Best recurring shows of 2020

Following on from my post last month covering my favourite new shows of 2020, here are the recurring shows that continued to impress with their later seasons in 2020.

Kim’s Convenience, Season 4 (13 episodes, Netflix): I almost never watch comedy shows although I grew up loving classic UK sitcoms like Fawlty Towers, Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em and Mind Your Language. By some unexplainable impulse early last year, I clicked on Netflix’s recommendation to watch Kim’s Convenience and was hooked. I started with Season 1 and raced my way through 52 episodes to the end of 2020’s Season 4 in the space of a few weeks. It was the perfect stress reliever in the early days of the pandemic lockdown. Based on creator Ins Choi’s 2011 play of the same name, the show is set in Toronto and features a middle-aged Korean immigrant couple who run the eponymous convenience store and manage a sometimes-thorny, but always well-intentioned relationship with their estranged son and college-going daughter. The show insightfully and compassionately addresses themes of love, familial duty and integrity through the relational dynamics of the family members and their friends. All six regular cast members representing the Kim family – “Appa” (Paul Sun -Hyung Lee), “Umma” (Jean Yoon), Janet (Andrea Bang) and Jung (Simu Liu), as well as Jung’s best friend “Kimchee” (Andrew Phung) and his boss, Shannon (Nicole Power) are at the top of their game and hilarious in their own way. Fans of The Mandalorian would have rubbed their eyes in disbelief to see Paul Sun-Hyung Lee pop up in a couple of episodes in Season 2. And Simu Liu will next be seen in the lead role of Marvel’s Shang-Chi and Legend of the Ten Rings. Season 5 of Kim’s Convenience (which will be its last) has just aired in Canada and I’m looking forward to it arriving on Netflix for international viewers.

(from left to right) Simu Liu, Jean Yoon, Paul Sun-Hyung Lee and Andrea Bang are the Kim family in Kim’s Convenience

The Boys, Season 2 (8 episodes, Amazon Prime): Based on Garth Ennis’ irreverent and violent graphic novel series, this small-screen adaptation by Eric Kripke stays true to its source material and provides a hard-hitting deconstruction of the superhero genre and a scathing commentary on corporate greed. The show portrays a world filled with superheroes, most of whom are employed by the corrupt Vought International conglomerate, which manages (i.e., controls) their public profiles, private lives, assignments and team affiliations, while exploiting their monetary potential through celebrity endorsements, reality shows and movies…imagine an extreme version of Hollywood studios in the 40’s and 50’s. Most of the superheroes are hooked onto the power and influence, willingly cynical and corruptible. A small group of vigilantes, armed only with determination, cunning and a sense of righteousness, take it upon themselves to bring down Vought, specifically targeting their A-list superhero group The Seven, led by the psychopathic Homelander (played by Anthony Starr). The vigilantes themselves carry deep emotional scars resulting from the collateral damage of past actions by Vought and the superheroes. The show grabs the viewer by throat and never lets go, every episode a roller coaster of graphic violence, elements of the blackest comedy, unsettling scenes and shocking plot twists…this is not a show for the squeamish. Season 2 raises the stakes for the vigilantes, particularly team leader Billy Butcher (Karl Urban) and team noob Hughie Campbell (Jack Quaid, son of Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan), while The Seven’s newest team-member Stormfront (Aya Cash) turns out to be just as much an evil sociopath as Homelander. The season ends with another cliffhanger, revealing a new threat to The Boys. Filming for the third season is scheduled to end in September 2021, so I’m hopeful we will see it on screen by the end of the year.

