I posted the teaser trailers in July, found them interesting at the time, and find this interesting now. Ace thinks it’s too melancholy and self-serious for a Superman flick; I think melancholy and self-serious are the only places left to go. It’s a worthy narrative challenge to take a character as thin as Superman and try to give him a convincing inner life. It might fail for the reasons Ace gives — movies that are as ostentatiously “brooding” as this appears to be are usually a hard slog — but if Hollywood’s going to feed us an endless diet of superhero-reboot gruel, a little spice tonally goes a long way. In all likelihood, most of us will walk out of the theater wanting to punch emo Superman in the face, but maybe not. And even if we do, I’d rather they try something different and fail than recycle the usual fantasy/adventure touch-of-whimsy.

Besides, would another whimsical Superman movie feel right for the times? If comic-book characters are now the chief vehicle for the movie industry to comment on America and the zeitgeist, then Superman should be grim and forlorn. And totally, totally broke.