SurpriseMan

Rating: 8/10 (3 April 2014)

Well what a surprise this turned out to be. After the disaster that was Superman Returns it was quite conceivable that Clark Kent would get mothballed. Not so. Nolan's influence is quite apparent as the story does edge into slightly darker territory but with Snyder directing it takes a more ballistic approach to it's events. Jor-El(Crowe) dispatches his new born son Kal-El(Cavill) to Earth just before the destruction of their home planet, Krypton. Although sharing Jor-El's vision of Krypton's fate General Zod(Shannon) attempts a coo to seize power. This fails, Zod is imprisoned and Krypton's future lies with Kal-El. So the battle is set up on Earth as Kal-El takes on Zod and his cohorts. This is all amazing to watch and the pace is relentless. The effects steam at you to intense levels, quite reminiscent of The Matrix at times. What lets the film down for me is the period between the intense opening sequences upon Krypton and the final battles on Earth. Clark's story growing up is told in a really disjointed fashion mainly using flashbacks. So it didn't really give a progressive sense of his journey to manhood. This is a shame because Kevin Costner delivers a nice performance as his adoptive Father. Cast-wise it's a good show from all but nobody lives up to their predecessors. Shannon is great as Zod but he has a tough act to follow from Terence Stamp. Crowe, again, offers a nice take on Jor-El but as with Zod he suffers from the fact he follows Brando. Cavill is adequate shall we say and Adams as Lois Lane, well, her character had nothing to work with really and she just made up the numbers. We all know about the Batman infusion the sequel will have but with the pace of this outing it's hard to see how he will keep up, just being an ordinary human being in a bat-suit! Bright & pacey, Man Of Steel is a loud, sometimes brutal, well executed blockbuster.