The All Encompassing Man of Steel Thread Spoilers!!!

[trackercowe]

I thought MoS had its own thread, but I can't seem to find it, so I am just going to start a new one just in case.

So I just came back from it, and overall I was quite satisfied. Not entirely sure why the critics are against it, but some are calling it a "love it or hate it" movie, which might be true. Others are against retelling the origin, which is a pretty dumb comment considering Superman's origin story hasn't been told since 1978.

First off I thought the action scenes were phenomenal, probably the best I've ever seen in a movie. If Snyder deserves any credit, it is for his choreography and CGI work on each of the action scenes throughout the movie (even if there were too many). Unlike say a Transformers movie you could actually tell what was happening during these scenes, and it wasn't a completely incomprehensible mess. Furthermore the flying scenes were also probably the best I've seen, and did actually make me believe that a man could fly. I really liked the battle scene in Smallville when Faora-Ul single handily took out a group of soldiers. The same goes with the battle battle with Zod/Superman, which makes me excited for a prospective Doomsday movie.

The acting throughout the movie was solid. There wasn't any stellar performances I suppose, but I did quite like Crowe, Cavill, and Shannon towards the end of the movie. Adams was a step up over Bosworth, but not quite at the level of the rest of the cast.

I also quite liked some of the major changes they made during the movie. Having Lois find out about Clark's secret was the right way to go. It gets tiring in all these movies how the hero's are able to maintain their secret identities from others, even when they are supposed to be smart people (like Lois Lane). What I did not like however was how easily she was able to find out his identity. You're telling me she could piece it all together in 30 seconds, and yet the military could not find out the same thing? Some fanboys have a problem that Superman kills Zod, but once again I feel that is a nice change depending upon where they go with it. It might be Superman's golden rule, but it's an interesting choice for him to break that rule in his first movie. Plus he snapped Zod's neck! That was pretty bad ass.

Now there were quite a few things I did have problems with though. The pacing at the beginning of the movie was quite poor, especially with the use of flashbacks. They should have just stuck to a linear story rather than have the occasional flashback come up every ten minutes. I also wasn't a huge fan on the Krypton scenes, as it seemed a lot like what you'd see in a Avatar movie. I wish they would have stuck to the original Superman's motif and have Zod seek vengeance against Superman because of his fathers actions, but that wasn't a huge deal in the end.

They could have done without Perry White/Fishburne saving people, and Jor-El being a badass. Oh and I didn't really like the acting job by whoever played Lara (she showed almost zero emotion when her husband was killed), or when Krypton was near its end.

The movie also suffers from its fair share of plotholes, and other issues. The script definitely could have been tightened up, and these small problems could have been fixed, but they were still there in the end product. Oh and speaking of products, I know product placement funded a lot of this movie (160 million to be exact), but some of the product placement in the movie I thought was over the line. It's sort of what I expected from a Zack Snyder movie, but I had hoped Nolan would have fixed any major issues. Too bad he has other projects on the go though, as apparently he didn't have a lot of involvement with the story outside of the basics.

I have no idea how Clark was able to create a secret identity at the end of the movie when the military knew who he was and where he came from. But at least Lois knows who he is, so we won't have ignore how nonsensical that usually is from now on.

Overall I'd rate the movie somewhere in the 7.5-8 range. The action scenes were breathtaking, but the plot and pacing could not match it sadly. Not necessarily disappointed with the end product (I feel people throw that word around far too easily these days), but I hope for more when the inevitable sequel comes out.