I really thought I was going to like this film ... I just didn't

Rating: 2/10 (22 November 2013)

Superman was one of the very early comic books I enjoyed as a young kid, and I've read those comics for decades. I haven't always liked the changes they've put the character through, but nothing I had reservations about in his comic book portrayals disappointed me in the manner this movie did.
First, very little about this movie and virtually nothing about the character spoke out to me as being Superman. Henry Cavill's portrayal of our single favorite super strong, super fast, invulnerable hero was almost devoid of emotion. Even his brief and infrequent outbursts of anguish seemed forced, and that was virtually the only emotion the writers or director allowed him to show. I just didn't get "I'm Superman" out of this performance in any way. Yes, he was brave. Big deal.
Amy Adams as Lois Lane was OK, but brought little life and only a dab of the spunk to the role that we've watched over and over again from Margo Kidder's performance. It's as if the direction was afraid to "go big" with the acting in a genre that demands its characters be very, very big.
And that's just the acting ... when I start discussing the story decisions thing go downhill in a hurry: 1. As a Superman "traditionalist" I didn't get having Lois Lane track the mysterious super-alien back to his roots with an over-simplistic and hardly detailed investigation that took her directly to the Kent farm. This is not a spoiler, as this happens early in the film and you can see it coming a mile away.
2. The entire sub-plot about her desire to have an expose on an alien presence in the form of a super being on Earth had some interesting potential but in the end was just a throw away story element. More on that later.
3. These writers decided to follow the course of many on having Jonathan Kent die. The manner of his death, especially vis a vis Kal-El as his adopted son, was a complete disconnect for me from the possibility of this character being Superman. It was supposed to provide some deeper psychological underpinning for this Superman story, but it was merely ill thought and useless.
4. Having Superman's relationship with "Earth" transition from moving from a suspected alien threat to a friend and savior was horribly bungled. It was an idea. It just wasn't an idea these writers could competently plot.
5. Turning the end of the movie into an extended battle pretty much resulting in the destruction of Metropolis (sorry if that's a spoiler) was a decision made for the purpose of having a special effects spectacular with what the writers/director hoped would be shock value. Sorry, that's been done. And in this context it made little sense and by logic hampers the story. At the time this happens, "Superman" is completely unknown to the public Even with General Zod's public announcement, this is not a character known, trusted, or beloved by the public. The virtual destruction of Metropolis, in which he participated even as he tried to stop it, would leave pretty much everyone resentful and suspicious of this being. From either the standpoint of logic OR emotion, it just doesn't work.
6. As I promised, back to Lois' expose: That could have been a really interesting element of a Superman introduction if handled with any subtlety or intelligence at all. If it had been the main theme of the movie and been well written, it could (and probably should) have carried the film. Yet the moment Zod shows up with his announcement, ALL of the effort put into that sub-plot became completely wasted. It is obvious that the creators of this story had many ideas, didn't have the skill or talent to boil them down to a few that would work well together, and just jumbled everything they thought might be "cool" into one extended, illogical mess that had little to do with a satisfying "Superman Origin" story.
7. Then at the end, we have Clark Kent merrily showing up for work as a reporter at the Daily Planet (where of course Lois already knows his secret!). But how? When? With the damage and evident loss of at least tens of thousands of lives, Metropolis would have had to be essentially abandoned as a toxic environmental nightmare, not to mention graveyard ... and that included extensive damage to the Daily Planet Building itself that likely would have taken years of repair, if it was even deemed structurally to be salvageable! It's like this film was written by clueless 20-somethings with no idea of even the most simple practical results of the events they were so proud of. These writers seem like the kind of people you'd see Jay Leno quizzing on the street and finding incapable of locating Canada on a map of North America. LOL There is more but this review is long enough.
Suffice it to say that if this movie is at some point in the future playing on one channel, and Christopher Reeve's Superman of 1978 happens to be playing on another at the same time, I'll be watching the 1978 version. This film simply has none of the charm, humor or life of the first series. In fact, the much lambasted "Superman Returns" had a far more convincing and embraceable story than this film. I was often annoyed by the decisions to go with a "pushed" look for most of the film (especially the flashbacks) that often left scenes looking grainy and washed out. It was a stylistic choice that didn't work for me as a viewer.
Whether you enjoy the CGI effects and scenes or not, nothing about the excellent technical presentation can make up for the ineptitude of the plotting or writing.