Outstanding action can't overcome poor story and character development

Rating: 5/10 (5 August 2016)

With the release of DC's Batman vs. Superman and Suicide Squad, I felt compelled to revisit this movie, to see if my opinion would change. To my surprise, my opinion did change slightly, but I still think that this is a pretty mediocre movie.
First, if by some small chance you don't know what this movie is about, Man of Steel is a retelling of Superman's origins. The movie opens with a bang, literally, as Krypton is about to explode. But once Superman's ship is about to land on Earth, the trouble starts. For the next hour or so the movie adopts a non-linear structure, flashing back between Clark's adulthood and childhood attempting to tell his origin story. To me, these scenes were structured pretty haphazardly. A lot of scenes feel misplaced and some key emotional scenes would have had more impact if the film had a more traditional, linear structure. For example, the scene where Superman dons his uniform for the first time isn't moving or exciting because Superman still feels like a stranger. We go from Superman being an adult in the present, to being a kid, then back to the present, then at one point he's a teenager, then he's an adult again but it's in the recent past, and then he's a teenager. It's all over the place. The "origin" part of the movie is just a collection of disjointed moments that provide some necessary exposition and allows characters to pontificate about Superman's life mission. The movie should have SHOWN us who Superman is through his actions and experiences. This origin sequence is easily the weakest part of the film. It doesn't flow well and it is almost impossible to really become invested in.
The movie takes on a more traditional structure about halfway into the picture. After Clark Kent discovers a Kryptonian space ship in the arctic, he meets a holographic projection of his real father, Jor-el, who gives him a long lecture about what a savior he can be. Unfortunately Superman activates a distress beacon on the ship, which attracts the evil Kryptonian General Zod and his small paramilitary force. Zod invades earth with the full intention of rebuilding Krypton – and he does not want to share the planet with humans. The movie is almost entirely action sequences from this moment on, and I was just happy that the movie had direction.
The action sequences are pretty fun and visually amazing, and they've taken a lot of flack. Yes, there are moments where Superman behaves pretty stupidly and causes damage to buildings that he could have avoided. I chalk this up to Snyder just wanting to make up for the slow first half of the movie by giving us a loud finish. I found these moments irritating, but they didn't bother me as much as they did the first time. Superman DOES save people in Smallville, and by the time the fighting in Metropolis starts, the city is mostly abandoned.
(SPOILERS) Then of course there's the infamous moment where Superman kills General Zod. I don't have a problem with Superman killing per se, but if Superman had just been developed a little better then maybe his decision to kill would have had some weight. I would go so far as to say that he doesn't really have a defined moral code in this movie, so his pain and anguish over killing Zod doesn't really make sense. (END SPOILERS)
By the end of the movie, I think I can extrapolate where they wanted to go with this Superman, but it could have been done so much more effectively. Warner Bros. and Director Zack Snyder wanted to give this Superman a darker edge so much that they made some pretty bad story decisions, especially with Clark's relationship with his parents. The creative minds behind this film are aware that Superman needs to have a pretty optimistic belief system, but it's really hard to see where he gets that from. Clark's parents actively dissuade him from using his powers because they think people will be scared of him, which I understand, but the movie really doesn't show us why Clark should buy into it or why he decides to buck his parent's advice when he does. This desire to go dark and downbeat culminated into the worst scene in the movie in my opinion. (MAJOR SPOILERS) In one flashback, Jonathan Kent is about to die in a tornado, and he tells Clark not to save him in order to preserve his secret. To my disbelief, Clark obeyed. This made no sense to me - Clark was a grown man at that point, and if saving his father isn't a reason to expose his powers I don't know what is. Clark being scared of the unknown result of exposing his powers, even as a grown man, didn't really have much credibility in my mind. Jonathan Kent even said at an earlier point that some day Clark will change the world and he hoped it would be for the better. What better moment for Clark to go against his dad's wishes than by saving his life? THIS is the moment where Superman should have been born in my opinion. Clark deciding to do what was right rather than what was safe would have helped this film so much. It would have been much more effective than Clark deciding to don the red cape after hearing a computer projection of his dead Kryptonian father lecture him on why he needs to be Earth's savior. The movie thinks it's being "deep" or "mature" when it's really just dumb.
To sum it up, this movie's story is a muddled mess, but it has impressive visuals, competent performances, good action scenes, and a good score. It was a weak start to the franchise that really crippled the future of the DC movie universe. Oh well. There's still television.