Zack Snyder is snot

Rating: 2/10 (2 January 2016)

This film was given the major release treatment by corporate Hollywood upon its release: ad banners online, merchandise, large bus-stop ads and whatnot. Its just that, unfortunately, Zack Snyder couldn't tell a decent story if someone put a gun against his head and threatened to blow up the White House seventeen times.
What actually happens is this: (no ending spoilers!) Superman's home planet is in crisis, being destroyed and so, as Clark Kent, Supermanmanman must go to Earth, live as a human, but also deal with his superhuman abilities and ultimately get in a big "monster-mash" type battle with some dark clad extra-terrestrial superheros stolen from the 1980 film Superman 2.
Things Zack Snyder does not have: any sense of realism or restraint for his CG/visual effects sequences that are all overblown and therefore become meaningless. Any idea of what character interiority or naturalistic dialogue feels like. Any idea of structure for a compelling story. Any idea of depth.
That above paragraph has terrible syntax, in the hope that Snyder himself will bumble across this review, with his lumbering, crass tattoos and total lack of self awareness or intelligence and be all, like "hey, I just took the most popular, obvious film making formula of the last twenty years and screwed it up, totally. I'm practically a walking kick-me sign for middlebrow American failure and macho stupidity".
Anyway, all that aside folks, what's really wrong with MANOFSTEEL specifically is that the main protagonist's grungy background is given depth purely through things like color grading, not actual drama - also his step father dies in a natural disaster with zero recognition after the fact, and then Kents 'space daddy' played by ruddy, hard nosed Russell Crowe (obviously no relation) keeps re- appearing conveniently as a "hologram" after he'd actually died in the stories opening sequences on Krypton - making the sacrifice and dramatic weight of the issue meaningless.
But what about the superhero action sequences? Crap. Basically expensive computer rendered CG shows completely overblown battle sequences between the super super powered men-in-tights as they throw buses, smash thousands of bricks, sh*t fire etc. You can't have real dramatic tension when the characters are seemingly invincible, as numerous "mainstream" reviewers pointed out on the release of this massive turkey.
Speaking of turkey, the whole 'serious, earnest' vibe that MANOFSTEEL is supposed to have is enforced through color grading and artificial grain throughout - as if Snyder and co. could imitate the gravitas of the Dark Knight series by just removing color saturation etc, ie: the sort of thing you can do on some smart phones these days.