A great cast takes on "Superman Begins" with CGI overkill

Rating: 7/10 (13 January 2014)

Man of Steel (2013)
The Superman story from the fall of Krypton to his first moments as a full grown Superman on planet earth.
And there are some thrills, including lots of retelling of the familiar story—like how he grew up in Kansas and was raised by really good, salt of the earth parents to be a good guy. (I mean, what if he was raised by Paris Hilton?) Kevin Kostner plays the dad, and he is a kind of superhero himself for his wisdom and self-sacrifice, much like Glenn Ford was in that role for the 1976 movie, "Superman." In fact, there is a lot here that will be an homage to that groundbreaking movie.
And often it doesn't compare well by comparison. Here, the special effects are more advanced, but they are also simply more. There is so much computer driven action stuff here, and often with such fast pizzowy cuts and big explosions, it's all about sensation. The plot is there, and at least you can tell who is who, but there's little of what you would in a better movie call choreography.
A good cast comes to the rescue. Amy Adams is terrific in her straight forward role as Lois Lane, and the evil nemesis played by Michael Shannon is excellent without ever being exaggerated and ridiculous. And most of all, Clark Kent a.k.a. Superman is really excellent—and hot—as played by Henry Cavill. (You can argue all you want about who is better in the role, Cavill or Christopher Reeve, but you need to see both movies first. I have and I leave it a tie because each fits the personality of the movie he is in best.)
There are some raving good reviews of this movie and I don't blame them, but I'm guessing many of them have never seen earlier Superman movies. Not that the 1976 version is better—it has a similar bag of tricks and parallel flaws—but that the plot in this new one is not new. If you've seen the other movie. So if you are looking for some surprises rather than a series of reminders, you won't find them here.
Except for the one big one that the enemy is from, well, you'll see soon enough. But what that means is lots and lots of high tech (and not always very well done) computer effects. The falling buildings are brilliant, and the set designs on Krypton are amazing, and they take up a large part of the movie. Some of the folksy warmth of the earlier movie is missing here, which I miss—they don't even reprise "faster than a speeding bullet" and all of that, which is kind of archetypal.
Christopher Nolan had a hand in this production but did not direct it, but on the horizon for 2015 is a tantalizing title, "Batman vs. Superman." Let's see how that plays out with his superior movie-making intelligence. For now, this is a halting and sometimes numbing entry point.