Mediocre and Disjointed Effort

Rating: 4/10 (16 November 2013)

The latest attempt at making a movie about the legendary Superman has followed the ill fates of all the movies before it. Much like the Christopher Nolan Batman movies, "Man of Steel" reboots the story line to tell us the origin of the hero. However, where "Batman Begins" did this successfully, "Man of Steel" fails in its entirety.
The biggest issue I had with "Man of Steel" is how disjointed the movie was. It begins on Krypton when Kal El is sent to Earth after the failed coup of General Zod. After this prologue, we are immediately taken to see Clark working on an Oil Rig and saving the lives of man other men. As Clark makes his way through life, the viewer is treated (so to speak) to various non sequential flashbacks about his childhood. Rather than follow a linear pattern which is introduced in the film, the modern events continuously and sloppily jump back and forth in the past and present, resulting in a nonsensical mess.
One of the worst things about the movie is the death of Jonathan Kent. It is so melodramatic as the man simply stands there and lets a tornado slowly take him for apparently no real reason. It is supposed to be Kent's wish to save his son's abilities from exposure, but it is a futile attempt. With as quick as Clark can move, he could not only have saved his dad, but with the ample time given by the slow moving tornado, it appears Jonathan could have simply walked away from it. In the end, we end up with an attempt to mimic the scene in "Spider-Man" where the dying father figure passes an important life lesson to his son. However, no real lesson can be derived.
The fight scenes are not even good enough to save this dull movie. They are hard to follow, with the adversaries moving so fast that all the viewers see are flashes of fighting with colors indicating where each character is. They have some good moments but are mostly mediocre and boring.
A oft mentioned criticism of this film is that Superman kills Zod at the end of the film, against the well established moral compass of Superman. This, however, did not bother me at all. Superman was put in a position where he could allow a man to willingly and purposely murder innocent people and the only option he had was to kill the would be murderer. He made the only choice available to him.
While this was not the worst comic book movie ever made, it definitely ranks up high with them. When it was over, I felt nothing for any of the characters other than embarrassment that the writers would saddle them with such a lousy ending. It was painful.
I cannot really recommend this movie, but I cannot dismiss it either. Different people with different likes will have different impressions of it. For me, however, this film was dreadful and I will never rewatch it. A poor, poor effort.