"Charlie McGee is a happy, healthy eight-year-old little girl. Normal in every way but one. She has the power to set objects afire with just one glance. It's a power she does not want. It's a power she can't control. And, each night, Charlie prays to be just like every other child. But there are those who will do everything in their power to find her... or destroy her."

"Louise Fletcher - Norma Manders"

"Jack Magner - young serviceman"

"Lynne Donahoe — Chloe"

"Dean Marsico — Photographer"

"Don Perry — Great Grand Dad"

"Michael Waltman — Reporter"

"Marcus Smythe — Surgeon"

"Ben Kronen — Mr. Galvao"

"Wendy Worthington — Emeline Partridge"

"Lela Ivey — Patricia Petterson"

"Bill Elliot — Bandleader"

"Richard Minchenberg — Dr. Daniels"

"Melora Hardin — Carolyn Crosson / Claire Poulet"

"Alastair Duncan — Gilbert London"

"Amzie Strickland — Abigail "Abby" Gregory"

"Lindsay Ridgeway — Sally "Sally Shine" Gregory"

"John Franklin — Dewey Todd"

"Shira Roth — Young Abigal"

"Steve Guttenberg — Buzzy Crocker"

"Kirsten Dunst — Anna Petterson"

"Nia Peeples — Jill Perry"

"Michael McShane — Chris "Q" Todd"

"“I really wanted my Krypton to be this kind of special place that’s immersive and totally different from Earth, but not unbelievable. And ancient. I really wanted to give this ancient feeling to Krypton. I love technology that’s rusty because it’s so old. It’s so advanced, but it’s so old. That was the kind of world that I tried to create. A dying world that’s ancient and torn apart.”"

"Snyder weighed in with the idea that Superman killing Zod is actually key to him developing as a hero. “If it’s truly an origin story, his aversion to killing is unexplained,” Snyder said. “I felt like, if we could find a way of making it impossible for him - Kobayashi Maru, totally no way out - I felt like that could also make you go, ‘This is the why of him never killing again.’ He’s basically obliterated his entire people and his culture, and he is responsible for it, and he’s just, like, ‘How could I ever kill again?’” The idea of a morally ambiguous and unpredictable Superman seemed to resonate with the director. “If there were more adventures for our Superman to go on, you’re given this thing where, you don’t know 100 percent what he’s going to do. When you put in stone the concept that he won’t kill, and it’s totally in stone, it really erases an option in the viewer’s mind…you’ll always have in the back of your mind, ‘How far can you push him?’ If he sees Lois get hurt, or his mother get killed, you just made a really mad Superman that we know is capable of some really horrible stuff, if he wants to be. That’s the thing that’s cool about him, in some ways. The idea that he has the frailties of a human emotionally. But you don’t want to get that guy mad,” he said."

"“It’s a more violent experience. It’s raw. It takes effort to do it, and that’s what we were really going for. It’s almost like there’s this kind of Right Stuff quality to it. He’s constantly booming around, accelerating. You think he’s going as fast as he can and then it’s like ‘Yeeaahh!’ He’s always got an extra gear he can use.”"

"This conceptualization works because "Man of Steel" is well-cast (courtesy of Lora Kennedy and Kristy Carlson) starting at the top with Cavill. He's a superb choice for someone who needs to convincingly convey innate modesty, occasional confusion and eventual strength. Ably supporting him on Earth are Kevin Costner and Diane Lane as adoptive parents Jonathan and Martha Kent, as well as Amy Adams, such a dead-on selection for uber-intrepid journalist Lois Lane (she's a Pulitzer Prize winner!) that she was up for the role previously. Also effective are the folks from Krypton, including Russell Crowe as super-serious scientist Jor-El, Kal-El's father, Michael Shannon as the relentless Gen. Zod and German actress Antje Traue as the general's right hand Faora-Ul. (Who thinks up these names?) But for all its positive aspects, including a noteworthy visualization of the dying planet Krypton from production designer Alex McDowell and his team, "Man of Steel" is only partially realized."

"“Killing Zod was a big thing,” Goyer said. “And that was something that Chris Nolan originally said, ‘There’s no way you can do this’.... Originally, Zod got sucked into the Phantom Zone along with the others.” When that ending proved to be unsatisfying, Goyer had to convince others to go with the twist. “We talked to some of the people at DC Comics and said, ‘Do you think there’s ever a way that Superman would kill someone?’ At first they said, ‘No way. No way.’ We said, ‘But what if he didn’t have a choice?’ Originally, Chris didn’t even want to let us try to write it. Zack and I said, ‘We think we can figure out a way that you’ll buy it.’ I came up with this idea of the heat vision and these people about to die. I wrote the scene and I gave it to Chris and he said, ‘OK, you convinced me. I buy it.’”"

