For a Superman trailer, there's very little Superman in it.  Instead, the trailer establishes a somber tone, while showing that Henry Cavill's Clark Kent is an existentially confused young man, a hitchhiker and a fisherman with a big scraggly beard.  It is also the least Snyder-y trailer for a Zack Snyder movie that we've yet seen.  Instead of the director's intricate, polished visuals, we get a lot of handheld camerawork.  Combined with the ethereal score (Howard Shore's "Oh damn, Gandalf's plummeting to his death" music from The Fellowship of the Ring), the observational camera makes for a trailer that is surprisingly reminiscent of Terrance Malick's The Tree of Life.

Both of these are essentially the same trailer.  All the visuals are identical, but the narration in each is different.  In this first one, which debuted at MSN, it's Russell Crowe as Jor-El, Supes's Kryptonian father, and in the second one, it's Kevin Costner as Clark's adopted pa, Jonathan Kent.

This second version is here courtesy of Yahoo! Movies.

I like it.  For one thing, it shows that the film won't look the way we now expect a Zack Snyder movie to look, but will have a more naturalistic feel.  For another, it suggests a reverent quality, one seemingly dictating that this won't be a reboot that tweaks for the sake of tweaking.

But I wonder if it's enough for the audience.  I also liked the first trailer for Bryan Singer's crazy-reverent Superman Returns, but I distinctly remember a woman behind me in the theater when i saw it incredulously asking, "Is that it?"  This teaser shows even less than that one.  And while most choices on Man of Steel have promised that Warner Bros. is deliberately making a very different film than Superman Returns, the teasers are actually quite similar, with a father figure providing voiceover to disparate, simple visuals.

Anyways, Snyder directs from a screenplay by David S. Goyer and a story by Batman Begins co-writers Goyer and Christopher Nolan, who is executive producer here.  Henry Cavill takes over as Clark Kent/Kal-El/Superman, with Amy Adams as Lois Lane.  Michael Shannon and Antje Traue play bad guys, while the supporting cast includes Laurence Fishburne, Diane Lane, Ayelet Zurer, Harry Lennix, Richard Schiff, and Christopher Meloni.

Man of Steel is set to arrive in theaters on June 14, 2013.