Superman is just too Super for reality, or cinema.

Rating: 6/10 (20 June 2013)

When I saw that Man of Steel had received only a 55% from metacritic, but an 8.4 from IMDb, I was slightly worried. Movies that are excellent tend to garner high marks on both fronts; why wasn't this one? As a fan of Superman, I didn't let it stop me, and I went to enjoy it with my girlfriend in an IMAX 3D theater. She wasn't happy with me by the end of the film.
Different types of fans, different audiences, will love or hate the movie. As a fan, I say it is worth watching only once. The fighting scenes are hard to bare as the camera quickly pans over large areas to keep focus on the protagonists as they quickly and violently move through space. As a viewer, focusing required a proactive effort that left me tired. The visuals aren't all that bad - the scenes on Krypton are quite beautiful, and I read somewhere the Krypton style is Gothic meets Organic/Natural, and I agree.
As for plot...it's been done and re-done and it's not what is interesting. The action is more interesting than the story; but what the focus should be on is Superman's development and that... unfortunately... was scattered and shallow. The director tried to explore far too much in far too little time and as a result, the audience is left feeling frustrated. Fans of Smallville will agree with me as they won't be satisfied with the few scenes highlighting the humanizing internal struggle Clark Kent went through growing up.
That being said the movie is worth watching. The director made a valiant effort to bring to life a super-god-super-hero. (the only super hero to go to the edge of the universe and back). It's really hard to convey the amazingness of superman on screen - he is a hero fit only for the comic book where creative freedom is such that one can really explore the limits of the possible for a god.