Man of Steel's Russell Crowe: My Kids Weren't Fazed By the Film's Violence

During an interview with The Australian, Man of Steel actor Russell Crowe said that while there was quite a bit of destruction in the film, it's no more than you'd see in many animated adaptations of superhero work, and that his children--six and nine--had seen the movie and enjoyed it. "I have a six-year-old and a nine-year-old and they've never, ever been able to go to a movie that I'm in. This one doesn't have any decapitations a la Gladiator; it doesn't have heroin usage like in American Gangster; it doesn't have prostitution scenes like in Les Mis. This is an idealistic movie and there's no swearing in Superman," said the actor. When the interviewer challenged him on that film's content, noting the destruction in the movie, Crowe responded, "even the cartoons like The Incredibles and stuff like that--they have their level of potency. My two--I think it's because of that idealistic streak that's in the movie--my two are not scared by this film." He said that the kids, who have gone back a second time to see it voluntarily, enjoyed the story of Superman separate from its connection with him. He also noted that for the last fifteen years, he has fielded and rejected a number of superhero offers becuase "it's just not my thing. If I was to read a comic when I was a kid, I would read the Archies or Sad Sack." He added, though, that "the business of movies has moved in such a way that these are the tentpole movies of any given year," and that in order to keep making smaller movies that appeal to him, he has to "find a balance."