The story opens in Krypton to Russell Crowe delivering his wife’s baby. Immediately you know this is not your grandfather’s superman (George Reeves) or even your father’s Superman, Christopher Reeves. But this new baby Superman, who will grow up to be beefcake Henry Cavill – and stepping into blue tights – is British. Though he conceals the accent. The movie is dark-Knight-ish and for a good half hour you wonder if you’ve wandered into the wrong theatre. But that’s because it’s produced by Batman’s Christopher Nolan and directed by Zach Snyder known for 300.
When baby Superman is sent to earth, he lands in Kevin Costner’s field of dreams. And Costner, in the middle of Kansas, plays Superman’s dad, with Diane Lane as his mom. After young Clark saves a school bus full of drowning children, his father finally exposes him to the space ship that brought him here and explains he has a bigger purpose in this universe. Superman grows to be a gentle giant amongst idiot men, but the film itself feels so black, loud and serious, that our caped-Crusader drowns in his own definition of good. And the only one touching and human scene is during a tornado when Costner doesn’t want to risk his son the world knowing what his son is just yet.
As a young girl I never bought into how Lois Lane (my namesake) couldn’t see that it was Superman behind Clark Kent’s glasses. In this, Amy Admas plays Lois Lane and she’s hip to Superman right from the get-go. She’ not a desk journalist, she’s a Pulitzer winning combat journalist so she’s aged to the new definition of not your girl Friday. There’s an attempt at chemistry between the two but we aren’t feeling the love.
After Avengers, and Iron Man and Spider man and Every man, we get numb to the long 3D scenes of violence, and somehow I just wanted Clark Kent to leap from one single building at one single bound. ♚ ♛ 1/2