Man Of Steel is a fantastic blockbuster spectacle. It is HUGE, ambitious and extremely entertaining. Shot like JJ Abrams with a Chris Nolan sensibility, it is nevertheless a recognisably Zack Snyder movie, but thankfully definitely more Watchmen than Sucker Punch. The clever non-linear narrative structure demands attention, and whilst many franchise touchstone moments are present, they are used efficiently and/or smartly, notably for the Krypton back-story and Clark growing up. This is more of a grown-ups' comic book movie than previous incarnations, and the largely serious tone definitely works to give this sometimes insipid character a genuine contemporary feel. Cavill was a superb choice, a terrific actor who gives Clark strength and makes him surprisingly easy to like without resorting to the bumbling idiot of the previous movies. There are so many strong performances providing the backbone of the movie: Amy Adams is a wonderfully straight Lois; Kevin Costner and especially Diane Lane are superb as Clark's adoptive Earth parents; and Michael Shannon is quite simply a brilliant, powerful villain as Zod. Hans Zimmer's wonderful score is by turns brooding, thunderous and utterly beautiful, and the effects are on a massive and genuinely Earth-threatening scale (and the 'super'-smackdowns make The Avengers look quite puny by comparison). There are moments of Snyder's usual visual-magpie approach (there are occasional obvious nods to Independence Day, The Matrix, Spiderman 2, The Terminator movies, and the like), but what the director achieves in this film is the ability to create some hugely affecting sudden emotional beats out of seemingly thin air. There have been some grumblings about the lack of character development, which on this evidence are not strictly accurate; Superman is not the most psychologically deeply-drawn superhero, yet here he is given a successfully grounded and credible reading that has eluded film-makers previously. In an already hugely enjoyable Summer of cinema, Man Of Steel might actually turn out to be the best of the bunch and deserves fully to be a huge hit.
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