This seems to be the era for rebooting already existing successful franchises. Within the last ten years, we have had a new Batman, Star Trek, Spider-Man, Hulk, X-Men, and even a Star Wars sequel coming in a couple years. Some of these are better than others (Spider-Man, Star Trek), but they all have one goal in common: to spark an interest in the series, in order to bring in a new generation of viewers, while also satisfying the old-school fanboys. But Man of Steel, the new Superman reboot directed by Zack Snyder, fails to achieve this. What could have been a fresh, interesting origin story instead becomes an awkwardly-paced, unsympathetic, CGI explosion-fest. It may be nothing more than an average summer movie.

Man of Steel, as mentioned, is a reboot of the Superman story. So, it starts way back on Krypton, where we see our hero as a newborn baby named Kal-El. With careful attention to detail, this world is much more advanced than the one we saw in the Christopher Reeve series. Krypton is a dark world filled with flying alien lizards, armored godlike men with strange British accents, cool zapping blue laser guns, and, of course, an impending sense of doom. The movie may have lingered a bit too long here, but I was immediately engaged. After this, though, we needlessly jump forward, skipping the entire story of young Clark Kent growing up in Kansas, and we instead see flashes of his youth through vague, non-connected flashbacks. Save for one bus rescue, we do not see the boy do too much. And the scenes between Clark and his father, played by Kevin Costner, were very underdeveloped, with the focus of every conversation being around a way-too-familiar catchphrase, that “he was meant for good things.”

So, after missing an opportunity to put us inside the mind of the outcast Clark Kent as a boy, we do not feel much for him as an adult. Clark is now, for some reason, a wandering hobo, who travels from town to town, working odd jobs and always ending up saving the day. He eventually finds out who his parents were, and, almost immediately following this, the evil General Zod comes to Earth to find him, with the intention of restarting Krypton, and wiping out the humans in the process. There is literally no transition between Clark discovering who he is, and then just being forced into becoming Superman. Maybe just a single montage would have worked, sort of like in The Amazing Spider-Man, where Peter Parker jumps and slings through the city.

And after Zod states his bad intentions, we start to spiral even more into familiar blockbuster territory. There are two movies that immediately came to mind:  The Avengers and The Dark Knight. On one end of the spectrum, you have the light, humor-filled The Avengers, which never went too far in a bleak or hopeless direction; on the other, you have the gritty, harsh reality of The Dark Knight, with its thought-provoking questions and brutal villain, played by the late Heath Ledger .The Man of Steel has small pieces of each, but never really commits to one side. With almost no humor, it is far from The Avengers. But with such unbelievable intensity, it is nowhere near The Dark Knight. And, you have way-too-familiar superhero cliches: Panicky onlookers stare up at flying spaceships, running and screaming through the streets; Superman saves a character at the very last second; Zod throws our hero through a skyscraper, and he goes flying through the air, only to emerge, unscathed and unharmed at the other side. At times, it just felt like one step above the Transformers series.

But there were at least some pieces that worked. Our new Superman, played by Henry Cavill, is an interesting version of the hero. More suave and physically menacing than Christopher Reeve’s version, Cavill provides at least some likability, even if his character doesn’t get a chance to say too much. Amy Adams, perfect as always, was about the same as the love-interest Lois Lane. Her version of Lois is much more than just a cute newspaper reporter; at times, she even jumps right into the action. Russell Crowe is also at the top of his game as Jor-El, Clark’s biological father, providing his trademark slightly off-British accent. But Michael Shannon was the one clear miscast as General Zod. With such cliched, laughable one-liners, it was hard to see him as menacing, even if the actor himself is slightly scary-looking. It’s probably not entirely Shannon’s fault, though, since the story didn’t give him a lot to work with. Perhaps if the story had been more focused on the quirks and personalities of our central characters, maybe I would have cared more about the action. But as it was, I felt nothing; and so what might have been impressive, instead seems artificial.

If judged solely on its thrills and action, Man of Steel mostly succeeds. But if looking deeper, as a full movie, it misses the mark. Perhaps my expectations were too high for what is, essentially, just a summer blockbuster. But, with Christopher Nolan at least partially behind the production, it could have been so much more. Oh well. On to the next!