A thrilling and breathtaking plunge into the Superman mythos!

Rating: 9/10 (22 July 2013)

After reading critics reviews and witnessing first hand the hostility that Superman fans have toward this movie on the message boards, I was expecting this film to be truly terrible. A mere ho-hum film that would scant be worth my $9.00 admission (well $18, my girlfriend came too) I was pleasantly surprised to see that reviewers were giving it much too hard of a time, because it was fantastic!
I never say this about a movie, but I was literally gobsmacked. After watching this film, I can't help but concede this small fact: the movie garnered so much hate from critics because Zack Snyder rubs them the wrong way. He makes movies that HE wants to see, he makes them from the perspective of the fan and what THEY want to watch up on the big screen. I mean, I can't say I blame them for disliking Snyder, since he doesn't have much quality to his name, but it can't be denied that he really did Superman justice with this film. What quality his name has really shows in this film. The execution was exactly what Superman needed; because what is Superman if not a world filled with action, lives to be saved, and tough decisions to be made.
And for those who say that it was out of character for Kal El to kill Zod? He needed to kill Zod. Why you ask? That's simple. It's because Zod was blood thirsty; he wouldn't stop terrorizing Earth until he died, he said so himself before he and Kal took their fight to the skies. "This will end one of two ways Kal, either you die, or I do." Zod would have incinerated that innocent family had Kal not stopped him by killing him. There was no other way to stop Zod, because now that he was gaining power from the yellow sun, he was just as strong as Kal, perhaps even stronger, since he was born and bred to be a warrior. Zod's suit served to hone his strength, and when he shed the suit, he was better for it, having years of experience fighting on Kal, with all his training with that immense weight of the suit on his shoulders. Kal's choice was simple: let Zod kill that family and stand idly by, like he did when he let his father die, or step in and do something drastic. Also, this was his first romp as Superman: Zod was a maniac who couldn't be stopped, he was a murderer, a tyrant, and a lunatic. He murdered Jor-El in cold blood, and admitted that he would gladly do it again. He wanted to exact mass genocide on Earth and almost succeeded. Is that not enough to kill him? If you recall, Bruce Wayne let Ra's Al Ghul die for MUCH less than that, and no one batted an eye at that. You can say that Bruce let Ra's die and didn't physically kill him, but the whole scene with the train and the blowing up of the tracks was all his doing. He orchestrated the entire situation, and then let Ra's die rather than save him. Kal did what he needed to do, and killing Zod didn't make me hate him. As a matter of fact, it made me pity him, it made me feel how human he is, it made me like him for his faults and for his portrayal as a broken individual, rather than for being the epitome of perfection. For his entire life, Clark was forced by his parents to keep himself a secret; Jonathan and Martha damaged him psychologically, and all at once, he was forced to abandon a lifetime of repression and embrace who he was and show the world. He was thrust into being a hero without having time to prepare for it. And I think he did a damn good job with what he had.
Man of Steel was a thrill ride, and it was simply a great superhero film. If we could go in with open minds and not critics' expectations, we would enjoy films a whole lot more. Now, that's not to say that if you share a critic's opinion that you're wrong. That's not what I'm saying; after all, you're entitled to your opinion. I'm merely saying that personally, I really enjoyed this film. Snyder did a miraculous job modernizing Superman and making him relatable to us as a whole. I mean, xenophobia is a current and pressing issue, so why not explore it in the easiest way possible?
Plus, and let's be frank and not kid ourselves here, if Snyder and Nolan's names were switched on the marquee, this movie would have had MUCH more critical acclaim than it presently has now.
9/10 for me. It's as simple as that!