Nothing terrible, nothing special.

Rating: 4/10 (20 June 2013)

I wasn't as excited as everyone else to see Man of Steel, purely because I'm not a big super hero fan, but I was still looking forward to seeing the film because it was being directed by Zack Snyder who I mostly like, and it was being hyped up as a kind of grounded take on the character of Superman.
I thought Man of Steel was at it's strongest at the beginning (the whole Krypton prologue part and when Clarke has flashbacks of his past), those moments were poignant and compelling. However, as the film progressed, I found myself losing interest in the characters and story.
In my opinion, the films biggest problem is how it uses its lengthy run time. The film has so much time to develop characters and their relationships, but it completely fails. Clark has nearly no character arc in the film, and his relationship with Lois is so rushed, I recall them only being in 3 scenes with minimal dialogue before they were suddenly in love, and it doesn't help that Cavill and Adams have barely any on screen chemistry. I liked Clarks relationship with his mother though, I thought that was mostly well handled, and the actors worked well together.
I could overlook the problem of underdeveloped characters if the film was mostly focused on action sequences, but it's not. And perhaps it would be more forgivable if the action sequences were thrilling and memorable, but their not. We get one relatively enjoyable fight scene towards the end and scenes of a city being destroyed. It's just not good enough to compensate for the films lack of character development. This brings me back to the point of how it uses its runtime. We have around 30 minutes of action sequences and around 2 hours of characters talking but never forming relationships, building a little bit of tension for the finale and just the generally telling the story.
What I'm trying to say is that the amount of story, action and character progression in this film does not warrant a 2 and a half hour running time.
I thought that the acting was really nothing special at all, Henry Cavill is given next to nothing to work with, so he never really gets a chance to really own his character. Amy Adams & Michael Shannon aren't even that good here, Michael Shannon does an OK job, but he overacts a lot. Amy Adams never brings her usual charm to her character. Russel Crowe does a solid job, definitely the highlight in terms of acting. The story never goes anywhere interesting either, it's just the basic dealing with the responsibilities of being a superhero, but there's a villain on your back story that we all know. The villain isn't even interesting, he's motives are believable but overall hes just a very angry man.
The film obviously shines in the special effects and sound design aspect, I don't think there's any denying that, it just looks amazing throughout.
In my opinion, Man of Steel is just another summer blockbuster with some OK action sequences and a forgettable story. It fails to distinguish itself from other superhero films, and I wouldn't be so disappointed with this if it wasn't such an iconic superhero we have at hand. I'd like too say that Man of Steel is a fantastic movie, but it just feels like an average at best popcorn flick with Supermans name attached too it.