The Chef Show, Season 2, volume 1 (5 episodes, Netflix): This cooking show is a must-watch for fans of Jon Favreau’s 2014 film Chef, in which he played a washed-up chef who re-discovers his love for cooking and reconnects with his young son while on a road trip in a refurbished food truck. Favreau’s co-producer and food consultant on that film was Roy Choi, a Korean-American who created Kogi, the highly celebrated fleet of Korean-Mexican gourmet food trucks that operates in Los Angeles. Favreau and Choi teamed up to produce and host this good-natured and highly watchable cooking show that premiered on Netflix in June 2019. Season 1 was split into 3 volumes totaling 20 episodes, and ended in February 2020. Season 2 aired its first volume of 5 episodes in September 2020. Season 1 episodes notably featured Gwyneth Paltrow, Seth Rogen, the cast of The Avengers, director Robert Rodriguez, restaurateur David Chang (who hosts Ugly Delicious on Netflix) and celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck. In Season 2, the focus shifts to pure-play chefs such as Christina Tosi, Jessica Largey, Chad Robertson & Chris Bianco and Nina Subhas. What’s really enjoyable besides watching the food being cooked and eaten with great relish, is the close camaraderie between Choi and Favreau – master and padawan – with Favreau showing an immense natural ability, especially with food preparation. Also, look out for the eye-popping stop-motion animation used for the show’s intro and to illustrate the ingredients of each dish.

The Mandalorian, Season 2 (8 episodes, Netflix): Speaking of Jon Favreau brings me to The Mandalorian, which headlined the launch of the Disney+ streaming service at the end of 2019. It quickly became popular for the achingly cute little creature nicknamed “The Child” or “Baby Yoda” (his true name was revealed this season). Season 2 continued the adventures of Din Djarin, the permanently masked Mandalorian (played by Narcos and Game of Thrones alum Pedro Pascal) as he seeks to return Baby Yoda to the Jedi community that he was stolen from. Besides the cuteness of Baby Yoda, I love this show because it harks back to the classic TV shows of the 60’s in which the heroes are good and villains are bad, with no irritating types thrown in. Din Djarin is driven by a pure instinct to protect The Child and is assisted by various people with similar good intentions. Guest stars in Season 2 include Timothy Olyphant, Rosario Dawson, Michael Biehn and Katee Sackhoff. The show uses a cutting edge technology called Unreal Engine to create virtual backgrounds on high-res LED screens that are indistinguishable from the real thing, eliminating costly outdoor location shoots. After the disappointments of recent Star Wars feature films, this show is a welcome return to form for the franchise, with hard-core fans getting their kicks every now and then through the appearance of well-known characters from the Star Wars canon.

Westworld, Season 3 (8 episodes, HBO): I missed the boat on this high profile show when it kicked off in 2016, but started watching it last year soon after the third season aired. Produced by Jonathan Nolan (Christopher’s brother) and Lisa Joy, it’s an extraordinary achievement with a vast and ambitious narrative scope, employing a talented, high profile cast and cutting edge visual effects. While it’s based loosely on the 1973 scifi thriller written and directed by novelist Michael Crichton, this version has been updated for the AI age and at its heart, questions what it truly means to be a human; some of the androids in the story exhibit greater humanity than the real people who run the theme park. The show really challenged me to keep track of the narrative twists and turns, the time jumps and eventually, even who was human and who was android. I’m thankful that I watched all the episodes in quick succession, otherwise on a regular release timeline, I would have struggled to keep up. Season 3 jumps the shark a bit, and I confess, I lost momentum after the first 2-3 episodes, but I intend to go back and finish it, given it’s highly likely there will be a Season 4 (although that’s not official yet and may take a couple of years to complete).

Yellowstone, Season 3 (10 episodes, Paramount): I wrote about this show when it first came out in 2018 and the stakes just keep getting higher for John Dutton (Kevin Costner) and his family in seasons 2 and 3. Although Kevin Costner is the headline actor on the show, the majority of the screen time is taken up by the next generation of Duttons, the fiercely protective, but emotionally volatile daughter Beth (Kelly Reilly), idealistic younger son Kayce (Luke Grimes) and his native American wife Monica (Kelsey Asbille), politically ambitious but spineless older son Jamie (Wes Bentley). Other standout characters include loyal ranch foreman Rip Wheeler (Cole Hauser, in the role of a lifetime) and Chief Rainwater (Gil Birmingham), the politically astute leader of the native Americans living on the adjacent reservation. When a family owns the largest contiguous ranch in the US, you know that the plot is always going to be about people wanting to take the land away from them. After facing off challenges from real estate moguls, property developers and white supremacist groups, Season 3 finds the Dutton family up against a ruthless equity firm that wants to buy up a big chunk of the ranch for an airport; it ends with an explosive finale and a cliffhanger to set up Season 4. Meanwhile, I’m excited about the prequel series named Y: 1883 that creator-writer Taylor Sheridan is developing, which will be on the newly launched Paramount+ streaming network some time in 2021.

