It's not hard to see why Man of Steel turned out the way it did. After Bryan Singer's Superman Returns adhered far too closely to the Richard Donner/Christopher Reeve interpretation, this new take really had to rip it all up and start again; and given that writer-producer team David Goyer and Christopher Nolan had steered Batman to billion dollar box office with The Dark Knight trilogy, there was little wonder Warner Bros would turn to them. Alas, 'little wonder' could be a two word review of Man of Steel. Snyder can't be held entirely culpable given he was working closely with Nolan and Goyer (who presumably had some hand to play in making the director tone down the slo-mo), but there's no avoiding that this is a shockingly dour take on what is historically the most upbeat, inspiring superhero of them all. Everything seems drained of colour and humour, and what few attempts there are at levity feel forced. We'd already seen Superman presented as a Christ figure in Donner and Singer's films; Man of Steel, then, seems hellbent on becoming The Passion of the Kal-El, torturing its protagonist at every available opportunity, throwing in some much-discussed easily avoidable deaths, and turning the former beacon of hope and optimism into a guilt-ridden wreck. Happily, Henry Cavill proves an excellent fit for the role, more than a little evocative of Christopher Reeve but very much making the role his own. Russell Crowe is also clearly having a ball as Jor-El, swashbuckling his way through a giddily over-the-top opening sequence that packs in more action than the entire of Superman Returns (they never would have got Marlon Brando to work that hard for his money). Also on the plus side, Michael Shannon makes for a suitably intense and menacing Zod; and the time-hopping structure, though obviously reminiscent of Batman Begins, helps make for a fairly fresh retelling of the familiar origin story. And again, there's no denying it does look good.
