
**
Director: Zack Snyder
Cast: Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Diane Lane, Kevin Costner, Laurence Fishburne, Antje Traue, Ayelet Zurer, Christopher Meloni, Russell Crowe
Following the commercial disappointment of Superman Returns, the DC Comics franchise reboots once more. Warner Bros. has hired David S. Goyer and Christopher Nolan, whose dark and gritty trilogy revitalised the flagging Batman series, to breathe new life into the character, and Nolan does his best to suck all fun out of another superhero. This is a long, boringly angsty, laughably earnest and utterly joyless superhero action blockbuster. The story starts on Krypton, where Scientist Jor-El sends his newborn son Kal-El to safety just before the planet implodes. Some thirty years later on Earth, Kal-El (now Clark Kent) has become a reclusive loner in his attempts to hide his superhuman abilities, but his cover is blown with the arrival of the Kryptonian bad guy General Zod (who proves that English truly is a universal language). Henry Cavill, with only a few lines of dialogue, makes no impression whatsoever as Superman, the always reliable Amy Adams has nothing to work with as Lois Lane, and the chemistry between the two never materialises. For the rest of the time, Zack Snyder swamps the screen with CGI to stage repetitive set pieces of insane destruction. When the hero and the baddies duke it out, it is not enough that they fly against the walls, they crash through them, bringing the buildings down in the process.
