Most overrated movie I've seen in a while

Rating: 5/10 (20 July 2013)

Before I start this review, a quick disclaimer: I've never been that much of a Superman fan. I've only seen the original 1978 film and Superman Returns, and I've never read any of the comics. As such, I'm judging this movie entirely based on its own quality, and not how true it was to the character.
I'll also refrain from comparing it to the 2 other SM movies I've seen, except to say that enjoyed both of them more than Man of Steel. Now I've read and watched reviews of this thing from people who really bloody despised it, but I didn't think it was quite that bad. Granted, I get pretty p!$$&d off when I hear people say how amazing it was, but objectively speaking, it was just a mediocre film. No better, no worse.
I could spend all day nitpicking the living $#!+ out of MoS, but the biggest problem I had was that it was unbearably pretentious. They really oversold how similar Steel would be to Chris Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy, just because Nolan was the producer, and it seemed like they were going for a similar tone with this film, but the difference is that Batman was simply a lot easier to take seriously than Superman. Part of this is because Batman is just a more realistic character since he doesn't have superpowers, but it's mainly that Nolan actually made the characters and the world of the Dark Knight a lot more believable through his skill in writing and directing, whereas MoS just begs the audience look past the cheesy acting and dialog and the over-the- top action, and insists on being taken seriously.
The film also tries to be philosophical at a few points, which, while I have to respect Zach Snyder for actually trying, just doesn't work. Both of the scenes I'm about to talk about now are spoilers. Ye be warned.
The movie alternates between the 'present day' and flashbacks to Clark Kent's early life. In the last flashback, a tornado hits Smallville while Clark is on the road with his adoptive parents. Everyone else on the road makes it to safety pretty much on their own, including the Kents, but they realize too late that they left their dog in the truck. Rather than allow super-powered Clark to take care of the problem, Jonathan Kent (Kevin Costner in yet another nothing role) decides to go save the day himself. He rescues the dog, and then REFUSES TO LET SUPERMAN SAVE HIM FROM THE TORNADO. Now this is not to prevent Clark from revealing his secret, because most of the town already knows that Clark has powers because of an early incident where he saves a bus full of school kids from sinking. After that, Pa Kent basically tells Clark that he shouldn't have saved those children from drowning. His logic is that ordinary humans will fear and reject Clark/Kal-El for being different. I like this concept, but unfortunately, pesky stuff like plot and common sense gets in the way of it actually working.
Anyway, that lesson seems to stick with Superman, because not only does he respect not-uncle- Ben's wish and let him die in a tornado, but the only person he lifts a finger to help for the rest of the movie is Lois Lane (Amy Adams). And I'm going on a bit of a tangent right now, but Lois has no reason to be in the movie except to give the movie a half-baked love subplot (and maybe a little more credibility by shoehorning in an Oscar-nominated actress). But back to Superman saving innocent people -- oh that's right, he doesn't. In the outstandingly bloated final battle (which is around 30 to 40 minutes by most counts), Kal El does not save a single innocent life during his fight with Zod (hilariously played by over-actor Michael Shannon). Not only that, but the two of them seem destroy at least half of Metropolis (although in some shots it looks like the entire city is wiped out).
And now for the second pretentiously pseudo-philosophical scene. After causing an untold amount of death and destruction that puts all three of the main Dark Knight villains to shame, Superman gains the upper hand on General Zod, who then uses his heat vision to menace four innocent bystanders who could easily run away. Superman politely asks Zod to stop, and when that fails, he snaps Zod's neck. Now a lot of people complain about this scene simply because 'Superman doesn't kill people.' Man of Steel apologists say that it was symbolic of Superman being forced to choose Earth over Krypton and essentially commit genocide against his own race. While I understand the latter argument, I just want the film's defenders to consider one thing: HE COULD HAVE JUST COVERED ZOD'S EYES. There, I solved the dilemma. You're welcome, Superman.
Well I could keep going with negative points, but that's about all of the major problems I had with Man of Steel. As for positives, I did like Russell Crowe (Jor El), Amy Adams, and Lawrence Fishburne (Perry White). Those three actors are great in just about everything, and Crowe almost singlehandedly makes the movie watchable, and the highlight of the film is his scene with Amy Adams (who, again, is good in the movie even though her character is pointless). The only other good thing I can really say about this movie is that it could have been amazing, but the execution of all the great ideas was just... bad. I would say this is Snyder's worst movie by far (I loved 300 and Watchmen), but I haven't seen Sucker Punch, and from what I've heard, I'm sure that Sucker Punch is worse.