Call My Agent!, Season 4 (6 episodes, Netflix): This wonderful show can be considered the French equivalent to HBO’s Entourage. It chronicles life at a fictitious talent agency, Agence Samuel Kerr (ASK), in Paris which manages a number of top French movie stars. The storylines focus on the four talent agents, their assistants and the agency’s CEO. A key feature is the appearance in every episode of a well known French star playing herself or himself. The storylines provide plenty of opportunities for high drama, and the talented ensemble cast are equally adept at subtle expressions and over-the-top histrionics. The show is created by Fanny Herrero, with celebrated director Cédric Klapisch playing a key role as co-producer. It’s great fun to see stars playing themselves, sometimes in pretty ridiculous storylines which poke fun at their own quirks and foibles…among my favourites were Cécile de France and Audrey Fleurot in season 1, Fabrice Luchini, Isabelle Adjani and Juliette Binoche in season 2, Jean Dujardin and Monica Bellucci in season 3 and Sigourney Weaver in season 4.

The only recurring show on my wishlist that I haven’t been able to watch yet is the second season of His Dark Materials on HBO; I look forward to catching up with that soon. That about covers it for 2020 in terms of my favourite mini-series, newly launched shows and this latest post on recurring shows. The new year has kicked off on a promising note with second seasons of Snowpiercer (Netflix) and For All Mankind (AppleTV+) respectively. I’m also looking forward to watching the new show Lupin on Netflix.

Enjoying the Golden Age of TV: Gems of 2018, Part 1

It’s a generally accepted fact amongst TV critics and viewers that we are living in a “Golden Age of TV” for the past few years, with a wealth of densely scripted, lavishly produced, intensely acted TV content running on cable channels like HBO and AMC Networks and streaming services like Netflix and Hulu. It’s extraordinary that this description covers not just conventional dramatic shows like House of Cards but also genre fare like Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead; with rare exceptions, sci-fi, fantasy or horror shows rarely ever attracted top drawer writing and acting talent until the 90’s when we got The X-Files. Since then, and particularly in the past 7-8 years, we have had several long-running shows like Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead that have consistently picked up awards in acting and technical categories year after year.

I typically prefer one-off TV movies and short mini-series as there is a guarantee of a definite end vs. the risk of meandering plotlines, lack of closure (The X-Files and Lost) or “jumping the shark” (season 4 of Falling Skies). Among the multi-year shows, I have limited myself to just a handful – Game of Thrones, House of Cards, The Crown, Madam Secretary and The Leftovers (which I started watching only after learning that season 3 was its last, as I previously feared it would go on and on like Damon Lindelof’s other creation, Lost).

Having said that, 2018 has been a particularly good year as I tried my luck with four new TV shows, all of which were worth the investment in time and have been renewed for a second season.

