Let me start by saying that I am a gigantic Superman nut. I have read countless Superman comic books, my nickname on the track team in high school was Superman, and I dress up as Clark Kent most years for Halloween (see, it’s really easy, I wear fake glasses and a half-buttoned dress shirt with a Superman t-shirt underneath… money in the bank). A few years back I was very apprehensive going into the theatre at midnight to see Superman Returns, as my eternal fanboy status could not bear to see anything done that would change the Superman lore one iota. I was right to be so apprehensive though, since the movie was terrible. I remember saying to my friends, “Brandon Routh, I don’t know. He looks like he will make a good Clark Kent but a bad Superman”. Surely enough, I hit the nail right on the head. This time around I did not know what to think. I had no preconceived notions and I did not go to a midnight show, instead opting to take my own Ma and Pa out on Father’s Day for a nice 3D film spectacular. A strange thing happened on that Sunday morning: Man of Steel changes everything about the Superman character, replacing it with a real world, more modernized version of the tale. And while watching it the fanboy inside of me vanished, and I embraced this new view of Big Blue. It was a strange phenomenon, one that I never saw coming.

I’m a purist. I will be the first person to say, “Yea it was OK, but it’s not as good as the original”. I order the same sandwiches at the same places every time I’m hungry and I consistently live by the old adage “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. Man of Steel takes everything I just said and throws a wrench right into its gears, and I kind of like the implosion. We can start by taking a look at the planet of Krypton. There are crazy explosions, and dinosaur like lizard-birds that seem to replace cars. The place is completely unlike Earth with the exception being that Kryptonians resemble Earthlings. And that’s how Krypton should be! It should not be anything like Earth! It’s a different planet with entirely different civilizations having given rise to wildly different technologies and tactics and life as a whole. It’s something so simple that has never been explained quite like this, and Man of Steel only begins to rewrite the Superman mythos with Krypton. Gone from this film are Kryptonite, Jimmy Olsen (who is replaced by a new, cute Jenny Olsen played by Rebecca Buller and is never properly introduced), the Perry White you thought you knew as he is now played by Larry Fishburne (Morpheus has let himself go), and you never really hear the names “Metropolis” or “Smallville” said out loud, though they are written in a lot of places, and instead Kansas is played up very highly to give a more realistic feel to the setting. Most notably, Lex Luthor is absent from the whole movie with the exception of “LexCorp” (the supervillain’s super business name) appearing on a big truck that explodes during a citywide brawl. And these are only some of the large scale changes in the film.

Where Man of Steel really shines is with its star. Henry Cavill plays the titular character and he does so with a quality that has been missing on the big screen for the past two or three decades (Thank God Nic Cage’s Superman film never panned out). He brings an innocence and strength, radiating through a confident, blue-eyed stare that would make Sinatra jealous. Not to mention that he is outlandishly jacked. Cavill plays the Man of Tomorrow in his own way, rather than attempting to redo Christopher Reeve’s version of the character, which is a success. Man of Steel sets itself apart by showing Kal-El’s development – not Clark Kent’s or Superman’s. That may be confusing, as all of those characters are the same person, but let me explain. Kal-El is an alien, lost in a world that he, and his father, knows will never truly accept him. He does not just become Superman and everything is gravy, he leaves home and hides in seclusion as a recluse all across the northwestern United States and possibly Canada. This separates Kal-El as an alien but also humanizes him, making him more relatable for the average person than past representations of the Superman character. It makes you introspective, wondering what you would do if you, or your child, had these incomprehensible gifts.

As Man of Steel continues, we are shown flashes of Kal-El’s childhood as Clark Kent, and we see his relationship with his parents growing stronger and stronger. Jonathan ‘Pa’ Kent is played by the ever-aging star of Tin Cup, Kevin Costner, who exhibits a wonderful mixture of smalltown farmer and bigtime emotion. You see genuine compassion in Costner every time he is on screen, and an overwhelming will to do good, which is where Clark gets his conscience (and it is also why Superman does good and we are doing well). Diane Lane plays Martha ‘Ma’ Kent and is just adorable. For Superman’s Kryptonian father, Jore-El (who was once played by Marlon Brando, the king of acting), Russell Crowe was cast. Crowe, who I ordinarily do not care for, does a swell job in early action sequences, while delivering firm and clear oration as the movie continues and he guides his son with words. Michael Shannon plays General Zod and, though not my ideal choice for the role, he has plenty of villainy in his demeanor to do a fine job. Amy Adams plays love interest Lois Lane and leaves you with a Switzerland-like apathy toward her performance.

The most intriguing thing about Man of Steel for me is the clear parallels drawn to Jesus of Nazareth by the writers. In the movie, Kal-El is born through an unprecedented birth on Krypton, as he is the only child born of a natural sequence in over one-thousand years. Later, as Clark Kent he leaves his home in Kansas during his teens and little is known about him after. He performs various miraculous feats while in seclusion, each of which becomes their own local legend. At thirty-three he returns to the fray to be the savior of the planet which is in clear peril when General Zod asks for him specifically to come forward and give himself for all of humankind. In his confusion, Clark seeks out a local priest to discuss his quandary. In addition, the name Kal-El is Hebrew for “Voice of God”, a strange and phenomenal tie to the Almighty that Jesus Christ, the Word of God, matches. I don’t know if any of this was intentional, but it seems awfully interesting and coincidental. This also means that there is a new Jewish superhero in town (sorry Adam Goldberg ).

Regardless of how you view Man of Steel, it is clearly the makeover that Superman needed, and the Superman movie that the world needed. The most uber of nerdy fanboys will lose their religion over the ending, but in all seriousness the Big Blue Boyscout was in dire need of some updating. This is not the take on the character that appeared in Action Comics seventy-five years ago. This is a brand new take on the character, and one that was necessary. It upsets me when the best take on Krypton’s last son from the past two decades was made in a fifteen-minute fun short by Max Landis ) , though it is a joy to watch and I recommend it to anyone who was stuck reading Superman comics in the early 90’s. No matter what is said about Man of Steel, the real truth is that the character was made eighty years ago by high schoolers during the Great Depression. If you don’t think that the character of Superman should be brought up to our modern world, then you are probably reading this using Internet Explorer and you no doubt struggle to understand the concept of tabbed web-browsing.