Crash, bang, wallop

Rating: 4/10 (26 December 2013)

I'll be honest and say that I expected a lot more from this (particularly with Christopher Nolan being involved and due to being impressed with what he had done with the Batman Trilogy). However, I left this film feeling rather disappointed.
The film start off OK and plays out like a standard Superman film. Knowing that their own planet of Krypton is about to be destroyed, Jor-El (Russell Crowe) launches his son Kal E (Henry Cavill) into orbit and his pod crash lands in Kansas where he is raised by Martha Kent and Jonathan Kent (Diane Lane and Kevin Costner). They name him Clark and on earth he is known as Clark Kent.
OK, so far so good. My issue with this film isn't that it isn't a copy of the first Superman Film (far from it). I can see what Snyder and Nolan and crew were trying to achieve; they were trying to create a 'grown up' Superman (which Nolan managed to achieve with Batman with immense success). The main problem for me was that Man of Steel seem to have a complete lack of focus - it isn't only Superman that jumps around a lot. We shift from Clark's early life, to present day, back to Krypton, back to Lois Lane (Amy Adams). The film just never seemed to really settle down and for the most part, it wasn't easy to follow what was happening.
I personally felt that there was also way too much time devoted to Clark's back story. I'm aware that this is necessary to understand the story more, I feel that perhaps 1 short segment would suffice to show how his powers on earth had affected those around him, but the film kept flitting back and forth with this and I found it rather distracting.
Then we come to Lois and Clark - there was a disappointing lack of chemistry between the 2 of them. How much screen time did they actually share together? I also wasn't convinced by Amy Adams portrayal of Lois Lane - I thought she was a bit lack luster and I know that she's capable of better (as her performance in The Fighter has proved).
We eventually get to the point of the film after about 90 minutes of rather fuzzy and disjointed story telling, but by this point I was past caring.
We then come to the CGI and special effects - now I'm not normally one to criticise these things, but I felt that they were grossly OTT and bordering on the ridiculous for the most part (even for a fantasy film). We see Superman and numerous baddies slammed through large thick concrete buildings, and smashed and banged through pretty much everything that is in the way. The CGI and special effects were way over the top and ridiculous - it's almost like the filmmaker's were saying 'Hey look everybody - this is where we spent all our budget, doesn't it look great?' Yes it does, but perhaps more money and time should have been invested in a decent script.
Overall, this was a disappointing film. The story was all over the place and lacked any real focus and I thought that the CGI was OTT and ridiculous (a lot of style with very little substance). It's a shame as I like (and understand) that they were trying to give Superman a darker and more grown up edge (like the recent Batman franchise), but for me it was let down by the aforementioned points.