MAN OF STEEL

Man Of Steel is yet another recent comic book/superhero retread, this one of the iconic Superman. This particular superhero flick, unlike other superhero flicks I've seen (and, yes, I'm looking at YOU, Iron Man!), is fairly faithful to the storyline: Superman gets sent to Earth by his father Jor-El before his home planet of Krypton gets blown to smithereens where he lands in a field in Smallville and gets raised by the Kents and goes by the human name of Clark. From there, Clark learns of his true origins and eventually becomes the superhero known as Superman. In this film, Superman is forced to reveal himself after Kryptonian criminal/general Zod--who murdered his father and got sent to the Phantom Zone before Krypton blew up--comes to Earth with his vengeful followers after escaping the Phantom Zone and seeks revenge against Superman (sort of like the sequel to the late-seventies Superman film starring the late Christopher Reeve). Unlike in the other Superman flicks/TV shows I've seen, humanity doesn't instantly embrace Supes and at first look at him as kind of an enemy and hand him over to Zod when Zod threatens to blow up the Earth if they don't turn Superman over to him. While aboard his ship, Superman learns of Zod's true plans of turning Earth into a second Krypton. Aided by his love-interest/reporter Lois Lane (whom Zod also orders onto his ship since she was the first one to learn of Superman's existence/identity), Superman manages to escape Zod's ship and sets out to stop him. For those who haven't seen this flick yet, I won't spoil the ending (though, of course, you can probably already figure it out for yourself). Overall, Man Of Steel is actually a pretty decent superhero flick, although I don't feel it will be considered as much of a "classic" as the late-seventies Superman flick starring the late Christopher Reeve since, for one, MOS is a bit "darker" and more violent and lacks the humor that made CR's Superman indeed such a "classic" and all. But two things I like about this particular Superman flick is that, for one, it doesn't feature Lex Luthor whom I feel is one of the absolute lamest "supervillains" of all-time (I mean, a bald guy with above average intelligence; really?), and two, Lois Lane is able to figure out right away that Superman is in fact Clark Kent unlike, of course, in the other Superman adaptations where it seems to take "ace" reporter Lois a really long damn time to figure this piece of obviousness out (I mean, who WOULDN'T be "fooled" by a pair of glasses!). I will say one thing about Man Of Steel: it was a damn sight BETTER than that Superman Returns (no offense, Brandon Routh!)!