like sex that starts strong and finishes weakly (or with too much, ahem, jackhammering)

Rating: 5/10 (25 March 2016)

Man of Steel is smart and dumb, subtle and overbearing, up its own butt and trying to find the line as to what a comic book SUPER hero is supposed to be and represent in society... and then it does away with that for mind-numbing action. It has a script that is problematic, intriguing, and gives us a hint as to what could have made for a mind-blowingly weird and self-serious (but campy) world on Krypton from the opening 15 minutes. It's a story that is all about how Clark Kent (aka Kal-El) doesn't know what his place is in the world and has to find it out, while also combating a rather p-o'd presence from his past that has found him. Oh, and there's Lois Lane in it and she does things the plot requires her to do, which includes falling for Superman. It's probably Henry Cavill's dimpled chin, right, chicks love the chin.
This is Snyder by some collaboration with Christopher Nolan (because Warner brothers couldn't let go of that Nolan comic book dark-and-brooding mojo I guess) making a new mythology for a character who most Americans, whether they follow graphic novels or not, know and some love. It's a film that tries for an alternate viewpoint that is not bad necessarily or wrong-headed, but as the sort of "definite" new view for a franchise to rise out from it's not much fun. Sure, you can philosophically pick this apart and find a lot there, maybe some dime-store Nieztsche and other things, but the problem comes when people don't have actual conversations with one another. You want to show that Clark and Lois become closer? Fine, have them talk about something that isn't just him giving googly-eyes explaining what the "S" on his suit means. Or make Perry White (a very good Fishburne, far as it can go) say things that aren't just orders and declarations.
In the first half of the movie I found the structure the pivotal thing: here we bounce from the present time of Kent wandering around like a super-hobo or something (why he gets into s*** with people I'm not sure), and we see his young years. The most troubling part comes with Jonathan Kent (Costner plays him with appropriate and solid aplomb and is fine at being serious in this tone), especially with how his part in the story, uh, wraps up. But even as the structure and imagery drew me in, I kept thinking that 'hmm, maybe a little less telling and more showing, like the bus scene, that makes me feel something, almost, sort of'. But there's little time for that since by the halfway point Clark finds his deeper Kal-El roots, sees Russell Crowe in hologram form, and is told about the "Great things" he will do. And for all the misgivings it's hard to not feel something when he flies high.
If this sounds like a mixed review it's because it is. I was with the movie, up to a point, for about the first hour, 80 minutes or so, despite some issues with Goyer's dialog. But by a certain point, once Zod has to get into his whole plot to destroy earth (and to be fair Shannon gives him some degree of bad-guy gravitas that helps off-set some of Cavill's blandness), then you got to watch lots and lots and lots of CGI pummeling. It's not even *bad*, it's more like a dull repetitive thud, where the color palette is washed out and gray and brown, and the hand-held camera-work, which fits the first part of the movie that's attempting (in an honestly admirable way) a more independent-feeling feature, turns into a nightmare of camera-work.
And then the ending... it's less something to get angry about (though I could easily be) than just a 'wait... that's it?' I saw this movie once in 2013 in the theater and it didn't necessarily register quite how much damage was being done to the city. That's contrary to how much people lost their collective minds over what happens in this climactic rumble in Metropolis, that Superman would try to fins another way. I think what bothered me wasn't that so much - that's de-rigur in a number of movies (though Avengers did a better job of attempting to get civilians out) - what bothered me was just shoddy action direction; Snyder is obsessed with getting COOL looking images, but it becomes chaotic and the CGI lacks any real depth. It turns into something that is less about capturing something close to photo-realism than as a cartoon with the brooding nature of 1985's Come & See. I mean, come on.
It's not without its merits, but its a work of popular art that loses any potential before it even gets going. When Michael Shannon shouting "HERESY!" and "I WILL FIND HIM!" are your most memorable moments (along with a notorious death scene), you got problems.