A wasted opportunity

Rating: 2/10 (23 June 2013)

I came into those movie with the typical background: saw the original Reeve/Kidder Superman, some of the ones after that, and most recently "Superman Returns". I enjoyed Superman Returns and was hoping that this movie would equal or surpass that one, and keep the franchise alive. I was severely disappointed.
How can you start to make a Superman movie, with so many plot angles to take, and just end up with a documentary on how to CGI a complete city destruction? The action sequences which occupy the last half of the movie were stultifyingly boring, with missiles firing, planes crashing, people being blown up, buildings falling over, and Zod and Superman duking it out like two Hulks going at it. This made the movie seem much longer than it was. Good for GCI buffs, but inappropriate for portraying the Superman character. in all prior movies, the important character point would be that there are 100s if not 1000s of people that need to be saved in those building, and Superman would try to save them. Yet obviously people are killed and maimed when Zod and Superman battle, and the movie showed no concern, or even images, of their plight, other than a few of his colleagues of the Daily Planet. In all prior Superman movies, this disdain for human collateral damage would have been unheard of.
What little story was contained in a few scenes with his Earth mother and father, portrayed by Diane Lane and Kevin Costner, and their scenes were the emotional anchor for the entire movie. But all that was contained in a few minutes of flashback. Russell Crowe should not have been in the movie at all, for all the impact he made. It was ironic that for most of the movie he played a hologram that could be shut off by inserting a keyfob into a keyhole.
I disliked the Superman character from the number of standpoints: First is his physical presence, because he has a super-human physique as a young man. He stands out among the crowd, so how can you suspend your realization that this guy is built like a muscle- bound weightlifter, and possibly can perform super-human feats of strength. Second his appearance as a young man made him appear moody and foreboding, to the point he almost looked menacing. Not exactly the mental image one has of a young Clark Kent. If they got that characterization wrong, you can imagine how wrong they got Lois Lane.