Star Trek: Discovery (season 1, 15 episodes): The first new Star Trek show in more than a decade, it started in Sept 2017 and ended in early 2018, so gets into the 2018 list. I wasn’t entirely comfortable with this ‘alternate universe’ messing around with Star Trek canon, particularly the concept of the ‘spore drive’ and the re-design of the Klingon (truly frightening and repulsive). I did however quickly become invested in the fate of the main characters – Michael Burnham played superbly by Sonequa Martin-Green, Saru (played by Doug Jones, the ‘go to’ actor for any alien character under prosthetics) and others. Michelle Yeoh had a brief but impactful role as Capt. Philippa Georgiou. As with all Trek shows, it explores some serious socio-political issues and has some of the most intense scenes of any Trek show. I really like the title sequence and the theme music by Jeff Courage which incorporates elements from the original theme. Season 2 will premiere in Jan 2019.
Yellowstone (season 1, 9 episodes): I have already written about this show previously. Not quite as satisfying as Taylor Sheridan’s big screen work, the writing feels hurried and less grounded compared to his movies. Like a modern version of Dallas, it looks like the characters are starting to do more and more outrageous things. Still, the powerhouse cast is eminently watchable – Kevin Costner is Montana ranch owner John Dutton, Kelly Reilly is his emotionally damaged man-eating daughter Beth, Luke Grimes and Wes Bentley are his equally damaged sons Kayce and Jamie, Cole Hauser is the fiercely loyal ranch foreman Rip Wheeler, Danny Huston plays real estate developer Dan Jenkins, the nemesis of the Dutton family and Gil Birmingham is the politically ambitious chief of the Native Americans who live adjacent John Dutton’s land. Season 2 will air sometime in 2019.
The First (season 1, 8 episodes): I briefly referred to this show in my post about First Man, the Neil Armstrong biopic, as I watched it around the same time and there were some parallels in terms of the themes and story beats (not tone). This is indeed a very ‘grounded’ and serious depiction of the challenges faced by the first manned mission to Mars, with my only complaint being a few self-indulgent moments which become a bit too ‘arty’ and drawn out. Sean Penn is intense and magnetic.
The Terror (season 1, 10 episodes): This show is based on the 2007 novel of the same name by Dan Simmons, a fictionalized account of two Royal Navy ships (HMS Terror and HMS Erebus) which were lost in the late 1840s while trying to find the elusive Northwest Passage through the Arctic to Asia. Subsequent research indicates that the ships were trapped in the Arctic ice and the 129 seamen on board perished a slow and painful death over several months. The novel added a supernatural element to the story – in addition to dealing with the bitter cold, disease, malnutrition, hunger, cannibalism and mutineers, the men are hunted down by a native demonic spirit (called ‘tuunbaq’ by the Eskimo), which takes the form of a giant polar bear. I had read the book many years ago; it is bleak but engrossing. The TV show visualizes the bleakness and the harsh conditions superbly, almost unbearably. The acting is truly top-notch, the cast includes seasoned British character actors Jared Harris, Tobias Menzies (who will play Prince Philip in The Crown season 3), Paul Ready, Ciaran Hinds and newcomer Adam Nagaitis, who plays the despicable mutineer Cornelius Hickey. Although I knew the tragic fate of the men in advance, the show is still compelling because of the acting, the incredible production design, the historically accurate depiction of the inhuman conditions faced by arctic explorers of the time and the morbid fascination of waiting to see who dies next (and how!). The first season completes the story, but now the producers have decided to use the show’s title to tell a new, unconnected story in season 2, taking the same approach as The American Horror Story anthology series. One day, I must compile a list of visually striking opening sequences of TV shows; The Terror will feature in the list, I think.

In my next post, I will cover the memorable TV movies and mini-series that I watched in 2018. Incidentally, all the movies are American and all the mini-series are British!

Taylor Sheridan’s “Yellowstone” is a “Dallas” for the 21st century

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There’s no doubt that actor turned screenwriter and director, Taylor Sheridan has become one of the most exciting new voices in American cinema in the past 2-3 years, albeit in a very specific niche that he seems to have carved out for himself.

For about 20 years, Sheridan had been a journeyman actor appearing in small parts on American TV shows, punctuated by recurring roles in Veronica Mars (2005-07) and Sons of Anarchy (2008-10). Then suddenly, in his 40s, he decided to find a different form of creative expression and switched to writing.

