Just an all around unpleasant experience

Rating: 1/10 (31 July 2013)

This movie is jaw dropping at how bad it is. How could they mess up a Superman movie this badly? It's borderline comedy. I'm half expecting Snyder to just come out and say "We were joking, the real Superman movie is here." But no, this is the final product. This is the movie many are giving 10 out of 10s. And for what? A stupid and ugly film with no value of worth.
Let's start with the characters shall we. All of them are bland. All of them. First off, Cavill. I liked him. He seems to be doing the best of what the poor script will give him. He's tall, handsome, has a good voice and could have made a great Superman. Too bad he wasn't given one. I don't mind a movie that shows the darker side of being Superman, but at the end of the day, I want to be uplifted by his presence. Compare him to Reeve, who swoops us off our feet just as easily as he does to Lois the moment they meet. He shines charisma. Cavill on the other hand just mopes throughout the entire movie, punches things and...I think that's about it.
Lois Lane played by Adams. Starts off well enough with her being tough, wily, etc. But unfortunately her role goes downhill the moment Zod and his buddies arrive. Why did Zod want her on his ship? Was it just for exposition? Screen writing 101 guys, characters actions should make sense. Then towards the end, the military have her on the plane or something. What is she doing there? She's a reporter, not a military adviser. It's like they wrote the story and then someone said "Oh, you forgot to put Lois Lane in." So the screeenwriter just put her into a bunch of scenes without it making any sense. She even has the power of teleportation as shown at the end where she appears just to be the shoulder that Superman cries on when he kills Zod. The rest of the characters, aren't worth mentioning because I forgot them already, except for Zod. Zod is angry...NEXT!
Let's talk about the dumb stuff, particually Pa Kent's death. Talk about not getting it. In the original film, his death is done in such a heart wrenching manner. The point of it being, with all Superman's powers, he still couldn't stop something natural like a heart attack. But here, there's no excuse. It was borderline parody how silly it was. I would have laughed if I wasn't so shocked about how bad the movie was.
Why is everything in this movie super realistic. Superman is an alien with God-like powers who flies around in a cape and tights. You don't try and make that realistic, because then it becomes silly. The cinematography reflects this and it's some of the worst I've ever seen. Shaky cam is terrible. I hate it with a passion. And not only do we have shaky cam where we can't tell what's happening during the boring action but also everything is super PALE. Why is everything either white or blue? EVERYTHING. This is the whitest and coldest movie I've ever seen. It's like they found the film in a block of ice. Even when they're in the desert everything is cold. Where's the COLOUR?!
And finally, the action. Oh boy, could they have made this any more boring? If you enjoy CG explosions and people punching things for 2 hours, then this movie is for you. And this is coming from someone who's favourite movie is Die Hard. News flash guys, action only works in two ways. It can be either tension filled, where we cheer on our vulnerable hero and hope he survives and saves the day. Or is can be done in a way that attempts to impress and entertain you through effects, choreography and stunts. Man of Steel is obviously going for the latter, but the problem is, that kind of action only works in small proportion. Take the original Matrix (another one of my favourite movies). Everyone remembers the amazing 'bullet-time' action scenes. But when you watch the movie, the action only makes up a small portion of the film. The limited amount of action, made the action scenes all the more exciting. It's one of the reasons why Matrix Reloaded didn't work for me, because it had too much action. Man of Steel has the same problem. How many times do we have to see someone being punched in the face? It's ridiculous how violent this movie is. Isn't Superman for family audience? Well not anymore. Step up comic book nerds, here's a movie that's so dark and moody that no one is going to call you a loser for watching it. Except the people who know what a good movie is...(whisper) don't worry though, those people generally don't appear on IMDb message boards.
I wrote too much didn't I? And I didn't even talk about the cliché and cringe-worthy 'movie trailer' dialogue or the forgettable soundtrack. Oh well, I think I've got my point across. Superman shouldn't be dark and realistic. Trying something different is a good thing, but this was just the wrong way to do it. At least this movie wasn't shot on real film, because that would have been such a waste. 1/10