Visually excellent, but a steaming mess in most other respects

Rating: 5/10 (26 July 2016)

So I wanted to love Man of Steel. Visually, it was breathtaking, and it was high time, imho, to give superman another go, especially in the wake of Nolan's Batman films.
But I just couldn't get behind the character decisions. I didn't like Lois, I thought pa Kent was well-cast but terribly written, and Clark... I didn't know what to do with the mess that was his character.
So the bar wasn't... super high going into this.
Batman actually surprised me. I thought Affleck did an excellent job and I was significantly more interested in his character than in any of the crap Clark pulled. I super extra appreciated that they didn't give us his origin story as well, after all, everyone knows Batman.
But really and truly, this film, though, again, visually fabulous (seriously, it felt like I was watching the comics), felt like it was written/constructed by someone who knew the character names, and their costumes, and their power sets, but didn't actually have any idea who those characters were. Nor were they interested in finding out.
This was one of the most contradictory portrayals of Superman I've ever seen (and I watched Smallville, all the way through the end, so I know from bad), when it wasn't completely flat, and in an effort, I assume, to set up The Justice League (and compete with the MCU which, hey, is also why this became a 'civil war' movie, despite their being about ten minutes of actual batman V superman conflict, and that completely contrived).... the story was a mess. There was unexplained dream/vision/flashback/time travel crap, and Lex Luthor's motivations are anybody's guess, and the pacing was all over the place... it feels like they wanted to make a couple of different movies here, and didn't have time if they wanted to catch up to Marvel, so everybody picked their favorite bits and slapped them together.
But with no Superman in the next one, I feel like the franchise might turn a corner. As I say, whether or not he's a batman I recognize, Affleck's performance was actually way more decent than I expected, and I am super into the Wonder Woman casting. :)