Ok, having watched the movie again, here's my take on the claimed disregard Superman has for his surroundings:
Smallville:
It starts out with an enraged Superman reacting to a threat towards his mother. A very human reaction, where it appears that Superman is not overly concerned about what they may crash into. I'll give the critics that one. However, as I said, a very human reaction.
I don't mind this one either. I get it. It's callous, but it's meant to be and they address it sufficiently.
As Zod is rescued, the next threat is Faora and the big dude (forget his name). They are walking towards each other, and Superman is telling people to "Get inside. It's not safe!"
The rescue was so damn contrived. 'I can't fight you so I'll get the hell out of here but so that we seem some coolzors action, there's Faora and Nam-Ek!' But yes, there's not much more he could've done here.
The coming fight isn't started by Superman though. It's started by the military, opening fire on the three (who are still on the street, so they're basically opening fire on a small town).
Actually the first thing we see Supes do in this fight, is rescue a pilot, as Faora is targetting the second plane (after the big dude rams the first one). Superman rams Faora just as she is about to hit the plane, thereby saving the pilot.
This is where **** starts to go South. First of all the military decides to level the main street with deadly force whilst there's innocents in those stores and buildings? Really?
Also, Nam-Ek attacking the plane was ripped straight out of the Avengers. It was uncanny and detaching because it's like 'Hey, that's the Hulk!'
They crash into iHop and Superman stands up and immediately looks around at the people there, only to be knocked down by Faora. When they both go at Supes, he's actually trying to get away, but is being pulled back. He then grabs Faora and tries to take her up in the air, but again is pulled down by the big dude. After using his heat vision to get out from underneath them, the military fires again.
The big dude throws a van at a chopper and the pilot falls out. Superman catches him with a "Are you OK?" only to ambushed immediately by the big dude and knocked to the ground.
The start of the scene was fine though I think it's at this point that the whole 'evolution always wins' crap was doled out? Yeah, that was bad dialogue. It was terribly cheesy. Firstly, Superman's getting double teamed so it's not really clear what would've happened one on one. Secondly, what evolution?
From what I understand Krypton was a deteriorating and stagnant society by the team it went kaboom. How was there any evolution if people were being artificially engineered only for specific purposes? I don't get it. Cheap dialogue and zero effect.
The heat vision scene was cool. It was fine but the chopper scene was ******ed. For a guy who flies so ****ing fast, how is it not possible for him to grab the trooper and then swerve to catch the chopper?
It would've made the fight continue far more smoothly since he'd either have made a cool super save or the Kryptonians would've stopped him mid air and gained further advantage. It would cement the conflict of saving versus brawling and stopping them. But it didn't.
Now while our hero is busy with the big dude, Faora takes out some soldiers and is moving in on Hardy. Supes lifts the big dude up in the air and knocks him in to the trains. Thereby getting him away from the buildings and into an area where there seem to be no people around. That looks very deliberate to me.
He then rescues Hardy just as Faora is about to "reward" him. Faora states that "For every human you save, we will kill a million more", which in my mind actually underlines the importance on focussing on the big picture and not individuals.
A train comes flying in, and knocks Superman into a building, and a missile is launched at Faora. This is three (3) times the military has fired at this little town. The fight is over.
Yeah see this is the thing. Our hero ain't really busy with the big dude for a bit because one punch knocks him out of the screen and he only gets back after around fifteen seconds or so. It's not the first time this happened, but it's got really grating and contrived in a manner of 'we need to buy some time to show these guys blowing **** up'.
Clark throws Nam-Ek into an area of the rails where empty carriages are stored. Really? You throw him where he's got basically got on-demand ballistics to hurl back at you? Good job. Oh wait, it's more lazy storytelling to facilitate the next big boom. I'm losing interest at this point.
Okay, the good death sequence. Wow. It was funny. I had a kid sitting next to me, around thirteen years go to me 'doesn't she have all of Superman's powers?' and I confirm this. He replies with 'how is a human getting killed by someone like that a good reward? It'd be like you killing me'. Yep, that's really not a good death. It's playground bullying.
