You’ve seen the newest trailer for Man of Steel that was just released Tuesday evening, right? The one labeled as “Trailer #3”, with lots more Jor-El in it? At least once?

No? Really? No one mentioned it in your social circles? Do you believe in watching movie trailers online? Is your Internet connection above 56K? You don’t hate super-hero movies, do you? Not that I wouldn’t respect that, mind you. My oldest relatives aren’t super-hero fans, either. I’ve included it at the end of this entry, just in case. See, I even saved you a few seconds of Googling.

Man of Steel, the first new Superman film to see the light of day in seven years, is scheduled for American release on June 14th. According to the international release schedule, you lucky folks in the Philippines will be receiving it two days ahead of us.

If all goes according to plan and it’s not terrible, director Zack Snyder’s sixth full-length feature film could become the best of his career to date. I mean that in more ways than one. In financial terms, his highest-grossing, 300, earned $210 million at the American box office. In critical terms, Rotten Tomatoes lists his first film, 2004’s Dawn of the Dead, as his most-liked film to date, with a 75% rating on the fabled Tomatometer. We’ll see if the presence and contributions of producer/co-writer Christopher Nolan make a difference.

From my standpoint, it would be nice if it did. The last Superman live-action film that I would rate above a C-plus was released thirty-three years ago. That’s three decades in which I’ve seen only the campy foolishness of Superman III; the well-intentioned but MST3K-ready Superman IV: the Quest for Peace; the lamentably off-the-mark Superman Returns; and the extended pauses between films while Warner Bros. executives . I remember a lengthy timespan in my life when Superman: the Movie was Best Super-Hero Film Ever, despite the desperate deus ex machina at the end. I’d be lying if I said Superman was my favorite super-hero, but I always thought it was appropriate that he, of all the comic book heroes, survived the page-to-screen transition more successfully than his contemporaries from the ’70s through the ’90s. I wouldn’t complain about a return to form.

Fun trivia to depress other fans in my age demographic: in my son’s lifetime, Warner Bros. has released five Batman films; counting Man of Steel, they’ve released just two Superman films. Superman is a distant, removed entity that means as much to him as the Green Hornet or Captain Nice.

To him the original movie is quaint, despite our repeated attempts to explain its impact in context, and Superman Returns was two hours of bench-pressing giant objects and genuflecting toward the first two films without creating any memorable moments to call its own. (He and I are of one mind on the latter.) When I was young, I suppose it was enough to enjoy Superman stories because he did cool things. Today, we have any number of movies, TV shows, and occasional comics in which thousands of characters do cool things. The trick that hasn’t been pulled off yet is convincing him why watching Superman do cool things is different. Telling him that Superman was first, Superman is strongest, or Superman among the most well-known worldwide doesn’t really establish an automatic connection with him.

I don’t blame him. When it comes to entertainment choices, you can’t order someone to like something. It’s up to that thing to provide reasons to be liked.

To that end, enclosed below is that trailer, the one that’s fostered in me a greater sense of hope, spelled with a capital Kryptonian S.