What if you were a boy with the powers of Superman and you also had homicidal tendencies? That’s what this movie is all about. A farmer (David Denman) and his wife (Elizabeth Banks) find a child in an alien spacecraft and they raise him as their own. Around his 12th birthday, he becomes aware of his powers and starts to go a bit nuts. When anyone gets in his way, he disposes of them.

What makes this movie interesting is the question: what if Superman were evil? A powerful alien super being could do anything it wanted, and it’s certainly conceivable that the power could corrupt the child. What I think could have been more genuine is if the child had some inner conflict where he resisted the urge to “go to the dark side” but various things pushed him over the line (bullying, for example). That’s not what happens, though. This kid, Brandon, just snaps and goes full super-powered serial killer.

If there ever ends up being a sequel, there are many aspects to explore, like: super hero hunters try to discover his real identity or how would someone go about killing a Superman?

It’s a nice twist on super hero movies and I liked a lot of the ingenuity put forth. However, it’s so bleak, it’s depressing. You really have to root for the bad guy and just watch the world burn, because that is all you get with this one.

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