Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s Superman!
The second official Man of Steel trailer launched December 11th and has been thrilling fans with the promise of something epic to look forward to in 2013.
2012 was an amazing year for superhero movies, with what I personally consider the two BEST superhero movies to date, representing both of the biggest names in comics; The Avengers championing for Marvel and The Dark Knight Rises championing for DC. 2013 will have a hard time topping it, and yet with Iron Man 3 scheduled to hit theaters in May, and Man of Steel slated for June, it looks like 2013 won’t disappoint. Especially if the Man of Steel trailer is any indication.
While the OST for the film will be composed by Hans Zimmer, the trailer hits you with a hair-raising one-two combo of pre-existing work. It leads you in with the chilling vocals of Laura Gerrard (formerly of the Aussie band Dead Can Dance, whose haunting voice you might best recognize from the Black Hawk Down and Gladiator soundtracks, also composed by Hans Zimmer). A piece composed by Gerrard and Patrick Cassidy, titled ‘Elegy‘, leads you into music that leaves you expecting two armies to clash at any moment. The piece titled, ‘Storm’, is composed by Craig Armstrong and is my favorite piece from the award winning film Elizabeth. The music leaves you tingling with anticipation, by using a “less is more” approach with the actual content.
The trailer leads with a voice over of Clark Kent talking to his mother, Martha Kent (Diane Lane), which lays the foundation of their close relationship and Clark’s uncertainties. We then glimpse a young Clark Kent, saving a sinking school bus full of kids from drowning (only to be outed by one of them, how’s that for gratitude?). This leads to a conversation with his father, Jonathan Kent (played by Kevin Costner), who tells Clark that he needs to hide this side of himself from people. Clark is perplexed and asks “What was I supposed to do? Just let them die?” His father’s answer? “Maybe.”
The dialogue in the trailer is all about Clark looking for answers and deciding what kind of man he wants to be. In the second half of the trailer, we see an adult Clark (played by Henry Cavill, best known for his role in The Tudors, and more recently Immortals), transform from a rugged, bearded country boy into the smooth, clean shaven visage of Superman. The camera work is excellent, as it gives us tantalizing glimpses of the cape and distant silhouettes of the whole costume without giving a clear look at the complete design. Any frames that allow you to see the costume in it’s entirety, up close, have Superman zooming by too quickly to really take it in. It fits with the whole style of the trailer. Unlike some movie trailers, which seem to give up all of their best bits, leaving nothing for surprise in the theater, Man of Steel only teases you with tidbits and, without being over the top, leaves you wanting more.
What else do we get to glimpse? (And a glimpse is really what it is, unless you have a quick eye you might need to watch the trailer a few times to really catch all the appearances.) With the aid of the credited cast list from IMDB, this is what I spied:
- We see a shirtless Clark emerging from a burning building, unscathed, though on fire.
- Troop movement and invading spacecraft, heralding the Invasion of General Zod.
- Zod himself (played by Michael Shannon).
- We also glimpse Lois Lane (Amy Adams, known for Enchanted, The Fighter, Julie & Julia and Leap Year, among others).
- Possibly the easiest bit to miss was Jor-El (Russell Crowe) holding his wife Lara Lor-Van (Ayelet Zurer best known for Angels and Demons, or if you’re a Halo fan and watched the recent webseries Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn on Machinima, you might recognize her as Colonel Mehaffey) and baby Kal-El amidst burning wreckage.
- Perry White (Laurence Fishburne, best known for his role as Morpheus in the Matrix movies) and a woman that I couldn’t ID, fleeing from being caught in the path of destruction behind them.
- Superman is shown in custody and being escorted by soldiers and, at the end of the trailer, facing down soldiers with their weapons trained on him.
The trailer leaves us with a voice over from Clark/Superman saying, “My father believed that if the world found out who I really was, they’d reject me. He was convinced that the world wasn’t ready. What do you think?”
What I think is that with a Director/Producer team like Zack Snyder (Watchmen & 300) and Nick Nolan (The Dark Knight trilogy) and the top notch cast, you can expect Man of Steel to be everything this trailer promises and more. Man of Steel is on my must see list for 2013!
You can listen to the music from trailer here.
