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Here's a look at the new releases I saw this week.

Epic
Starring: (voices of) Colin Farrell, Amanda Seyfried, Jason Sudeikis, Beyonce, Chris O'Dowd, Aziz Ansari, Steven Tyler, Josh Hutcherson, and Christoph Waltz
Synopsis: This is the first big animated release of the summer, and is one of the few offerings available for kids. ("Monster's University" opens tomorrow). It does a good job of laying out the story and creating an interesting world. It feels a bit long for younger viewers, but overall it's a fairly enjoyable animated feature. It has something for audiences of all ages — meaning as an adult I appreciated some of the light-hearted moments between Ansari and O'Dowd, too. It's not a deep movie, and it probably has a little New Age theology what with the forrest worship, but overall it's fairly harmless. It remains to be seen where it will stack up against the other big animated features coming in the next two months.
Rating: PG for mild action, some scary images and brief rude language.
Verdict: Three Stars out of Four

Man of Steel
Starring: Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Kevin Costner, Diane Lane, Russell Crowe, and Laurence Fishburne
About: After 75 years, it’s safe to say most people are familiar with the Superman origin story. He came to Earth from another planet as his parents sought to help him escape the destruction of his home world. He has super powers, and he generally uses them for good. There have been a lot of different incarnations of Superman on the big and small screen. Both the Richard Donner films in the late 1970s and the Bryan Singer re-boot in 2006 had a similar sensibility when bringing Superman to the screen. It’s safe to say the latest re-imagining — this one from writer David Goyer, producer Christopher Nolan and director Zack Snyder — seeks to go a different way. The familiar beats of the Superman origin are packed into the 143-minute film, but so, too, is a different spin on Kal-El, Clark Kent and Superman. “Man of Steel” serves to jumpstart the franchise, but the question is whether audiences will want to follow this alternative take on the story. “Man of Steel” isn’t the first film to depict the battle with General Zod. In “Superman II,” that story played out in an interesting way. With this modern update, things look very different. Clark is played as a much different character, and his reaction to the world has a different tone. With their Batman films, Nolan and Goyer sought to explore what it would be like of Batman lived in the modern world, a more credible world than is typically seen in comic book adaptations. And that formula worked well. His films felt like gritty crime dramas more than flights of fantasy. With “Man of Steel” he is attempting to do something similar. Snyder, who offered faithful adaptations of the graphic novels “300” and “Watchmen,” offers a different kind of film here. This is less of a faithful adaptation of the traditional Superman origin story and more of a revisionist take on the material. It boasts some stunning visuals and an all-star cast. But it feels a bit empty. There are some wonderful emotional moments, particularly involving Costner. And there is a lot of Christ imagery and mythology tied up with this version of Superman that’s somewhat fascinating. The problem is that Cavill’s Superman isn’t really the kind of hero you want to root for or believe in. The final act of the film is an epic battle between Superman and Zod. There is a lot of punching and a lot of destruction, but most of it isn’t compelling. It feels like a lot of action without a purpose, and it does little to further the idea of Superman. Particularly harsh is the way the sequence ends. There is a lot of violence and destruction that doesn’t feel in keeping with the messianic figure they’ve made Kal-El out to be for most of the film. Oddly, I was more interested in the way the film ended and set up future installments. Perhaps without the weight of backstory, mythology and Zod a future installment of Superman will be more engrossing. For now, this one misses the mark despite its great potential.
Rating: PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi violence, action and destruction, and for some language.
Verdict: Two stars out of four.

Upcoming Releases:

Friday, June 21 — "Monster's University," "World War Z," "The Bling Ring"

Friday, June 28 — "The Heat," "White House Down"