He wrote the screenplay for the Mexican drug-cartel thriller Sicario, a big hit at Cannes and a sleeper hit at the box office in the Fall of 2015 for acclaimed director Denis Villeneuve. The following year, his brothers-on-the-run story Hell or High Water was directed by David Mackenzie and garnered four Oscar nominations including Best Original Screenplay for Sheridan. One year later, he directed his own script for the murder-investigation thriller Wind River, effectively his directorial debut (although officially he is credited as director for a student film he helped a friend make in 2011). And now in 2018, his screenplay for the sequel to Sicario, called Day of the Soldado, has just hit the big screen filmed by Italian director Stefano Sollima.

All four films are set in contemporary times but have the sparse and lonely feel of the early frontier Western films of John Ford. Wind River also deals with an aspect of American history that most people don’t want to dwell on, the emasculation and slow neglect of Native Americans. In January last year, I wrote about how the traditional Western genre has seen a bit of resurgence in recent years and I included Hell or High Water in that post as an example of a modern Western. It’s clear now that Mr. Sheridan has started to stake out a sub-genre that can be called the modern or neo-Western as his personal playground. His latest project, a TV series called Yellowstone that has just launched on the small Paramount network, further strengthens his credentials in this field.

Think of Yellowstone as a modern-day Dallas, the story of the super-wealthy but dysfunctional Ewing family that created so many ‘water-cooler moments’ in the late 70’s and early 80’s with its weekly servings of feuding, family politics and back-stabbing. Sheridan has taken a similar premise and placed it in a sprawling ranch in Montana, run with an iron hand by family patriarch John Dutton. The character is played appropriately by Kevin Costner, who has made his own name in the past as a ‘Western revivalist’ filmmaker and now makes his first proper foray into TV. As the world changes around him, John Dutton ruthlessly fights to maintain the status quo, to protect his power and everything that he has built up over the decades on his Yellowstone ranch. As the largest landowner in Montana, he is in constant conflict with Native American activists who live on the adjacent reservation, ambitious land developers who want a piece of his land and politicians who just want whatever works for them.

Dutton has four grown-up children; Lee (Dave Annable) is the simple-living oldest son, who has chosen to work on the ranch with his father; Beth (British actress Kelly Reilly) is a cut-throat, ambitious (and slightly psychotic) banker, who is as ruthless as her father; Jamie (Wes Bentley) is a corporate lawyer who steps in whenever the ranch requires his legal skills to fight off external threats; Kayce (Luke Grimes) is the youngest sibling, an ex-Navy SEAL who has married a Native American girl and moved with her into the reservation, thereby putting himself in potential conflict with his father. Also, in the mix is Rip Wheeler (Cole Hauser), the loyal ranch foreman who does all the dirty work for John Dutton. For those familiar with Dallas, it’s easy to pigeonhole the Dutton family into the standard personality types.

On the Native American Brocken Rock Reservation, there are a couple of familiar faces who acted in Sheridan’s Wind River – Kelsey Asbille plays Monica, who is married to Kayce Dutton, and Gil Birmingham plays the Chief of the reservation, Thomas Rainwater, a man who wants to establish his own power equation in this region.

When compared with Sheridan’s big screen work, which has featured interesting characters and unusual situations, Yellowstone does not live up to the same standards. From what I’ve seen in the first two episodes, it comes across as a standard big budget soap opera with stereotypical characters and a predictable over-arching plot. While I can watch Wind River and Sicario again and again (and I have), Yellowstone will fall, I think, into the ‘watch-enjoy-and-forget’ category of TV shows. Nevertheless, with charismatic and heavyweight actors on board, I know I will be hooked on to this show for mindless entertainment, while I will continue to turn to Sheridan’s big screen work for the really stimulating stuff.

Whither the successful action movie?

Just taking a look at the top movies for 2014 so far, there’s a bunch from well known action directors and/or high profile actors, which have either under-performed at the worldwide box-office or will at best break even. Films typically need to make twice as much as their production budget at the box office to recoup the studio investment, not accounting for marketing costs which can sometimes come close to the production cost. The first two months of the year have ended up being a graveyard of high profile action films and studios are starting to worry that young men are just not interested in going to theaters to watch action films any more, unless they are based on comic books.

