Warning: This Review may be considered Spoilery
Man of Steel stars Henry Cavill as the title character (Clark/ Kal/ Superman). Still stinging from Brandon Routh’s version in 2006, my expectations for this new Superman franchise were extremely low. Thankfully David S. Goyer (author of the screenplay) wanted the squash any doubts immediately by introducing the audience to a shirtless Cavill — Goyer effectively destroyed any skepticism I may have once had.
The first part of the (extremely long) film began after watching the war on Krypton end in planetary implosion. The audience was shown Clark’s upbringing by a fearful Jonathan Kent (Kevin Costner) – who teaches him the value of pretending to be mediocre so as not to intimidate those who are average – eventually leading to Clark adult life: a manual labor job, saving lives, fleeing and changing your name before people ask questions.
Unfortunately, the unintentionally hilarious dialogue, and outlandish interactions between Zod (Michael Shannon) and Jor-El (Russell Crowe), were impossible to ignore… probably because Cavill was no longer shirtless. The film continued to drag on with fight scene after fight scene – long after the plot should have been resolved – until finally, Clark and Zod face off in an unsatisfying battle that was solved by the snapping of a neck… so why did we watch Superman battle two of Zod’s soldiers, then a Gravity Field machine, then Zod himself?
Plot holes aside, I was entertained for most of the 143 minutes. Catch Henry Cavill as the Man of Steel in theaters June 14th!