Entertaining but dumb

Rating: 4/10 (26 January 2014)

I'd heard that "Man of Steel" was great. Wonderful. Marvellous. And I found it silly. Ludicrous. Dumb. Ah well, ain't it always the way.
Take the theme that gets espoused several times early in the movie, that Kal-El needs to keep his identity secret, because how would people react if they knew that there was an alien living amongst them? Well, the people are about to find out what happens when aliens live amongst them. First Smallville gets demolished, then the General and his crew move on to Clark's mother's house, which they proceed to similarly demolish. And what do we find Mrs Kent doing? Why, there she is in the ruins of her lounge room, thumbing through a photo album. As you do, after aliens have just chucked a truck through your roof.
Our warring aliens then move on to Metropolis, where they proceed to topple and destroy more buildings than Al-Qaida could achieve in a hundred years. Presumably whilst all this mayhem is taking place, human lives are being lost in droves, but this doesn't seem to bother Superman too much. On the other hand, having to give General Zod the deathly neck twist is the cue for tears and anguish and some cooing from Lois Lane. What's with the neck twist anyway? Here's an alien being who's just spent the last 30 minutes crashing into concrete and steel and glass at cataclysmic speeds, without a mark being left on him, but a deft little neck twist puts him out of business for good? Crikey, I'd have thought something a bit more imaginative than that would have been required.
The acting's generally OK - Michael Shannon is always good value - but the only disappointment for me was Russell Crowe. Now Crowe is one of my favourite actors. It's to the Academy's eternal shame that he didn't receive the Oscar for "A Beautiful Mind", and he should have received a lot more recognition for his brilliant performance in "The Next Three Days". But in this film, he looks and sounds as though someone's shoved a broom handle up his posterior. He has a naturally deep, resonant voice, so doesn't have to try to sound like Richard Burton. And a bit of animation would have been good, rather than floating around the set like someone who's just received a massive over-dose of Botox.
Funnily enough, it was all entertaining enough, just pretty stupid in the end.