Renny Harlin who was big for a few years in the early ’90s with hits like Die Hard 2 and Cliffhanger, but never recovered from the box office failure of Cutthroat Island in 1995, released The Legend of Hercules starring Twilight alum Kellan Lutz. The movie has made a pathetic USD 18 mn in the US so far and another USD 25 mn elsewhere in the world; nowhere near recouping its production cost of USD 70 mn, let alone marketing costs. Dwayne Johnson may have more luck playing this character in Hercules, to be released later this year. The only problem is that the 2nd Hercules movie is directed by another ‘once hotshot, not anymore’ action movie director, Brett Ratner, who after his first two Rush Hour movies, managed to ruin an X-Men film and hasn’t been trusted by studios since.

Getting back to the present, British B-movie maestro Paul W.S. Anderson, famous for turning games like Mortal Kombat and Resident Evil into escapist action-horror fare, was entrusted with big budget tentpole Pompeii. The USD 100 mn production is another failure arriving DOA at the US box office and not faring much better in other global markets.

Australian Stuart Beattie who helped write the screen story for the first Pirates of the Caribbean in 2003 and also directed the well regarded adaptation of the young adult novel Tomorrow, When the War Began has had a disastrous release with I, Frankenstein. This action vehicle for Aaron Eckhart, hoping to create an Underworld-type franchise is also far from recouping its USD 65 mn production budget.

American director McG made the commercially successful but critically panned Charlie’s Angels films in the early 2000’s and then ruined attempts to bring the Terminator franchise back to life with the forgettable Terminator Salvation in 2009. He has now been reduced to directing the low-budget action drama 3 Days to Kill featuring one-time silver screen heartthrob Kevin Costner. In this case, the film only cost USD 28 mn to produce (credit to producer Luc Besson) and has made that money back in the US already, so hopefully will break even once it releases in other international markets.

The usually reliable ‘thinking man’s action hero’ Liam Neeson has hit a speed bump (or should that be an air pocket) with his latest action flick Non-Stop. Produced for just USD 50 mn, this should have been an easy win, but so far the film has made just USD 78 mn, although with China yet to come there may be hope yet. Having said that, with the recent Malaysia Airlines incident featuring many Chinese passengers, studios may want to delay the release of the film in that market.

There are a couple of success stories, however.

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit is an attempt to reboot the Jack Ryan franchise targeting a younger audience with Chris Pine and directed by the thinking man’s director, Kenneth Brannagh. This film cost a sensible USD 65 mn and seems to be on its way to profitability with a worldwide take of USD 133 mn so far.

Similarly, the RoboCop remake from Brazilian director Jose Padilha while under-performing in the US (only USD 55 mn) had international markets save the day with USD 165 mn for a global take of USD 220 mn and a jump into profitability.

Lastly, 300: Rise of An Empire has already made USD 147 mn globally in its first one week so it should be on its way to recovering its USD 110 mn production budget and substantial marketing costs. This movie is made by newbie director Noam Murro (but produced by Zack Snyder who shot to fame with the original 300 back in 2006.

I enjoyed both Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit and 300: Rise of An Empire; the first for its intelligent script and under-played but tense and realistic action sequences, the 2nd for exactly the opposite – its outlandish digital sets and over-the-top histrionics. I haven’t seen RoboCop yet, so cannot comment on the reasons for its success (I was not impressed with the trailer which indicated that all the black humor which made the first film an instant cult classic was missing).

But certainly, based on the scorecard so far, the ‘established’ action-movie veterans (both directors and actors) are finding it difficult to repeat their success formula from the past.

Man of Steel flies high!

