Movie Reviews: Man of Steel
Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel (12A), a reboot of the Superman story, opens with an extended prologue set on the dying planet Krypton, as Jor-El (Russell Crowe) launches his infant son, Kal-El, into space. Raised on Earth by farmer Jonathan Kent (Kevin Costner) and his wife Martha (Diane Lane), Kal-El grows up as the precocious Clark Kent (Henry Cavill), a young man who must hide his god-like strength and speed under a bushel lest his alien origins cause humanity to question its place in the universe. But when General Zod (Michael Shannon) and his minions arrive on Earth and begin to terra-form the planet in order to make it more habitable for the Krypton race they hope to resurrect, Kal-El/Clark steps up to shoulder the burden of becoming the saviour of the human race. Anticipated as one of the blockbuster movies of the summer, Man of Steel doesn’t disappoint as an action-packed tale of derring-do.
In fact, it’s a bit too stuffed with action sequences — once all the characters and their respective ambitions have been established, there’s little for them to do but pound one another through buildings for roughly an hour.
