Not the greatest superhero movie ever but maybe the great Superman movie yet.

Rating: 9/10 (18 July 2013)

Zack Snyder's dark take in Man of Steel, a la Christopher Nolan's Gotham, really worked in my opinion. I've always felt that Superman had one of the more tragic of backgrounds and the more uplifting and happier stories never felt genuine. Richard Roeper's criticism that "There's very little humor or joy in this Superman story" or Rafer Guzman's criticism that "this reboot skimps on fun and romance" shows just how many critics missed the point. This isn't a kid's story, period! Leave all of those childish and whimsical expectations at home. In my opinion, this grittier version really hit home and took the drama and intensity to whole new levels. While it failed to deliver on the level of the some of the Avengers: Phase One films and definitely wasn't on the level with any of the movies from the Dark Knight Trilogy, it was still a great movie. The acting was really good, especially from Amy Adams in her supporting role. She managed to turn a character without a lot of development into one with a surprising amount of depth and believability. And Henry Cavill was great as Superman/Kal-El, probably my favorite yet. The supporting roles by Michael Shannon, Diane Lane, Russell Crowe, Kevin Costner, and so on were all also fantastic. I don't think I can remember a movie where all of the supporting roles were played by people more famous than the protagonist but that was the case here and it worked because of Cavill's performance and how the movie was laid out. The action sequences were great, as was to be expected, and the way the plot developed was not annoying as most critics claimed. Many felt like the constant back-and-forth hurt the film's progression but I actually quite liked it. It kept the two and a half hour movie from dragging and felt fresh. The one flaw that I felt actually took a bit away from the movie, however, was the shaky-camera cinematic effect. I'm sorry but this isn't a world where the audience is going to feel the "we're there" and in the actual scene itself. All that did was make you wish it wasn't there. Overall though, this was a great movie and while I've never been a big fan of the Superman lore, if you can remove bias and suspend quite a bit of disbelief I think most would really enjoy it.