So Sunday morning a friend and I headed to a local upscale movie theater and took in a showing of the newest superhero movie, Man of Steel. Warner Brothers, unhappy with the performance of the previous entry in the Superman franchise, Superman Returns, turned to Zack Snyder, Christopher Nolan, and David Goyer to reboot the series.

This film has struck like a metro in the fandom with plenty of people loving it and seemingly equal numbers of people hating it. From what I can gather the people unhappy with the movie are general people who have a devotion to the character and cannon of the Superman mythos. I can empathize with their reaction, the latest entry into the Star Trek franchise to me feels like a cheap rip-off created to sell toys and tickets without any hear of soul of the original series. The fact that people feel the same way about a grittier and darker Superman interpretation is no surprise at all.

I have never been a devoted Superman fan, though I enjoyed some of the films. (Superman: The Movie, Superman 2, and Superman Returns.) I thoroughly enjoyed this version of the creation story. There is no doubt that this film’s Superman is not the perfect paladin of previous performances. The story of the Kyrptonians and the destruction is one now tinged with hubris and an element of self-destruction that I think is an allegory people are missing while being too wrapped up in the Christ imagery Snyder applies to the screen with the subtly of a nuclear blast.

Superman’s core arc is still the same, doomed Krypton, Jor-El sending his son off to Earth to escape the planet’s destruction, the discovery of super-human abilities and the eventual transformation into a savior. There are however significant deviations, some of which simply tear up cannon and throw it away. However, Like Tonry Stark declaring himself Iron Man at the end of the first movie rather than maintaining the comic fiction of a bodyguard, the changes in cannon worked for me. This strikes me as a Superman more in tune with our current culture and less the product of jingoistic 1950s.

The entire last act of the film is a non-stop series of action sequences. This is also a Superman movie that could not have been made before now. When Kryptonians fight it is gods battling and this film captures that in all it messy destruction.

I would recommend seeing this film in the theater, but skip the 3D if you are even slightly bothered by shaky cameras and fast editing. (I watched it in 2D and was quite happy.)