"The title "Man of Steel" tells you what you're in for: a radical break from the past. The absence of the word "Superman" leads us to expect a top-to-bottom re-imagining, and that's what the film delivers, for better and worse. This is a 2013 version of the story: dark, convoluted and violent, chock full of 9/11-styled images of collapsing skyscrapers and dust-choked disaster survivors. It's sincere but not particularly funny or sweet. The hero is a glum hunk, defending a planet so scared of apocalyptic conspiracy that it assumes anyone who presents himself as good guy must have ulterior motives. Steel is what you need to have in your spine if you're going to be super in this world. Directed by Zack Snyder ("Watchmen," "Sucker Punch (film)") and overseen by Christopher Nolan (the Dark Knight trilogy, "Inception"), "Man of Steel" largely abandons the sunny spirit and kooky humor of the Christopher Reeve-starred films, as well as Bryan Singer's homage to them, 2006's "Superman Returns." It brings the character in line with the recent craze for brutal, morose tales of loners defending a world that doesn't appreciate their sacrifices. This time the big guy's suit isn't Dick Tracy red, blue and yellow; it's a muted ensemble of synthetic chain mail that's described as "battle armor" rather than as a uniform or costume, and Supes wears his underwear on the inside, thank you very much."

"This is a butch Superman film, driven by machismo. Lois is an important character, but only for how she furthers Clark/Superman's attempts to understand himself and claim his destiny. She's less of a fully-realized human being than the kooky narcissist played by Margot Kidder in the Reeve films, or Kate Bosworth's Lois in "Superman Returns," a melancholy figure defined by her ability to move on after the hero's sudden departure from earth. Adams' Lois is tough and smart, but she has no personality, only drive, and she's not as integral to the action as she seems to be on first glance. It's telling that this movie gives equal weight to the story of a distrustful general (Chris Meloni) whose relationship with Superman lets him become the stand-in for a doubting Earth, a role filled by Lois in the 1978 film. Ma Kent is endearing, but she's not as powerful a presence as the doomed Jonathan. The hero's birth mother vanishes after the prologue, her absence explained in a throwaway line that Crowe seems embarrassed to have to deliver. The uncharitable might notice than when a stupid question has to be asked, or a trivial remark made, it's often delivered by one of a handful of women in a room full of burly guys; they may also note that while every significant male figure in "Man of Steel" is given an option to be physically brave under horrible circumstances — even grey-haired Pa Kent and Perry White have their moments — females exist, for the most part, to be saved, or to have things explained to them. Considering that every previous "Superman" movie put the courtship dance between men and women at the heart of its action — particularly "Superman: the Movie", "Superman II" and "Superman Returns" — the fact that "Man of Steel" has a No Girls Allowed sensibility seems like a deliberate creative choice. It's as if the filmmakers want to reassure young male viewers accustomed to the glib swagger of "Iron Man" and the dire self-pity of Nolan's Batman trilogy that Superman is in the same wheelhouse. (Zod's right-hand woman Fajora-Ul, Antje Traue, is a powerful presence, but she's even more desexualized than Lois; her character's main trait is a pathological hatred of men.) Again, this is all state-of-the-art, very much in line with the way superhero movies are done now. And yet this aspect of the "modernization" feels retro, because it comes at the expense of an under-acknowledged part of Superman's appeal: virtually alone among big-name superheroes, he's a romantically and sexually mature man who seems to like and be comfortable around women."

"Again, it comes back to the human element; because he's alone and there's no one like him. That must be incredibly scary and lonely, not to know who you are or what you are, and trying to find out what makes sense. Where's your baseline? What do you draw from? Where do you draw a limit with the power you have? In itself, that's an incredible weakness."

"At once frantically overblown and beautifully filigreed, “Man of Steel” will turn on everyone it doesn’t turn off. Summer blockbusters have a way of encouraging multiplex Manichaeism, though I propose a middle way. It won’t be easy. Even those who patiently ride out the bludgeoning excesses of the film’s final 45 minutes may wonder what happened to the movie — the one about human and humanoid struggles — they watched for the first 100. They may also wonder why no one, anyone, smacked the director, Zack Snyder, in the head and reminded him that he was midwifing a superhero franchise, as the film’s first image, of a yelling, straining woman signals, not restaging the end of days."

"Chris Nolan wasn't there during the production itself, although I'm not sure how much work was done behind the scenes. I'm sure Zack had a phone call or two with him, but this is definitely Zack's baby. He was the man in charge, and we created the character together, as opposed to having too many outside influences."