There have been a couple of early teaser trailers for “Man of Steel” but this is the first one to suggest that the movie might actually be awesome.
The very “meh” “Superman Returns” taught me to temper my expectations when it comes to Superman movies, but this trailer gives us legitimate reasons for optimism.
First of all Zack Snyder is a great visual director. Granted his track record as a storyteller is mixed with “300” working reasonably well but his high profile follow-ups “Watchmen” and “Sucker Punch,” not so much.
The former suffered from adhering too strictly to unforgiving source material and the latter from completely refusing to adhere to anything at all, most notably logic.
What is undeniable is that all of his movies look great and this trailer proves that trend will continue. Plus he is working with a script from the “Dark Knight” trilogy scribe David S. Goyer so the odds are high that “Man of Steel” will actually make sense.
What I’m most excited about is that we really get to see the cast in action here. I’m ambivalent about Kevin Costner as Pa Kent (a role so in his wheelhouse he doesn’t even need to be awake) and Amy Adams as Lois Lane (an actress I love in a really thankless role when you think about it. Lois only has one job and that is to constantly almost be killed).
I am pumped about Russell Crowe rolling the bloated, spectral visage of Marlon Brando to the side and absolutely owning the role of Jor-El. At least that’s what his bad-ass 15 seconds of voice-over lead me to believe.
I am also confident that Michael Shannon is going to be spectacular as the villainous General Zod as the dude brings so much intensity to every part he may show up at theaters and start punching people just to drive home how committed he is to the role.
I’m still a little murky on Henry Cavil as Superman, as the trailer only really proves he can fill out a cape and look emotionally vulnerable. We actually see a tiny flash of personality in the scene with Adams, but that’s not much to go on. After everything I’ve seen a lukewarm Cavil is really the only thing that could scuttle this movie.
Perhaps the biggest mystery this trailer brings up and for which I fear will never get a satisfactory answer is after seeing all those scenes with a bearded Cavil, how does the indestructible Superman shave? Ponder over that for the next couple of months.
