Looks good, but lazy and messy as a whole.

Rating: 5/10 (24 April 2014)

Going without spoilers here, just because there might be a couple people left who haven't seen this.
I'm not a fan of Superman myself, and although he's more of a concept than a character, I can appreciate what Superman stands for. I remember liking Richard Donner's Superman movie quite a bit, and I think it hasn't been topped.
From the beginning, it's clear that this isn't a fun movie. It tries to be as serious as it possibly can. I don't like the choice, but I can go with it. If you're going to make a super-serious Superman film, you're going to have to do it right.
Instead, as a film, "Man of Steel" is clunky. Things happen because the script demands it, and much sense goes out of the window. Many characters and the actions they take are just plot/exposition devices and only some of it felt natural to me. That takes me out of a movie, and usually gets me angry at the overall laziness of the story. I won't blame the actors, because even Amy Adams (not fond of her that much) manages at times to bring even a little life to her badly handled character, and Shannon/Crowe/Costner I like in almost everything, in this one too, but mainly because they're Shannon/Crowe/Costner. Cavill is probably good enough, because playing a concept is hard and even though the film tries, he isn't given much to work with.
The story is a bit of a shoddy mess, but the pacing in some areas is handled well. We get a lot of Krypton in the beginning which is a nice idea, and Superman's childhood is only referenced in several flashbacks, without forcing us to go that route again. This is funny though, because I wanted the movie to get the childhood-part over fast without dwelling in it, but those moments were the best this movie had to offer.
So you don't get a naturally engaging story or natural characters as much as clunky script and exposition, but you do get a lot of action and power displays. If you're a fan of Superman's powers more than the character, you'll get a lot of good-looking destruction porn. If you think movies don't have enough action nowadays, you'll appreciate this one. You get tons and tons of action, destruction and chaos. And I admit, it's very cool to watch at first and the thumping soundtrack is all over the place.
...but because I'm getting old, the never-ending action gets boring quickly and the otherwise competent soundtrack felt like it was beating my head with "BE EXCITED! CARE! CARE ABOUT WHAT'S HAPPENING! THIS IS WAR!" - emotion it tried to convey. First I had excitement, then I had just fatigue. Ultimately, I didn't care.
What good did I get out of this movie? I got some good intentions. Focusing on Krypton at the beginning was a nice idea, handling the childhood in flashbacks worked for me too. Some moments, especially with Costner, I found to be good. Visuals - although with a too gloomy, "serious" blue color palette - were outstanding. That's about it.
Otherwise I got a mess full of convenient stupidities, unnatural characters I don't care about and another proof that a Superman-movie is hard to make. This one tried to go with a serious tone and tons of action, but when that's all you really got, you're just a notch over a Transformers movie. Those at least don't pretend to be deep.
Richard Donner is still the boss. "Man of Steel" is a completely joyless action movie that left me disconnected and tired. I can easily understand those that like this movie, but I couldn't bare to watch it again.