I just watched Man of Steel again this week for the first time in a about 4-5 months. I liked Zod better this time around. The first time I watched the movie I thought he kind of sucked to be honest. But after watching a couple more times and then again this time, he was actually pretty solid for the most part. There were a couple lines that were poorly delivered and he definitely wasn't great but overall he was solid. Though I agree with most that he was kind of outshined by Faora. She was very good, though I think part of that was because she just had better dialogue than Zod did.
I still love the "You Are Not Alone" scene, it's one of my favorite parts of the movie. Even though Aliens taking over a TV feed to announce their arrival has been done before, I still find this one to be the best I've ever seen. The World Engine didn't bother me because I thought it was done very well, the CGI and the sounds, yeah it's not exactly an original idea but I thought it was done well.
I'm not really sure why Amy Adams is so beloved (in general or in this movie), I thought her dialogue was actually the worst in the movie and she doesn't feel like Lois Lane to me. I thought they contrived ways to keep her more involved than she needed to be to build up her relationship with Clark/Superman. For example, when Superman turned himself over to Zod, Faora says that Zod wants Lois too. Why? There was no point to it other than to make her be involved in the story for the whole movie, by getting her on the ship and allowing Jor-El to give her "the plan to stop them", which made her become basically part of the military strategy to defeat Zod. The Jor-El/Lois Lane scene, commonly referred to as "Jor-El GPS", I thought was probably the worst scene in the movie. Her being on the plane to help release the ship-bomb to destroy Zod's ship wasn't needed and her somehow figuring out exactly where Superman/Zod landed so she could be there right on time to see Superman snap Zod's neck and embrace him afterwards was extremely forced to me. Just came off as shoehorning her into the action scenes to develop her character and keep her front and center even though it didn't make much sense for her to be there, to me anyway. Personally I thought they overused her for that reason and I didn't think she was very good in the movie. Don't get me wrong, I don't dislike Amy at all, I actually like her but I still don't think she fits the role or is as great of an actress as she's hyped up to be (she's well above average though, no doubt).
I had no problem with how much destruction happened in the movie or the idea of Superman killing Zod. They both were better parts of the movie to me. It's an Alien invasion, anyone that thinks things were going to go down without major destruction were fooling themselves, Superman there to protect us or not. If Aliens that are even half as advanced as that ever attack, we'll last about a week tops. That's part of why I don't like many alien invasion movies, I understand that Hollywood loves happy endings but if it ever happened in real life, there wouldn't be a happy ending. It's a wrap for humans. There is no miracle happy ending against beings with far more advanced weapons, ships and technology invading with a huge army. You can forget about Bill Pullman speeches at the end, it's not happening, lol.
Henry Cavill was perfect as Superman. Diane Lane was great despite her fairly smaller role. Christopher Meloni was great. Overall the storyline was pretty good, nothing amazing but definitely far from a weakness. Some of the dialogue could have been better here and there (The "I just think he's kinda hot" line should have never made it into the movie, so awful).
Overall it's one my Top 5 Superhero movies. Don't understand all the hate, despite having a few criticisms of my own I thought it was excellent overall.
