Man of Steel

Our Review

Zack Snyder rebuilt Superman from the ground up, and the results still split people more than a decade later. Henry Cavill plays Clark Kent as a drifter who has spent his whole life hiding what he can do, and the early scenes with Kevin Costner’s Jonathan Kent give the film a melancholy spine: a father who would rather his son let people die than reveal himself. That is a genuinely daring idea for a Superman movie, and Snyder commits to it completely. The Krypton opening plays as a full science fiction prologue with its own language and politics, and Hans Zimmer’s score pounds so hard it becomes a character of its own.

The action, when it finally arrives, is bone crunching and enormous. The Smallville battle is a spectacle sequence that still holds up, and Michael Shannon’s Zod is a committed, tragic antagonist rather than a sneering cartoon. The famous ending, where Superman snaps a neck to save a family, remains the most debated choice in modern superhero cinema, and we think it earns its shock. Less successful is the script’s rush through Metropolis, an undercooked romance with Lois, and a gray palette that drains some of the joy out of the icon.

This is a heavier, moodier take than the character ever had on screen before, and if you accept that ambition it mostly works. Our score: 7/10. Stream it, keep an open mind, and enjoy arguing about the ending all over again.