In the first act of Man of Steel, the actors wear the elaborate costumes of a Greek tragedy and enact a plot from a Shakespearean one. There is a military uprising, talk of treason, a blasphemous act and a Brutal slaying. (yes, there is a reason the ‘B’ is in caps). The actors delivering the stoic lines are certainly well chosen for it – Russell Crowe appears very stately as Jor-El and Israeli actress Ayelet Zurer (who had quite a good role in the 2008 thriller Vantage Point) who plays his wife Lara lives through the loss of child, husband and world with an impressive degree of forbearance. The actors who play the misguided Krypton council have been cast for their strong facial bone structure. And of course, there is the star of the show – Michael Shannon, playing General Zod, manages to impress as a villain in spite of his strong American accent (all the best villains usually have British or European accents, don’t they?). First of all, kudos to screenwriter David Goyer and producer Chris Nolan for having the smarts to take one of the most iconic villainous roles in the DC movie universe and insert it into the retelling of the origin story (I could not have put up with another helping of a cinematic Lex Luthor, after Gene Hackman and Kevin Spacey). Second, kudos to whoever picked Oscar-nominated character actor Michael Shannon to play Zod; I had never imagined that anyone could top Terrence Stamp’s performance in Superman II (1980). But Shannon is the real deal. The man has played some disturbing characters in the past 4 years including his breakout performance in Revolutionary Road in 2008. Michael Shannon brings a level of physicality and menace to the character of Zod that is truly frightening, all the more so because unlike Gen. Zod from Superman II who was just a megalomaniac, this Zod actually believes he is the true Son of Krypton and Superman is the traitor to the cause.

And ultimately, this movie is about each man (oh that’s right, they’re aliens) having to decide where his moral center lies.

But before we get to that point, there’s a whole lot of story to cover.

We get to see a beautifully visualized Krypton (with an interesting insectoid design sensibility), falling to its inevitable apocalypse while the spacecraft carrying Kal-El wormholes its way towards Earth. We then cut to the present day where a grown-up Clark Kent playing a strong/ silent worker on a fishing trawler finds himself part of a spectacular set-piece where he puts some of his powers into play.

Director Zack Snyder plays liberally with flashbacks and that’s where we are introduced to Diane Lane and Kevin Costner as Martha and Jonathan Kent respectively. I am a fan of both actors and very much enjoyed their grounded interpretation of these important roles. Costner has relatively little to play with, but there is a very memorable and poignant moment at the end of the tornado scene that will stay flash-frozen in my memory. Some of Clark Kent’s most ‘human’ moments came – not surprisingly – with his mother Martha Kent and these moments interspersed across the runtime of the film give it some much-needed breathing space. I think Russell Crowe, inclusive of his post-corporeal existence, eventually gets more screen time than Kevin Costner, but I don’t think there was really much chemistry in those scenes with his son (and why should there be, you may ask, when the son is talking to an image, projected by an Artificial Intelligence filtered through the consciousness of the father he never knew!).

Amy Adams is a pleasant surprise as Lois Lane. Margot Kidder was absolutely irritating in the Christopher Reeve films and Kate Bosworth didn’t even register in Superman Returns (2006). I was worried that Amy Adams would go the Margot Kidder way, as she eminently is capable of playing irritating and neurotic characters. But she was surprisingly ‘normal’ and sensible in this movie and I’m not sure if the credit for that goes to director Snyder or screenwriter David Goyer (neither of whom I would credit that degree of sensitivity) or to Amy Adams herself.

And so of course, we get to the 2^nd half of the movie which features some seriously impressive action on a scale that we have perhaps never seen in a superhero movie – and by that, I include even Marvel’s The Avengers from last year. At some point, I found myself wondering how Superman could really claim to be protecting the Earth when he was partly responsible for all that destruction. Because of the almost total absence of humor, this will never be as beloved a superhero film as the Iron Man films or The Avengers. But, it is certainly an entertaining and suitably contemporary reincarnation of one of the most often-told stories in comic book lore. It won’t take long before Warner Bros. greenlights the sequel and while Henry Cavill will never be the equal of Christopher Reeve in this role, I think he will grow into it quite well if given the chance over the course of a sequel or three.