'What do you think of him?' 'I think he's hot.'

Rating: 5/10 (14 November 2013)

There are two camps in regard to this yet another exhumation of a comic book hero – those who worship at its altar (and allow it to achieve a box office intake of $291,021,565 in the USA alone, with nearly equal international numbers), and those who see the entertainment value of the film that is in dire need of editing at least 45 minutes of extraneous repetitive CGI effects to make it tolerable. The cast is very fine – hunky Henry Cavill is a rather demure Superman and that is in his favor, Amy Adams makes Lois Lane credible, Michael Shannon is ominous as the evil General Zod, and then there are the home-baked goodness of Diane Lane and Kevin Costner and Russell Crowe and Amtje Traue as the variable parents (Krypton genes, Kansas adoption). Nods also go to Christopher Meloni, Ayelet Zurer, Harry Lennix, Richard Schiff, and Laurence Fishburne for trying to take all this seriously.
Plot (not really adapted from the original comic books): A child, sent to Earth from a dying planet, is adopted by a couple in rural Kansas. As a young boy he learns that he has extraordinary powers and is not of this Earth. As a young man, he journeys to discover where he came from and what he was sent here to do. But the hero in him must emerge if he is to save the world from annihilation and become the symbol of hope for all mankind. Sounds like a good story through the sci-fi telescope. The problem is the heavy handed emphasis on the monsters and space ships and tunnels and gore of Krypton and the mess made not only in Smallville, Kansas but in the major cities by the invading Krypton dudes. Makes you wonder when all the CGI minds behind it will tire of the noise and fire and space sailing of Superman. Enough already.
Grady Harp