Watch: The NEW Superman trailer

The mood is somber, gloomily overcast.

There's precious little sunshine in the trailer for Zack Snyder's Superman reboot, Man Of Steel, clearly influenced by producer Christopher Nolan's dark and hyper-successful Batman trilogy.

The music, possibly filched directly from The Lord Of The Rings, is operatic and the visuals low-key and melancholy, as a father talks about his son.

There are, thus, two trailers, one with a voiceover by Russell Crowe, who plays Superman's biological father, the Kryptonian Jor-El, and one with Kevin Costner playing Jonathan Kent, Clark's dad.

The moody opening shows water pummelling boulders and strong winds blowing clotheslines awry. A bearded guy -- Henry Cavill, the latest Brit to take on the super-role -- pets a black dog and works glamourlessly on a fishing boat. But then we see a young boy running in a field with a red blanket wrapped around his shoulders.

The sun gets stronger as the son adjusts his makeshift crimson cape and raises fists to waist level, striking that most iconic of superhero poses -- even as the father goes on about strength and identity.

Then, after the film's title is revealed, we see a supersonic blur streaking vertically through the clouds.

And it isn't a bird. Or a plane.