You know, that's fine. I get the concept of seeing the big picture over the little stuff, but that's really not Superman. But I've addressed this with others and we'll put it down to a learning curve for him to balance this.
Yeah, that train. Where did that come from? Oh wait, Clark through a Kryptonian into an area with those trains. Silly him. The military fired down all their **** on a town that had people hiding in those structures in close proximity. Good ****ing move, Military! Way to be portrayed as not stupid and poor judges of delicate situations. Unless this is an Iraq allegory going on, it's lazy and badly written. Not the first time.
The town is a mess, but 95 % of the destruction was done by the military and the Kryptonians. Superman hit the gas station and you could argue that he's responsible for the iHop too. The rest is not by his hand. He performed three direct saves in that fight, but it seems that they don't count to some people, dunno why...? Plus he saves Lois just before this whole thing.
He then rushes back to check on his mother (who I guess he also saved).
Okay first of all, the Kryptonians were flinging stuff at him most of the time. He was just not thinking 'should I have this fight here?' or 'should I throw that guy into a train lot?'. Like I said about the chopper scene, he saved one guy and let a chopper crash even though he could've saved it. But I guess that Nam-Ek punch wouldn't have been possible to write.
You missed one awesomely contrived scene in Smallville. Hardy robotically and totally unconvincingly (in terms of acting, probably because he wanted to laugh) goes 'this man is not our enemy'. Erm...no ****. You didn't need to level half a small town to figure that one out you bozo.
Oh and Lois...Lois. Is it a smart move taking a couple of police officers over to Clark's house whilst he's dressed as Superman? Really? Do you want everyone know to his secret? Well probably, yes. She does.
Metropolis / Earth:
The World Engine is released and must be stopped before it destroys us all. Therefore the focus now HAS to be on stopping the threat. This is common sense. There can be no time wasted saving individuals, as even more people will die while he does that.
I'm fine with him destroying the world engine before going to Metropolis but the scene itself is really badly constructed. The tentacles were unnecessary and just felt too Matrix to me and the sense of danger really really wasn't there. Sure, on my third viewing I got a slight tingle when the rave party sounding gravity beam was closing in on Perry & Co. but it really wasn't dangerous in terms of the overall scene.
His face went all floppy and he was doing his screaming whilst trying to fly schtick but it just felt so damn inevitable. He WILL save the day. Without a doubt. Personally? I would've NOT had the Faora scene and instead had those two folk show up at the World Engine with one of their fighter ships. Granted, the gravity would've messed with them too, but hey, isn't this war? Isn't this where people put their lives on the line. Nope.
After having used all his energy doing "his part" on the other side of the planet (illustrated by the shot of him reaching for the sun, which I loved), he rushes back to Metropolis and saves the plane carrying his ship, just as Zod is about to destroy it.
Zod's ship has to go down, and everyone knows it. If the plane goes down, the plan fails. Superman does his duty and saves the crew on the plane so that they still have a fighting chance.
The reaching on the Sun scene was cool but it was damn ****ing short. More so some emotional music would've really anchored the scene well and even a quick flashback to an image of both his parents would've driven the point home. Kinda like the 'Bruce, why do we fall?' scene in the Dark Knight Rises.
Okay, now maybe it's just me but the convenient flying in on time to intercept a ship thing is getting really really annoying. Not for the fact that he's doing it, which I love, but there's really more ways to shoot a scene. That's not the only way. Off the top of my head they could've gone with Zod going 'target that ship'.
The ship engages and before it, the entire ship shudders and starts reversing downwards. You see Clark at the nose of the ship, pushing it back and downwards towards the Ocean off Metropolis. He's doing his thing! He's taking the ship away from the point of vulnerability and isolating it. I would've loved that with some pumped up music.
Imagine this. He pushes the ship backwards initially and then literally whirls it in turnaround towards the ocean and breaches the hull. He then has the scene as normal but knocks Zod out as the ship heads for the ocean and flies out, leaving it to crash in the water and not in the city where it destroyed even more buildings. That would be a nice lead into for the final battle as well, which could've been done over water or on the shore instead of in a concrete jungle. More potential and variety.
