Man of Steel

Superman gets a makeover from writer David S. Goyer and producer Christopher Nolan. This isn't your father's Superman—or your great-grandfather's, for that matter. Nolan and Goyer twist him to fit their Dark Knight template: The planet Krypton is a decrepit, grimy place, and the infant Kal-El's parents (Russell Crowe, Ayelet Zurer) could both use a shower. From ugly Krypton they dispatch their son to even uglier Earth, where he suffers through a miserable, friendless childhood to grow into a sullen, misfit Clark Kent (Henry Cavill, as drab and colorless as the movie around him), who spends more time fighting Earthling bigotry than the Kryptonian General Zod (Michael Shannon). If this dingy, joyless movie is the only way to make Superman work these days, maybe the character really has outlived his time.