Entertaining, but bland and generic.

Rating: 5/10 (6 January 2014)

If you're looking for a generic superhero movie, then you've come to the right place. "Man of Steel" offers everything your standard superhero movie should have. An attractive lead star clad in a suitably cinematic outfit (he's even got a cape!) with some mind-blowing powers, facing down enemies with similarly nasty powers and some very big spaceships. And don't worry, there's plenty of explosions, rubble and torn up roads added into the mix.
Sadly, that's about all this film offers, which relegates "Man of Steel" to, well, a generic superhero movie. I am not, of course, downplaying the superhero movie genre for it can indeed produce some truly brilliant films. But where "The Dark Knight" trilogy was dark, gritty and realistic and where "The Avengers" was ambitious in its concept and simply hilarious, and where "Iron Man 3" saw great character development of Tony Stark, "Man of Steel" offers nothing. The story starts of promising enough, touching upon what is a gripping and entertaining theme - with some spectacular visuals to boot – it goes downhill from there, descending into what is the very bare bones of any superhero move. Even the 'discovering himself' part of the film is too bland and too usual.
While you can't fault the effects, there's very little other substance in the film, very little character development, very little emotion and even the 'problem' of the film is not really very problematic. There's no moment, unlike in, say, "The Dark Knight Rises" where we think 'hell, how on Earth is he going to get out of this one?' The latter point is particularly disappointing as director Zach Snyder had some great material to work with – the universally recognizable kryptonite – which could have really made us bite our nails in suspense at Superman's predicament.
But there's almost nothing like any of that in the film. The vast, vast majority of the film you are simply sitting, unmoving and unemotional, watching explosion after destroyed building after explosion. You're never sitting on the edge of your seat, you're never shocked and you're probably never moved to even contemplate crying. The rare emotional moments come in a series of flashbacks of Clark's past life, which makes me think that this film would have been far better off as an origin movie, chartering how Superman came to discover his powers and adapt in this alien world in which he finds himself growing up.
To sum up, this is a solidly entertaining film, with some fantastic effects and decent acting and a passable plot. Don't get me wrong, effects and action are great, but a film needs something more but this one does have any more. It lacks substance and has very little meat on the bones, as it were. Instead, "Man of Steel" tries to make up for this by adding in yet more explosions and other effects. Does it make up for it? No, it doesn't.

Ed