Okay, you're missing some bits here, but to be honest, there was no issues with those scenes. The good death cheese is still there and it's still bollocks though I guess that's Goyer's point. The first time around it wasn't a good death, but this time it is. However, he's really not doing a good job portraying Kryptonians as intelligent folk. They're very silly.
The save you mention below is fine, so I'm just covering it here.
Lois is saved yet again (as it should be i guess) and all that remains now, is Zod! Now Zod really starts out by saying "I have nothing left to live for. My purpose in life is gone. And I'm gonna make you pay!". He initiates the fight and all hell breaks loose. He tells Superman that he will take the humans he loves so much from him, one by one.
Okay, this scene. Whoa, this scene. First of all, why is that everyone in the Daily Planet has this knack of traversing cities in order to make it in time for the next big scene? The convenience is really annoying and it's just so forced that it weighs the film down. You don't necessarily need them all there just to witness something. We're the audience. Not them.
Secondly, the dialogue. Jesus. I would've loved if Snyder just said to Shannon 'look, buddy, some of the dialogue here is dog****, so just improvise and see where it goes' because his abilities are criminally underused for such important scenes. Ditto for Cavill. He just stands there and looks at Zod whilst he talks. I'm not expecting Shakespeare on Ground Zero, but come on...something slightly less reminiscent of Revenge of the Sith would've been really really appreciated.
And then the fight begins. Crash bang.
Zod rams them into the (empty) office building and Zod cuts it in half with his heat vision. After Zod sheds his armor, Superman takes the fight to the sky, where the flying punches occur. It's Zod who brings the fight back down to the buildings, and it's Zod who throws Superman through countless buildings in a phase where our hero is in serious trouble.
They end up in space, where Zod throws a sattelite at Supes and then rams him again, heading back towards earth. As I see it, Superman doesn't get the upper hand before they are just about to hit the building. After the impact Supes has Zod in a headlock and can finally contain him. The rest is history.
Okay, like I said before, this scene was too repetitive. I would've preferred a different location with Zod then trying to force the fight into Metropolis to drive home his point and Clark tries to stop him leading to a battle of the titans. What happens instead is very rehearsed and emotionally disengaging since the only question is 'what happens at the end?' instead of 'how do they get there?'.
How do they get there? They plough down more buildings than Godzilla and it all looks like everything else in every other movie and this on too. Sure, the fight choreography is jawdropping but it's so wasted with the scenery and context that it loses its charm.
Clark takes the fight to the sky, but never considers moving it out of the City. Not one. The fact is that Zod would've fought back. He had to have fought back. But not showing Clark even try this in a hard way really lowers the emotional stakes and makes things repetitive.
The fight wraps up and so on, with like I said before, Clark could've made an attempt whilst coming into the atmosphere to divert the fight. But he didn't, fair play. It was hard. But doesn't it seem all a bit too convenient that they landed in a train station crowded with innocents where the final scene plays itself out as required by the filmmakers? Yes it does.
And there you have it. That's the root of the problem. The writers and filmmakers wanted specific action beats, it's fine. But the truth is that the story of the film was emotionally and visually compromised leading to the action scenes being deemed repetitive.
You know what the issue is? There aren't too many action scenes as such, it's just that the ones present as poorly used. Poorly used to display Clark and the Kryptonians' characters.
The former needed to be put in more difficult situations on an intimate level as well to show the pain of losing people and the latter needed to be intelligent enough to think 'hey, sure, millions dying is an issue, but surely seeing someone die in front of him would hurt more, no?'
Yes, it would. But Zod only seemed to resort to that at the very end! Even that he only did in order to fulfill Snyder's request to see Clark kill Zod. It's contrived.
The saving element like I said isn't the be all and all. It's a part of the problem. He did it, but it didn't feel like the saves we're used to since the film was so preoccupied with getting to the next big punch. Obviously that was compounded by the next big punch being so conveniently placed that the entire context of the action scene is abandoned for super brawling.
Please, let's see something better next time instead of Black vs Blue amidst crashing buildings and shaky cam nausea.
I could've too, but this way is more fun.
