No Superman here...

Rating: 1/10 (16 July 2013)

Live action filmmakers apparently don't know anything about Superman. I should warn you, I think the best Superman adaptation has been in animation, especially the animated series of the 90s with Tim Daly as Superman. Superman is always the boy scout, the Captain America of the DC Universe, honest, noble, brave and true. This is not the case in Man of Steel. The filmmakers were confused by Nolan. Nolan created a realistic and dark, brooding Batman series. Here is the problem. Batman is not realistic. And neither is Superman. You can't make Superman a dark, brooding individual who's confused about who he is.
The worst line in the movie is when Pa Kent says, "You should've let the boy die." He is referring to when young Clark rescues a bus full of children. Pa Kent would never, ever in a million years, say anything like this. Pa Kent is the same as Superman, honest, noble brave and true, a small-time farmer who has the simplest and heartfelt take on life. He just said you should've let people die...wrong. Superman is not like Batman, you can't turn him into a dark character, because that's not who he is. Nolan for some reason became the Joss Whedon of Marvel. Simply because Nolan had a hit with Batman, doesn't mean he should sheperd all upcoming DC films.
Whedon gets the game; he knows the characters and has even written quite a few comics. Nolan is a one note filmmaker, and he's not the best person to oversee DC. Also, Nolan is overpraised as a director, I say. Onto Zack Snyder, one of the worst filmmakers today. Snyder has no directing style. He simply thinks if he puts in an absurd amount of slow motion, that it will turn into gold. That's not how filmmaking works. Warner Bros. simply hired him because he was cheap and he made a cheap Superman. Warner Bros. clearly hired the wrong man for the job. Duncan Jones was even in the run, a far more visual and stylistic filmmaker than Snyder.
Snyder thinks that if he puts it in slow motion, it's cool. Wrong, the Wachowskis only put slow motion in the Matrix when it worked, not the whole movie. Snyder overuses a zoom in shot 5 times simply because he's not a stylistic filmmaker. It's the same shot Abrmas used in STar Trek, when they're space jumping to the drill in the first film, and then the Vengeance is falling through the atmosphere to San Francisco. Snyder merely saw other better films, and decided to rip them off, saying "hey that scene is cool and better than mine, maybe I'll out in there." Man of Steel is like a stupid combination of Transformers and JJ Abrams' Star Trek series. When Superman is battling the earth eating device, for no reason, Transformers Michael Bay tentacles suddenly come out and start attacking him. Okay....Also, Zod is defeated by a black hole device, sound familiar Embassador Spock? Its embarrassing that the first 20 minutes of the film on Krypton rip off Avatar, another terrible film. The filmmakers even got Krypton wrong. Krypton is supposed to be a paradise planet, no war, no disease, like the Amazon. Instead, Krypton is a sterile and cold, wasteland like planet, and you don't really feel sorry for seeing it blow up. Even Zod is left something to be desired. Shannon is rather William Shatner hammy as the villain. Zod should have been more like Khan, from Star Trek Into Darkness. Zod doesn't need armor, just needing a simple motivation for revenge would be fine for him. Killing Jor-El was also a mistake, yeah spoilers, he kills Jor-El, with immediately killed for me the hope of seeing his revenge story. Zod's costume should have been more like Khan's in Into Darkness, and funny enough, that's what other versions of his costume looked like.
Perry White doesn't do anything in the film, not one thing, he's just there because he's Perry White. Lois Lane also doesn't do anything, she's simple there because she's Lois Lane and her primary role in the film is to be rescued by Superman. Wow, you just destroyed the character of Lois Lane already. She's supposed to be a tough, self reliant and powerful leading lady for Superman. In this she's taken into a secret military base studying aliens and taken onto the secret military jet to destroy Zod's world eating device, then Zod takes her onto his ship...for no reason at all, simply because she's Lois Lane. Reporters would never be allowed to see these things. Her only role in the film is to be saved by Superman.
The nail in the coffin is the end fight with Superman and Zod. Spoilers, Metropolis is completely destroyed, knocking over 50 skyscrapers in their fight in the process, killing thousands. Superman and Zod are locked in a death grip, Zod about to use his heat vision to kill 4 innocent people. Superman in an attempt to save them...breaks Zod's neck. Thousands of people are already dead and you're worried about 4 people? Superman would never cause such violent destruction, he would always put out fires, do everything to keep buildings from falling, vowing never to let go, lest he gets someone hurt, he even said this in the final episode of the Justice League series in his fight against Darkseid.
Superman finds a ship that contains his suit and Jor-El's memories. Yeah, spoilers, no one designs his suit, not his mother or father, he simply finds it in a ship. Why was it there? Who used it before? Are you implying that 1000 years ago when the ships landed, they knew a Superman would be there? Are you implying someone was Superman before Superman? That really kills your whole, you're unique Clark theme in the movie...Superman simply finds his suit, which I thought was a laughable plot device, ruining Superman's back story. Watch the animated Superman instead.