Man of Steel - Disaster movie or superhero movie?

Rating: 4/10 (14 December 2013)

When I think of Superman I think of what his father often said of him in all of the movies, "he will be revered as a God". Yet Superman just wanted to be human most of his childhood life. He never wanted to be special. So what happens when you are forced to go outside of yourself because you don't have a choice? Unfortunately you are not going to get any wisdom on that answer in this movie. I would say watch Superman 2. At least there Superman simply wanted Lois Lane. He wanted them to be together and to do that he sacrificed his powers to be with her. But then realized that who he is is more. The genius behind Superman 2 is he learned this through the green crystal which created his home and has been with him ever since. I believe this green crystal was what the Codex was in Man of Steel, but we never really are told what it is. It just seems to be the one piece of Krypton left that has a mysterious connection to Superman. In Man of Steel there is no mysterious connection, there is no fight to stay normal except of course during his adolescence and the only thing that helped him realize his full potential was a conversation he had with his real father who told him everything. So when his earth father told him he was an alien he wanted to be human but when his real alien father told he was an alien he accepted it. Okay.
Man of Steel is an over the top production of building exploding, CGI speed-up and CGI everything else. 95% of this movie appears to be shot in front of a green screen and the effects for the people look just as bad as they do in The Matrix Reloaded. The fact these aliens can move super fast was a great reveal at first but when it happened throughout the movie it got boring fast. The problem is we see special effects like this all the time now. Special effects for the most part are not a movie. If you base your whole movie on them the movie will suffer. This is exactly the issue with Man of Steel and since the sequel is already in the works we can expect none of these issues to be resolved.
Henry Cavill is not interesting as Superman, in fact he looks outright bored in this movie. Michael Shannon actually steals most of this movie and although his character is the most built of any character in the movie, he is still overshadowed by all the effects surrounding him. Does Zach believe that effects are more important than characters and acting? I guess so.
As a special effect extravaganza this movie has it all. As a movie with a plot, interesting characters, good acting, enjoyable movie, this movie has none of that. I was interested in what was going on maybe twice. But the minute we see Superman take zero care of human life by crashing into everything purposely during a fight after we were told for over an hour he doesn't want to lose his temper and hurt anyone or kill anyone and that he his moral, the entire movie itself takes a tailspin. Therefore Superman is a hypocrite. Also Zod as a religious fanatic was a great idea but unfortunately religious fanatics don't work the way he does. By the climax he goes from being a fanatic to being a mad scientist. Certainly some fanatics have committed genocide but we were never led to understand why in Zod's case. He just decided it was for the best.
Awful movie. Just watch Christopher Reeve in Superman 1 and 2. Those movies get Superman. They nail the comic book more than anything else that has come after it.