21th century Superman

Rating: 8/10 (7 November 2013)

Henry Cavill is doing his best to play Michael Fassbender playing Superman in this movie :-), and he does a very decent job. I couldn't have imagined a better modern Lois Lane than lovely Amy Adams and Michael Shannon is a great Zod, so casting is top notch. Of course, a bit of Kevin Costner, Diane Lane, Laurence Fishburne and Russell Crowe as supporting actors didn't hurt either. And I expect to hear more from the delicious Antje Traue.
When one thinks of Superman, they get an image which is more or less different based on when that person was born. You have the funny old Superman, flying in his pajamas in comic books, you have Christopher Reeves battling a diabolical Gene Hackman, maybe one of the TV series Supermen or even a cartoon Superman, either from TV or some console game. The fact is that it is increasingly difficult to talk about the same character with so many reinventions in as many eras. In the 21th century, Lois Lane is an independent woman who doesn't need to swoon over Superman and she knows that he is Clark Kent, even under the clever disguise of large rimmed glasses. The origin story is also retouched a little, with a very nice intro on Krypton, laden with special effects.
I liked that the space and ship camera work (as well as some of the supporting cast) were borrowed from Battlestar Galactica. The same slightly shaky quick zooms and camera turns, like there is an observer in space eager to record events. The 3D touch interface that the aliens used was also interesting, as design goes, even if I think it would have been impractical in real life.
So overall a very good Superman movie (considering the bar was very low to begin with), but there were things that were not as good. One of them is the physics of things. Very difficult to gauge what level of physical violence will hurt or not a Kryptonian, as they seem to respond randomly to varying methods of attack or to forces like inertia. New York is destroyed almost completely just because sir Punch-a-lot would not fight in a field or a small town and kept going to space and then returning to smash in the buildings of New York again. After he has finished with Zod, the Big Apple must have looked like an Apple logo. The fighting also took a lot of time out of the movie in detriment of character building scenes.
But I think that what is the best feature of Superman is that none of the characters is stupid. Zod is brutal and, from our standpoint, probably insane, but he has layers of complexity that show him acting within reason. His fascist female sidekick is also believable as a villain. The military, as outgunned as they are, don't act like complete morons. Superman is not just acting cool, he is also capable of thought. I really enjoyed a film that doesn't treat its audience like it's too stupid to understand complex characters.
Bottom line: for a Superman movie, this is probably one of the best, if not the best. A well chosen Lex Luthor will probably make the new revamped Superman be even cooler in the sequels. I would love to see a sequel with Doomsday as the villain, too! Not much humor in the film, though. I felt that as a loss.