The movie opens with a woman in labor. Jor-El (Russell Crowe) is the only person with his wife during the delivery of Kal-El. As we later learn, this is the first natural birth in centuries. Next we find Jor-El trying to convince the ruling council to make plans to abandon Krypton. The planet's core is unstable and it will implode in weeks. The council ignores him and, moments later, General Zod bursts into the chamber and takes over. Jor-El escapes and manages to send Kal-El on his way to earth before the inevitable destruction of Krypton. As luck would have it, Zod and his followers survived the destruction thanks to their imprisonment after the failure of the coup. Moreover, the destruction released them from prison.
Fast forward 30 years or so and we find a bearded Clark Kent (Henry Cavill) on a fishing boat. This is not the Clark Kent of the comics. In flashbacks, we discover that Clark is a lost and confused soul. He knows he is not of this world but that is all he knows. He is searching for answers to his origins and an overheard conversation (love the super hearing), he eventually ends up at a military compound in the arctic where an ancient ship has been discovered beneath the ice. The ship and an odd token that was with him as a baby lead to the answers he seeks. However, activating the ancient ship also alerts General Zod.
Henry Cavill does a very good job with the role. He is brawnier than any previous Superman. At one point, he has a Hulk scene. After having his clothes destroyed in a fire, the nearly naked Clark (reminiscent of Bill Bixby back in the day) steals some clothes. Steals? Superman? What have they done! At another point, a trucker pours a beer on his head and he meekly walks away but we learn he destroyed the trucker's truck. Kind of petty, Superman. Yeah, the audience loved it but it's beneath Superman. Or it should be.
Moreover, Lois Lane (Amy Adams) is present when Clark enters the long lost Kryptonian ship beneath the ice. To my horror, she discovers all of Clark's secrets before he first dons his Superman costume. Wow, talk about turning things on their head. And there is no Jimmy Olsen! Lois takes her own pictures. I thought Lois was a little too squishy for an ace reporter. It might just be that Amy Adams has a girlish voice that doesn't have much of an edge to it. She does sweet just fine (see Enchanted) but a reporter who had been embedded in Iraq she is not.
The big failing was Krypton. How is it that this spacefaring race of 100 centuries is utterly destroyed by the loss of the home planet? Jor-El explained how other worlds had been visited and that stations were posted. Zod later proves to have a vessel for terraforming to make worlds more hospitable for Kryptonians. So, with all this technology, nothing survives except Zod and his band of criminals. And speaking of Zod, he was bred to be the leader of Krypton's military like Jor-El was bred to be the lead scientist and yet, when the two meet in combat, Jor-El stomps Zod. Huh? Well, it is Russell Crowe.
As is apparent, this is a reimaging of the character. It is an effort to see how Kal-El's life might have played out in a real - rather than comic - world. Well, mostly. The big city is still Metropolis and Lois works for the Daily Planet. Anyway, Clark would not just come out and start flying around in the super suit as the comic depicts. Once he does in response to the arrival of General Zod, the military is as wary of him as of Zod. Though initially doubtful, I was won over by this telling.
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