It was a Superman movie made by a guy who admits he never got Superman's appeal, and it shows. It also seems to appeal to people with that same viewpoint - Superman for people who don't like Superman.
Unfortunately for me, I love Superman, so this movie is not for me.
Also, it's poorly-written and quite ugly at times.
But that Zimmer score is magnificent.
I think that you and I are in the same boat for our love of the character. That’s why to me, Man of Steel is infuriating. It is such a missed opportunity to showcase a great character. And it truly does come down to Snyder not respecting the character. With Superman, you don’t dirty him up. You don’t have him moping, and you don’t have him riddled with self-doubt.
In MoS, Superman talks about the shield being a symbol of hope, but the character himself seems hopeless. He lacks the stallwart devotion to doing right. Everything seems to be a burden to him.
I do feel that the film does some things right. I actually found the idea of Superman struggling with sensory processing as a child to be fascinating and a fresh take. I appreciated the idea of showing him leaving home and going on a journey before his outing of himself to the world. But whereas that was one of the highlights of Birthright, it felt like it missed the mark a bit here. A big part of that was the character assassination that was done on Jonathan Kent. I’m convinced that Costner had a great performance in him, but we never got to see it because the film’s Jonathan Kent was in many ways a hurdle that Clark had to overcome in order to become Superman. Jor El was his “real dad” who encouraged him to be reach his potential. Jonathan was a wet blanket holding him back. Personally, as an adoptive father, that offends me.
I appreciate that people like the action in the finale, but I personally hate the idea of a reckless Superman who levels an entire city in his fight with another being. Think of it this way, during that fight, Superman would have heard the faintly beating hearts of bystanders as they were dying. He’d hear the breaths becoming more shallow as lungs collapsing of people being crushed by buildings. But MoS Superman didn’t take any precautions to protect collateral damage. He brought down more than his fair share of buildings on innocents. But he snapped the neck of Zod (unforgivable and lazy writing imho) and that was the only thing that gave him an emotional response.
Based on all of this, the MoS Superman seems more Kryptonian than human. It misses the aspect of the character that Tom King so amazingly displayed in part 8 of Up in the Sky. The chapter called Man and Superman, showed Superman being struck by some space lightning that caused an anomaly whereby the human side of him was stripped from the more powerful Kryptonian aspect. It was the human side of him that endeavored to fight against all odds and persevere in the face of impossible trials. That side of him leaned on the wisdom that his earth parents instilled in him. He was unswervingly undeterred. MoS just misses that take completely and in the course, misses the core of the character.
So yeah, I echo your take.
Am I the only one who didn’t think Shannon was very good as Zod? Don’t get me wrong; he is a GREAT actor and possibly the best actor in MoS. I’m currently watching Waco and he’s amazing in it.
But his Zod just felt… flat to me. Like, the scenes where he’s supposed to be all angry and vengeful, he tries a tad too hard and the rest of the time, he just gives dull exposition. Maybe it’s just because I reeeeeaaaalllly didn’t want them to use Zod again but I just found him and the whole character to be kinda meh.
I wholeheartedly agree. I usually find Shannon to be a good actor, but I hated his Zod. I know that a lot of people love his monologue before the final fight, but at least in my household we have a running joke whereby we mock his delivery of the “whatever I did I did for the good of my people. But now. I don’t have any peeeepulll” line. We all find it cringey.