Loses itself when the action starts

Rating: 6/10 (18 June 2013)

In a nutshell, MOS is a little schizophrenic. The first half is beautiful, touching, well-written and goes on an engaging exploration of this iconic figure; but when the action starts it's almost as if a different writer and director took the helm. Shaky cam simultaneously adds to the sense of you being there in the middle of things but also makes it so you actually can't see what the hell is going on. The majority of the second half of MOS is basically a blurry cloud of dust and flames with occasional glimpses of the characters in the middle of it all.
The first half though - was a clean 9/10. The destruction of Krypton was a visual feast, the letting go of Cal El by his parents was genuinely touching and I even felt a tear welling. The film smartly jumped straight into adult-superman's life and presented his backstory with Jonathan and Martha as well-done flashbacks. Michael Shannon was incredible and sympathetic as Zod. Kevin Costner was simply brilliant (stole this movie imo).
It was all good until - well, I dunno what happened really, I guess the suits up on high decided that they had to meet a quota of destruction or something, so they just abandoned all story, characterization, and theme and went for the big light show.
Big, BIG shame.
The closing few minutes of the movie, do redeem it a little, but after the hour of shaky cam headache that came before it, it's too little too late to save everything.
Two major elements that made the Reeve movie so memorable are missing here. First, Lois knows who Kent is from the outset, so there's none of that tension of his discovery to be explored. Second, there's not even a single bar of homage to the iconic music in the theme of MOS. I understand that Snyder and Nolan were trying for a brave new direction but to remove those two supporting structures without replacing them with something similarly strong is just asking for the roof to come down.
All said and done though, I'm glad I saw it, it was mostly enjoyable, and being a superhero movie fanatic I'll probably own it on DVD as soon as the price drops to reasonable levels. But if you think it's going to be as solid or spectacular as The Avengers you'll be sorely disappointed.