Superlong

Rating: 7/10 (20 June 2013)

The first 20 minutes of Man of Steel is intriguing enough and gives some back-story to Krypton that may please fans. The next 40 minutes cuts back and forth in time, giving short snippets of Clark's life growing up and cramming in as much as possible. I'm not against the technique, but many of the scenes were very cliché superhero and failed to really test Clark and reveal his character. Do any of these scenes sound familiar?

stopping a burning structure from falling on workers

rescuing a school bus

dealing with the high school bully

dealing with a drunken hick that has no respect for woman

The twist: Clark's father teaches him not to use his powers to deal with these situations, as it could expose him to the wrong sort and threaten his future. Sadly, this point (that Clark must keep his identity hidden) is force-fed to the audience, and a good 40 minutes is wasted trying to get the point across, where 10 would've sufficed.
The last hour is full of action, but mostly just large objects getting smashed up for the sake of showcasing the, admittedly good, special effects. This gets repetitive and ridiculous to the point that, in one scene, Superman and Zod throw each other into space and just so happen to find themselves in the vicinity of a satellite they can smash up. Although there is a change of scenery every now and then from the city skyline, it all just feels the same. The environment isn't often used strategically by the fighters, they just throw each other into things.
I'm willing to suspend disbelief in films, but not when it even contradicts the reality the film wants us to believe. For instance, there are multiple scenes showing how Superman does his utmost to protect human life. And yet, in other scenes he chooses to smash villains through buildings, with no thoughts for the human occupants inside. Couldn't he at least attempt to lead the enemy to an open ground?
It was also pretty annoying and unbelievable that Lois always managed to get to the right place at the right time, throughout the film. I'll leave other reviewers to mention the many other contradictions.
I was looking forward to Michael Shannon's Zod performance, as I like the actor in Boardwalk Empire, but unfortunately he had to work with cliché villain dialogue. It just felt awkward at the start when he kept shouting, "I will find him!" (him being Lara's son Kal-El/Superman). The film tried to use his character to make some sort of philosophical statement about free-will and genetics, but it didn't really make much of a statement at all, other than that Zod was a lunatic.
Henry Cavill himself put in a decent performance, and in the non-action scenes he gets a few short windows of opportunity to portray an intelligent, well spoken Superman. In the action scenes, however, he acts ridiculous, smashing things up for the sake of it. And as some other reviewers have mentioned, his angry "sex face" in the flying scenes is way over-the-top.
I'm tempted to give a 6.5, but since many other superhero movies on here are overrated, I'll give it a 7. It could've been condensed from 2 hour 12 to 1 hour 45, because a lot of the dialogue in the first hour didn't add much to the plot and lacked depth and character.
In all honesty, I probably would watch the sequel, as it wasn't the actors that were bad; it was the script. I'm hoping they'll learn from their mistakes in the sequel by giving Superman some more interesting problems to solve and changing the scenery in the battles more.