I'd agree, that was odd in MAN OF STEEL (2013) that Superman could do so much, but he couldn't save his father from a simple tornado. I hate it in movies, TV and comics when they do that cheap melodramatic "Daaaaaaaaaaaaad!" thing.
As I said, though, the 1930's-ish retro-future technology for Krypton was really cool, and that makes me love that movie, even though the story wasn't that great in the latter part of the movie. I also love Russell Crowe in the Jor-el role. If the rest of the movie was up to the same par as the first 30 minutes, it would have been a four-star movie.
