Could've been a little better, but not a bad start

Rating: 8/10 (21 September 2013)

Speaking as a fan of the superhero film genre and a fan of comics to a degree, I was pretty satisfied with this one. I'm not really a huge fan of Superman, but the first two Richard Donner films in my opinion are so good and Christopher Reeve perfectly embodied Superman and Clark Kent. No one in my opinion can ever really replace him. I never got into "Smallville" or "Lois & Clark" or even the animated series, but I've always loved the first two, never saw 3 and 4 and I was bored by Superman Returns so I was interested in this one. I have to say that while it could've been a little bit better than what it turned out to be, I wasn't disappointed.
You all know the plot; it's a retelling of Superman's origin of how he became Superman and how he must stop General Zod from turning Earth into the new Krypton.
Let's get the negatives out of the way first: the tone of the film was a bit too dark and depressing sometimes. For me (I know I shouldn't compare this to the originals), with a Superman movie it should be hopeful and uplifting as Superman provides the people of earth with hope that there is someone out there who is willing to help. There were aspects of that here in the film but I feel like it didn't really need to be so dark. Jonathan Kent's death wasn't as impacting as I was hoping, the relationship between Lois and Superman just came out of nowhere towards the end after the big fight in Metropolis and the action went on just a bit too long. Plus certain scenes at the fortress of Solitude with Jor-El felt like it was just there to explain the plot and was a little bit too convenient. While those things weigh the film down, there are a lot of positives to find in this one.
Acting/Characters: The character of Superman/Kal-El/Clark Kent was in my opinion written reasonably well and I liked the flashbacks to his childhood where we see when certain things happen to him as he grows up people and Clark himself realizes that he's not normal. Henry Cavill in my opinion was a very good pick for the role. He manages to come across as heroic, intimidating, he does really good with the emotional scenes and he pulls off Superman's charm very well. Russell Crowe's performance as Jor-El really hit me sometimes, Kevin Costner and Diane Lane did good as John and Martha Kent, Laurence Fishburne was good as Perry White and Amy Adams (one of my favorite actresses) I thought was a really good pick as Lois Lane. Michael Shannon as Zod I thought was good but he didn't really have that driving force like the Joker or Loki or Doc Ock but at the same time he had reasonable motives for what he was doing.
The sequence on Krypton I thought was awesome since we've never got a really good look at Kryptonian civilization before. It almost reminded me of Avatar and Star Wars in a lot of ways. And while I did say the action dragged on a bit too long, it was bad-ass and nice to finally see Superman kick some but in this one! For awhile I was on the edge of my seat but towards the end of the sequence I got a bit bored saying to myself "Ok are we almost done? I need to take a breather". Also the end where Clark shows up at the Daily Planet as the journalist that he's famous for in the comics, I loved how they decided to show that Lois Lane knows who Superman is the moment she sees him behind those glasses.
Overall, I think Zach Snyder and his crew did very good with this one although the film could've used some tweaking like I mentioned before, but I was pleased with this one and I'm looking forward to what the sequel has to offer.