Man of Steel

Henry Cavill stars as Superman and Amy Adams as Lois Lane in “Man of Steel.”

For its first half, “Man of Steel” is well on its way to superhero-movie greatness.

Dark, turbulent and not at all campy, it casts the young Clark Kent as a perennial outcast, a boy trapped between the wishes of his adoptive father, who demands he keep his strengths secret, a world that shuns him when he shows any evidence that he is different, and his gnawing desire to be who he really is.

Using alienation as a theme is familiar to the comic-book world, of course. The “X-Men” and the “Dark Knight” sagas have trod this territory, but it’s new for the cinematic “Supermans,” at least to this degree. No surprise then that Christopher Nolan and David S. Goyer, the men behind the gloomy “Dark Knight” movies, co-wrote the story and Nolan co-produced. Read more.

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