A flawed but admirable effort

Rating: 6/10 (9 February 2015)

I guess one can say that 'Man of Steel' is quite a controversial piece of work. People who like it praise it as one of the best superhero movies ever, while people who hate it can keep making hundreds of jokes about how ridiculous it is. Personally, I find myself agree and disagree with both sides.
The movie can be separated into two parts, the first is about Clark Kent's origin, and his journey before taking on the cape, and the second is when General Zod attacks and fighting ensues.
The first part is pretty good. It takes the familiar Superman's origin story, and put some twists on it, which not only make it much less boring, but also provide a significantly good insight into Clark Kent's personalities and everyday struggles. The Clark Kent of this movie is not portrayed as the flawless heroic icon that he usually is, but rather as a brave and responsible but very confused and inexperienced young man. That's why he makes plenty of fatal mistakes, which make him a lot more human, likable and easy to relate to, instead of predictable and boring like the old Superman that we're used to. I find that a lot of criticism for the movie comes from people who simply can't understand this side of the character. They seem to expect the perfect hero like usual and can't look past the action to see the man behind it.
Then comes the second part, which is probably not bad if you're a die-hard action fan, but I myself think is quite dull. The action in this part tends to drag out too much at a constantly fast pace that soon becomes very frustrating, especially when the Kryptonians' fighting style here doesn't involve beautiful, eye-catching techniques but usually just flying around at high speed, punching, and throwing stuff at each other.
Other than that, the cast are all good, especially Henry Cavill and Kevin Costner, and the visuals is terrific, as you would expect from a movie by Zack Snyder.
I considered 'Man of Steel' a quite admirable and somewhat successful effort to update Superman. Although it's not perfect, it accomplished what it set out to do: making Superman much more interesting and memorable, and opening up a lot of possibilities for future sequels.