So much promise but so little substance..

Rating: 5/10 (30 August 2014)

I personally didn't expect a lot from a film about superman. To me he's a substandard superhero, one who has little to root for and even less character complexity. I wish I could say then that I was surprised that the film I was given was action heavy and dialogue and development light.
Man of Steel brings little in the way of superhero genre. It cannot avoid being compared with Marvel's endeavours or Dark Knight so I'm not going to avoid that. On one positive side, i have to say the visuals on Man of Steel were stunning. The fight scenes were spectacularly realised bringing the fast yet strong style of Superman to life. That was fun to watch. However, big entertaining fights scenes have been done by Marvel time and time again. What makes Marvel interesting is the characters. One of the best features of The Avengers was its whedon-esque banter. Many Marvel films brings the character down to see how they'll get up. They explore.
Man of Steel does not do that. Much like a typical Hollywood blockbuster it's dialogue does little except provide exposition. There was absolutely no indication of any kind of attraction between Lois and Superman except for the fact that we all know it has to happen. It's can't even be blamed on Cavill and Adams lacking chemistry, the script just did not allow that kind of insight or exploration. I feel like the epitome of this came at the very after the, now infamous, neck snapping scene. Putting aside how out of character for superman this is, what i felt was more out of character was the lack of remorse. Apart from 5 seconds of over the top clichéd yelling little is done to show how superman responds. They could be forgiven if the film ends there and leaves us to wonder. It does not. It insteads gives us a hashed in scene with superman being followed by the US government. He shows no repercussion of this monumental event superman canon.
This is what makes the decision to kill Zod so bizarre to me. It feels like they are just trying to be different. Trying to shock and make everyone leave going 'ooh that was a very different movie'. It would have been better brought about in, say, a ten issue comic book run where they fully explore how superman would react considering he is the most morally absolute superhero. It's what makes him so bland and when they finally give him some depth they pussy away because they feel a superhero movie can't be intelligent. Which is a shame considering it in part came from the hero of the Dark Knight Trilogy Christopher Nolan, although there he also wimped out of the 'heroic sacrifice'
All in all, a mediocre film at best which tries to push boundaries but only succeeds in setting up a money maker of a DC universe for DC and Warner Bros.