Man of S***

Rating: 1/10 (13 July 2013)

Man of Steel.... you could have been so great. You could have brought us a new superhero franchise to look forward to, something akin to the Dark Knight Trilogy. Instead you brought a failure of a movie, in almost all regards. Before I continue though, I should let all you readers know that my ranking for this movie is not 1 out of 10, as the stars may indicate. My real rating will come at the end of this review. The reason I put up 1 star in the rating section is because I feel that the overall rating is far too high, and this is my foolish attempt to counteract that rating. Now then, let's take a look at Man of Steel, and why it goes so terribly wrong.
First off, I am not a superman fan. In fact, I am not much of a superhero fan. Thus, I never review superhero movies by how closely they follow the source material, nor do I get upset when a superhero movie spits in the face of its source material. I look at Superhero movies as regular movies, judging them by how well they perform in the parameters they create for themselves. And it is as a regular movie, that Man of Steel truly fails.
Plot: First and foremost, I thought the plot was... so - so. It certainly had potential, and it most certainly could have entertained. The problem is, it didn't. The first half of the movie started out great. We get some interesting back story, character development, etc. But the moment Superman leaves General Zod's ship, the s*** really hits the fan. All plot is dropped, dialogue goes to hell, all hope is lost. It seems as if those who made this movie simply gave up and figured an hour of explosions and fight scenes would carry this movie to the finish line. Suffice to say, it fails miserably, leaving the viewer in a furious rage. In addition, there are numerous plot holes in this movie, far too many for me to deal with, as I'm sure other reviewers already have.
Direction: I am aware that there are some people who enjoy Zack Snyder's work. I am not one of them. The man is a total buffoon and should not be let anywhere near a camera. He may believe his work is edgy and unique, but it is simply annoying. Why won't the camera stay still? Why can't it give us a direct angle? Why won't it focus on what is actually going on in the scene instead of leaving most of the action off to the side of the picture? Watching this movie is like experiencing a dream. You wake up knowing what happened in the dream, but you can't really recall ever seeing the events unfold. That's because you didn't, because the bloody camera wouldn't stay still long enough to let you see what's happening. Another problem is the editing. I swear they managed to fit in hundreds of different shots in one 5 minute scene. Needless to say, the direction was my least favorite part of this movie.
Screenplay: Simply terrible. This screenplay is simply terrible. The dialogue makes me want to kill myself. It's that bad. If you're used to smart dialogue from such classics as the Godfather, Pulp Fiction, or Goodfellas, be prepared to want to rip your ears off. Trust me, if you're not deaf after the sound effects in this movie (more on this later), you'll wish you had been.I cannot believe David S. Goyer, who worked on the Dark Knight, managed to put out this garbage. If you ever watch another film with Chris Nolan attached, be sure its Jonathon Nolan writing the screenplay, and not this hack.
Special Effects: Reasonably good. Personally, I hate movies that overuse special effects (and when I say overuse, I mean they're used in just about every scene). No special effect, no matter how good, is ever going to convince me that it's real. But that's not where this movie suffers. Where it really falls apart is the sound effects, which are simply brutal on the ears. An hour of loud explosion sounds does not exactly make up for the terrible dialogue.
Acting: Probably the best part of the movie. I have no reason to fault the actors. They did the best with what they were given. No Oscar winners here, but they did an admirable job.
So, in conclusion, this is movie that fails in just about every way possible. By the end, I simply wanted to leave and forget about it. For that reason, I give it 3 out of 10 stars, as the the first half was watchable and the acting was pretty good.