The Superman of our era - 7,4/10

Rating: 7/10 (27 June 2013)

I have to admit that I'm writing this as a bit of a fan boy of DC Comics in general (Batman specifically). Now, I don't exactly know how long I've been waiting for this movie to come out, but I do know that it was a very long wait.
Let's begin with the fact that Zack Snyder made this movie, the person who gave us films such as Dawn of the dead, 300, Watchmen, Legend of the guardians, Sucker punch, and now Man of steel. I've always been a big fan of Zack Snyder because of him being a very visual (and visceral) director who literally makes comic books come to life, and I also think that Watchmen is one of the best comic book adaptation movies ever. I always found it very easy to invest emotionally in his movies and it has a lot to do with me being a comic book nerd in general, I don't find it weird at all that people don't but I still think that people trash Zack Snyder because it's fun, and very easy to do it. I don't think that I've ever read a "normal" review on one of his films, so when it comes to film reviews of Zack Snyder movies I hardly read them at all.
My expectations for this movie were very high, and I think they were somewhat met because I didn't have any big problems with the movie that I know a lot of other people had. And I loved the fact that he made this movie into a Sci-fi, because there's nothing in the Superman story itself that isn't Sci-fi, once you start to realize that, it will be a lot easier to swallow this whole movie (and the idea of it) while watching it because it is a very exhausting movie to watch. It was shot beautifully and the look of the film was just beautiful from the beginning to the end - It reminded me of Terrence Malick, especially since it wasn't a movie with a chronological order. You can always expect this from Zack Snyder, if you don't like his movies, you have to at least accept the fact that his movies are absolutely gorgeous to watch.
The cast of Man of steel was very good, and I like the fact that he got dramatic actors to fill up all the drama because that's what all those superhero movies are lacking in general, drama. Just because Superman has a lot of iconic characters it does not mean that all the actors have to give such performances. I've always been a big fan of very good drama and this is a good proof that it works all the time if you do it the right way. It also contributes to making the characters more human, which is clearly the vision they were aiming for. Henry Cavill, of course, was a great choice for our new Superman and I think that he is perfect for it. He's got the look and the physique for it, and the good thing with the physique is that he uses it for those action scenes when he is Superman and you obviously realize how big he is, but when all the drama starts to kick in, you forget the fact that we have a 200-something pound guy who is crying and that we are dealing with a person that was born on another planet but grew up on earth, giving him human emotions. Those were actually the bits which moved me a lot, where I was almost in tears - and also gave me chills.
My "problems" with this movie was that it was so fast-paced, and I understand why because they had a lot of ground to cover. But that still doesn't change the fact that I was extremely exhausted after watching it. I think both Snyder and Nolan has this obsession with Hans Zimmer scores, don't get me wrong, he is great and experiments a lot, but I don't think that you need his score during the whole entire movie even though it was great. There were some bits where I could've lived without some of the music, and again, not because it was bad, but because it felt as a distraction.
The last 30 minutes or so (I think) was just a big and epic fight, and I actually quite liked it. Because if you remember those TV-series (Justice league and so on) that's actually what it looked like, big cities and skyscrapers gets destroyed and so on, so I am not that chocked that Zack Snyder did it. And I think that if you find it chocking or annoying that so much gets destroyed in the end you probably had another thing in mind for the film, not saying it's a bad thing, but I think that if you want to show all Supermans powers and push him to those extreme limits, you have to bring up the scale of the film and that's exactly what Snyder did. But I have to say, if they make a sequel where they don't mention the fact that half of Metropolis got destroyed then I don't think it will be taken seriously and that whole "human" element will somewhat disappear.
A great movie that everyone should watch because it is the Superman of our era.