"In time, they'll join you in the sun."

Rating: 9/10 (17 June 2013)

Superman: he's been around seemingly forever. We've seen him from just about every angle, right? What else could they possibly do with this ancient comic stalwart?
A lot, it turns out. Snyder and Nolan have outdone themselves in one of the best from both of them. Not a whole lot changes, story wise...I think both knew that fans and even common folk would cry foul if they changed it up too much. So they did something a little different: focus more on the man, and less on the super. This movie is not so much a juggernaut fighting a huge enemy, as it is the story of a man who inspires people. Cavill delivers the heavy hits as the titular Man of Steel, true, but it is the highlights of humanity that tells this story. Earth is his home, and it shapes him as much as the people that live there. It would have been easy to let Supes do all the heavy lifting, but it was a pleasant surprise to see his heroics complemented by the efforts of the people he was helping to save. It focused as much on the heroics of the human soldiers and civilians as it did the man in tights, and you end up rooting as much for them as you do Superman.
I had my doubts about the casting, as it seemed like they got some big names that wouldn't necessarily fill the parts. Forget what you heard about Henry Cavill being too serious, he plays a perfect Superman. Russell Crowe plays an earnest, stoic Jor-El that buries the Marlon Brando iteration. Kevin Costner proves that he's still got it with a Jonathan Kent that is indispensable to this story. Amy Adams proves her acting chops as a Lois Lane that rivals Margot Kidder's version. Michael Shannon plays a Zod that you sympathize with while despising his every action. These four characters, they had to get right, but it's the ones that you don't expect that steal the show: Lawrence Fishburne as Perry White, a brutal Faora, and particularly the actors that played the soldiers: not overly dripping with American hoo-ah, but heroic in a much more relatable way.
If I had one complaint, it's that there's almost too many great characters. This movie is a giant clash of wills, and at times, it's difficult to keep up with it all. The chaos ends up lending itself to do what no Superman movie has ever done before...and I can't tell you what that is. What I can say is that, at the end, the message rings loud and clear that greatness lies within all of us. That's the mark of a great story: the one that tells you something about yourself that you don't hear often enough.