Much better than its reputation (and the DCEU sequels)

Rating: 8/10 (28 March 2020)

This is not a Christopher Reeve Superman movie. This is an imperfect Superman just trying his best in an imperfect world. It's also not yet a DCEU movie: it stands for itself and on its own, and in contrast to its sequel BvS, this movie is not burdened with exposition of a cinematic universe.
We meet a Superman who is still learning how to use his powers for the greater good and is faced with situations and decisions that make him choose only the lesser evil. The entire world depicted here is fairly dark. This is not as child-friendly as Christopher Reeve's Superman and certainly not everyone's taste, but the tone is consistent and the movie stays true to itself.
In contrast to the chaos that was Batman v Superman (2015), this movie is not 50% advertisement for a cinematic universe. It would have loved to see the story of Men of Steel progress on its own. Too bad they over-accelerated the sequels instead of giving the story and characters time to grow.
One more thing: the movie is filmed with "shaky cam" for virtually every scene. For whatever good artistic reason that might be intentional, sometimes it's really annoying. And that's the worst I can say about this movie.
Would watch again.