Super

Rating: 8/10 (15 June 2013)

So I've been gunning for this reboot ever since Zach 'my films are what they use to break people in Gitmo' Snyder was announced as the director. Which is why it's so hard to admit that the latest chapter in the DC cannon is actually quite good.
However, it is some small consolation that this appears to be the direct result of Batman saviours Christopher Nolan and David S. Goyer keeping Snyder's most garish excesses in check. Instead, they've crafted an origin story that is both familiar and new, from an overlong opener on a dying Krypton to a childhood in Kansas told in flashback to the rise of a superhero pitted against the only surviving members of his race as warmongering zealot General Zod tracks him down.
Without doubt, Man of Steel is weakest when Snyder's hyperkinetic style is unleashed. The jittery camera-work and occasionally half-baked effects detract from the otherwise bone-crunching hurly burly as near immortals throw each other across small towns and bustling Metropoli as DC seem determined to outdo their Marvel rivals in terms of on screen destruction.
It's no surprise that Michael Shannon wears the cloak of relentlessly genocidal psychopath like a glove in yet another role that he seems to have been born to play. Like Shannon, Russell Crowe sidelines memories of his predecessor as noble Jor-El. Acquitting himself with equal aplomb despite even greater scrutiny is Henry Cavill as the titular Man of Steel. Unlike the - let's face it, terminally dull - goody two shoes Supermen of previous incarnations, Cavill's Superman is good to his core thanks to his upbringing, but also unmistakably human to boot. Not for him endless martyrdom and humble forgiveness - this Supes has a temper. The rest of the cast (largely quality character actors plucked from primetime TV) put their backs into necessarily one dimensional characters. Oddly, only the usually likable Amy Adams fails to light up the screen, leaving Margot Kidder's Lois Lane the as yet unsurpassed benchmark.
Some will miss the underpants (that's right, they've been banished), Jimmy Olsen, and other much-loved tropes, not least John Williams' iconic theme music. But, nostalgic as I am for the Superman of old, it's hard to deny that Hans Zimmer's effort are at least as stirring
It's clear from the grounded look of the film (only the heat vision jars) that Nolan's Batman will not form part of the much vaunted Justice League movie. This isn't just a Superman reboot - the fate of the entire DC multiverse rests on Man of Steel's box office. And so it is - grudgingly - that this sceptic must confess to being very keen to see more.