Big Let-down

Rating: 4/10 (21 June 2013)

I am sad to say that Man of Steel was easily the biggest disappointment of the year so far. Now, before everyone starts to hate me, just let it be clear that I by no means think this is a bad movie. In fact I think that the grade I am giving it is a perfectly enjoyable movie, but since I was looking forward to this movie so much, it came up a little shorter than I was expecting it to.
Man of Steel is easily the most action packed movie of the year so far. And to a certain point, this was a good thing, since the action is so carefully crafted. But its like the whole movie is action, there is no breaks to catch your breath. It leaves no room for character development and sometimes you don't even care about what happens to some of the characters in drastic situations. Now, when the emotional scenes were present, they were terrific. But after a while it did not seem to matter because there was no room for development, especially the romance between Clark and Lois. Its almost as though it happened instantly which I could not buy.
A reason this all could have happened is due to the plot structure the makers chose to take, which I found unsuccessful. It really bothered me that they did not build up to Clark's "Superman days". The flashbacks to the kiddie days just seemed to be unimportant, because as I said they were so underdeveloped. I would have rather seen it chronologically.
The fight scenes were also a major set off for me. The last 20 minutes or so are just huge destruction over and over again between Clark and Zod. It seemed like it was trying to be big and epic for the sake of being epic. One part where Zod spins Clark around and he goes flying through 10 different skyscrapers and took each of them out seems a little ridiculous. And then for it to end with Kal-El just easily snapping Zod's neck in a split second made the whole last half hour of the film seem useless. This half an hour could have easily been used for more important material, as I so described before.
Now, as I said I did not hate it what so ever. I loved the acting and I think all characters were very properly casted. (Except for Michael Shannon, ugh). The action was brilliantly executed (though it dragged on forever). The score was perfect for each scene and it was a terrific complement for the screenplay, creating perfect harmony. I just think we deserved a little more from Nolan, and the Man of Steel himself.
GRADE: B-