Man of Steel - with a steel broomstick up his behind! No laughs for this serious Superman

Rating: Null/10 (14 June 2013)

At last the waiting is over! The year's most eagerly anticipated film is finally here!
The story goes like this – Krypton is an advanced society that works on classical utopian ideals: Population is controlled and people are artificially bred from a "codec" of all the races DNA in order to fulfil specific functions. Core drilling has led to impending doom, and military leader Zod (Shannon) launches a failed coup to amend the situation. His friend Jor-El (Crowe) breeds an illegal natural son with wife Lara (Zurer) and sends it off to Earth to lead them to greatness and wisdom, packing his consciousness in a pen-drive and the DNA codec along with him. Krypton is destroyed while the plotters are sent on a Phantom Zone bound ship (but saved by the explosion)
On Earth Kal-El is found by Ma and Pa Kent (Costner and Lane) who raise him up, aware of how special he is, and try to guide his future development as the man who will change everything. Growing into adulthood he hides his gifts and works as an drifter doing odd jobs but always ends up performing miraculous rescues, until he chances upon an abandoned Kryptonian coloniser ship buried deep beneath Alaska. Here he meets up with spunky reporter Lois Lane (Amy Adams) who becomes obsessed by his story. Zod and co turn up, attempting to terraform Earth into a Krypton-like world where they can save the race using the Codec DNA stored inside Kal's own cells. Working with the military and Lois, Kal has to choose between saving his old race and saving the new one he has grown to accept as his own.
The tone, as you might expect from the triptych of Snyder, Nolan & Goyer, is serious, dark, sombre and intense, with none of the humour or levity that brightened the earlier movies. The romance is also non- existent till a final coda which sets up the Clark Kent-Daily Planet situation of lore, though with Lane in the know from the off. Instead she is the plucky reporter repeatedly saved from danger and later an active participant in the battle thanks to info she got from the ghostly Jor-El. The Kansas scenes do have some of the "Malick" feel suggested by the trailers, providing a suitable backdrop for the film's main narrative thrust: Kal's existential crisis over his origins and his eventual decision to embrace his new world even at the cost of the old one (A choice no previous Superman ever had to make) Of course we know his decision already, we are just seeing HOW he reached it. Zod, unlike Terence Stamp's cult portrayal, is not a narcissist or power hungry madman but instead an angry patriot, bred to protect Krypton (like a machine he was programmed for this task) which he tries to do first by overthrowing the blind, corrupt Krypton government, then by re- establishing a Kryptonian population on Earth. As a result he is not so much evil as differently prioritised, making his conflict with Superman one of clashing needs rather than good vs evil.
When the original series came out, they were the only Superhero game in town, and by the end of the 80s their wholesome all-Americanism had bred a "counter-hero" culture in the form of Burton's brooding Batman and Alan Moore's "Watchmen" saga (ironically Snyder's previous comic book gig) However now in 2013 we are saturated by graphic heroes everywhere, and all heroes, including James Bond and Spiderman, are now depressed confused characters who spend more time battling their own demons than they do any serious enemies. As a result, this "fresh" approach to Superman well, doesn't feel FRESH! It feels so oddly familiar, beat for beat, made worse by many elements which seem almost lifted directly from other sources. The planet krypton looks like "The Immortals" meets "John Carter of Mars", the ship under the ice is all but "The Thing", and the renegade extremists from another world who try to save their planet by terraforming this one, faced by Earth values loving co-aliens is almost identical to both "Transformers" sequels, an impression enhanced by the similar looking New York battle of US military and bug-like alien ships complete with crashing skyscrapers and 9/11 street scenes. The final superman duel between Kal and Zod feels just like that which ended "The Matrix" series, complete with Zod giving a "You have stripped me of purpose! Now I will take yours from you!" speech to kick it off. The special effects are also not that special, and often look like those from the original series.
Acting wise Caville is good as Kal, brooding mostly, though with none of Reeves' natural charisma (He never gets to be Clark Kent so the range is more limited). Amy is OK as Lane, again more action girl than lover here, while Kevin Costner & Diane Lane are a good embodiment of the wholesomeness the Kents represent. Crowe is more action hero than Brando's thinker and thanks to a ghostly avatar is around for a lot of the time on Earth. The normally brilliant Shannon disappoints, his Zod a well-intentioned thug with a penchant for shouting every word out loudly. He has 2 cohorts, one female (Antje Traue) and one superhumanly strong one (unseen under a mask), subtle nods to original Zod sidekicks Sarah Douglas and Jack O'Hallaran, but they have none of the fun of the originals.
The film is well made, and spectacular, and well performed by all. The design looks lovely, as do the costumes, and a conscious rift has been made with the Salkind series while still making subtle nods to it. If it disappoints it is because so much has been promised, and though an enjoyable experience, it all feels oddly hollow and unsubstantial.
Sequels will presumably fill the narrative out (and hopefully be more original!)