We discussed a teaser trailer for Man of Steel released at Comic-Con earlier this year, but we now have a full version showing very clearly a dark, operatic tone for the new Superman movie.  The theme is “Is the world ready for Superman?”  Fans are familiar with a spirited, positive and upbeat Superman so the theme for audiences may be “Is the world ready for a dark Superman movie?”  Even Christopher Reeve’s Superman II, which appears now to be the clear inspiration for the new Man of Steel, didn’t look as dark as this trailer.  But in any incarnation of Superman, would any Jonathan Kent ever value his kid’s anonymity over saving a bunch of kids?  Doesn’t seem quite right, does it?  And Kevin Costner sure seems young as Kent’s adoptive dad.

Check out the new trailer for Man of Steel, and fair warning, like a lot of trailers lately, they seem to giveaway a bunch of story elements here:

The reveal at the end with Superman sans beard looks less powerful than the cooler looking bearded Superman.  Why not just keep the beard?  And why the psychological torment of Clark Kent?  Likely because filmmakers think it worked for Christopher Nolan’s Batman?  Maybe, especially since Nolan worked on this film, too.  The new thing in franchise sequels is manipulating icons as far as you can without making them entirely unrecognizable.  This definitely looks like a Superman we’ve never seen before and fans of Nolan’s Dark Knight films will probably love the new look.

We loved Brandon Routh’s excellent take on Christopher Reeve’s classic character in Superman Returns, and hope Henry Cavill can pull off a good performance in this next take.  Maybe Russell Crowe’s Jor-El will save the day.

Man of Steel is scheduled to be released in theaters on June 14, 2013.

C.J. Bunce
Editor
borg.com