'Man of Steel' Sacrifices Superman's Origin Story for Cynical CGI-Fest

General Zod (Michael Shannon) vows revenge Jor-El and his son Kal-El, later known on Earth as the Man of Steel, Superman.

Superman, we hardly knew you. After enduring a pretentious two-and-a-half hour origin story, Zack Snyder's Superman reboot, Man of Steel forces the iconic epithet into the plot for one random instance. Snyder's iteration doesn't stand for truth, justice or the American way, rather assuming the role of an alien refugee attempting to remain off the grid except for the occasional phantom heroism.

Man of Steel goes through the same expected motions Richard Donner's Superman: The Movie did back in 1978. Still a carbon copy origin story, the alien planet Krypton is dying and in a last-ditch effort, scientists Jor-El (Russell Crowe) and his wife Lara (Ayelet Zurer) send their newborn son to Earth for a chance to live and grow up to become humanity's savior.

Nolan's "Batman" Finale Rises Among Superhero Supremacy

The fate of Gotham hangs in the balance as Batman (Christian Bale) and Bane (Tom Hardy) collide.

It’s impractical to even bother trying to compare “The Dark Knight Rises” to its predecessors, “Batman Begins” and “The Dark Knight.” The three installments making up Christopher Nolan’s groundbreaking superhero trilogy are so remotely different from one another that the Caped Crusader himself remains the only constant amidst the coming and going struggles against psychological, moral and physical villainy. Set eight years after the previous film, Batman continues his self-imposed exile from vigilantism after taking the fall for Harvey Dent’s crimes. That is, however, until Gotham City is threatened to its core by the masked terrorist, Bane (Tom Hardy) and his cataclysmic agenda. Bane is a juggernaut that shouldn’t be feared just on bulk size alone, but when combined with his calculating genius mind, the end for Gotham has finally arrived. CONTINUE READING