Man of Steel - 12A - 5 out of 10

Superhero films in the 2000s are a bit like what I imagine grunge music was like in Seattle in 1990; a boom inspired by some stand out examples of the genre followed by a whole heap of underwhelming nothingness.

Every comic book hero seems to have been rebooted this decade. Hell, there is even a Hercules film pencilled in for next year with Dwayne Johnson starring. I'll leave you to make pre-judgements on that one yourselves.

However, Man of Steel is the reboot of the big guy. The man. Superman to be exact.

As such, there automatically comes with a hope it will deliver a standout alternative from the general dredge and with Christopher Nolan on production, the expectation rises.

The film explores the formative years of Kal-El/ Clark Kent/ Superman, all-American hero, played by Jersey's own Henry Cavill, who kind of resembles George Osborne's beefed up cousin, only with less laughs.

We see how he grew up from a boy blasted to Earth from his doomed home planet Krypton by parents ultra-British Russell Crowe and Ayelet Zurer where he grows from a shy, retiring child afraid of his powers to a bit of a boring man with arms the size of foundry chimneys.

Dubbing him boring is of course unfair on Cavill as the role demands that despite wearing a Zorro-style cape and a suit that totally isn't spandex but might as well be spandex, some base form of dull decorum is required, a bit like a hench Spock.

Its not that he plays the character badly, on the contrary, just the character itself is so boring.

This isn't the only character issue.

Amy Adams' Lois Lane veers from intrepid, gritty reporter for the Daily Planet in the opening half hour of the film to screaming damsel in distress in quicker time than you can say “comic book style cliché".

Superman's nemesis General Zod is, however, a perfect imagining of the villain by Michael Shannon; cold, calculating, but not necessarily evil, more a victim of his own circumstances.

Man of Steel suffers from the same problem every big budget action film now has in trying to outdo the previous big budget action film by adding more carnage and explosions until it resembles a clashing of a scrapheap and a fireworks factory inside a tumble dryer.

In a similar vein, the climatic fight scene between Superman and Zod resembles the long-running joke in Family Guy of Peter Griffin fighting the Giant Chicken in the sense it is scripted, extended and essentially a oneupmanship contest for who could throw their opponent through the most amount of skyscrapers.

Its not only the climatic scene which is like this, its every scene in which Superman fights a fellow Kryptonian just this was the final scene, the highlight of the movie. Mix it up a little bit!

In that sense I suppose it was a suitable ending for the film given what had gone before, but rather aptly given the content, its only suitable crashing right through the other side of pointless and gratuitous.

Another similar recurring course it follows is looking into the backstory of the hero to find out what makes him fight for justice and all that malarkey (turns out its Earth-dad Kevin Costner and a love for the glorious cornfields and other assorted attractions of Kansas).

Every superhero film now makes their champion into a broody, sullen, world-weary individual – as well they should be what with all the pressure they're presumably under for being the world's go-to-guy– but Superman is historically the cheesiest of all the comic book heroes so it basically feels like painting him with an emotion brush for the pure sake of it.

And then he's still dull and a bit of a drone. Some work.

All in all, Man of Steel isn't a bad film. Its an interesting if not riveting reboot of a classic story and so given the current state of superhero films which it essentially apes, it is something of a monotone retelling of a story in a format audiences are now tired and cynical of unless it is truly remarkable. Which it isn't.

In a way, its something of a triumph as it leaves the audience wanting it to be longer to add some more emotional meat to the bones of the plot, but also desperate for it to be shorter as to have less interminable fight scenes where characters are basically used as wrecking balls in an amateur attempt at city planning.

Oh, and don't fork out for 3D. You shouldn't anyway for any film, but Man of Steel has about as much use for it as one would wearing the ridiculous glasses out in the real world.