I was expecting so much more.

Rating: 3/10 (19 June 2013)

I saw all the trailers for this and thought it looked amazing. I hoped it would be better than Superman Returns, which I thought was mediocre at best. This film, I'm sorry to say, was worse.
It started off well- I thought the opening sequence looked great- but it was a little bit rushed. From then on the film just got worse.
It was disjointed- the back story was told via flashbacks that interrupted the flow of the story to the point where I wasn't entirely sure which parts were flashbacks and which sequences were the main story.
There were huge plot holes- why couldn't more Kryptons escape? How did Superman's suit end up in a spaceship encased in ice (by his father), 3000 years before the events of the movie? It takes Superman a lifetime to master his senses on earth but General Zod manages it in 5 minutes? How did Clarke suddenly come out of the spaceship (which he seems to instinctively know how to control) and know that he can fly? How come he can breathe in the vacuum of space but not in General Zod's ship? I could go on here, but I'll stop myself and move on.
The main thing that bothered me was the exhaustive use of special effects for explosions and fight sequences that seemed to drag on forever. I know that it is a superhero movie and they are par for the course, but I don't think I have ever seen so many CG sequences in so short a space of time before! (This is coming from someone who loves the Avengers Assemble, Iron Man etc., as well as action movies in general!)
Half way through the film I was praying that there wouldn't be any more fight sequences because I was tired of the film makers showing off the special effects. Yes, they were amazing and they know how to make the explosions and fights look cool, but multiple explosions does not make up for the many plot mistakes or the fact that the script is so weak that you don't really care what happens to the characters. If they had focused more on the story and actually had the effects contribute to the plot then they would have had a winner!
The only thing that saved the film were the acting- I thought by and large it was pretty good. I should also say that the effects were good- which they were-but they need to know when to use them rather than just sticking them in the film to make it "interesting."