Man of Steel was a very polarizing movie when it came out. Being one of the first modern film versions of the superman tale as well as the starting point for the less than perfectly received DC cinematic universe, it was also one of the first modern DC comic book movie that had fans ripping each other a part; some loved it and berated others for not thinking so, and some despised it and claimed it was one of the worst superhero movies of all times. Among critics and fans alike, the movie was always either incredibly loved or hated and it put the DCEU in a shaky spot for its opening act, but maybe the reason why the reactions were so conflicted came from the conflicting elements about the movie itself. Being a reintroduction to the American hero, a baby is sent away from his alien planet of Krypton before it’s destroyed. Growing up on planet earth under the name Clark (played by Henry Cavil), he takes a while to cement himself as a hero because of how people might react to him being an alien super-powered man. After saving reporter Lois Lane (played by Amy Adams) and finding out about who he really is from his real father, Jor-el (played by Russell Crowe), a fellow survivor of Krypton, the crazed general Zod (played by Michael Shannon) plans to recreate the destroyed planet by terraforming earth to replicate it, thereby destroying all life on it in the process. Faced with the destruction of his home, Clark has to fully become superman in order to fully save it. For a movie that tries to capture the spirit and ideals of what Superman stands for, it strangely just comes off as shallow, dull-looking, and heartless. The movie is home to some decent ideas, actors, and visuals, but it lacks several elements that not only make Superman work, but what makes any superhero in general work.

The movie features three people who each hold reasons for why it doesn’t work as a movie: Zack Snyder (the director), David S. Goyer and Christopher Nolan (the writers). These three names are surprisingly prevalent in the world of comic book movies and each have had their highs and lows in that record. Here, this movie features a lot of what doesn’t work about their styles. Zack Snyder has directed comic book movies that featured darker themes, but also a sense of over-the-top sense of humor to them, this movie has no sense of fun or enjoyment, it is a movie that pretends moody means darker. For what should be a dark gritty version of the man of steel, this movie has no guts to do anything risky or anything that would take the idea of Superman to an interesting new level. Concepts like his powers turning him slightly crazy as a child or even what he eventually does to the villain are great ideas, but go nowhere and are completely pointless to the overall movie, they could have been cut and nothing would have changed in the story. This movie’s pace is horrible as well; its insistence to tell the story out of order is meaningless and just makes the movie feel unfocused, but each section feels overly drawn out and too rushed at the same time. Nothing being said has any humanity to it so its completely pointless, and all the good ideas and interesting humanizing elements are chucked out for more ‘important’ dialogue. The final act of this movie is really the worst part of this movie; despite the climax featuring some good effects, it drags on for way too long, shows how mindless and shallow this product really is by having countless die without any sense of care, and rushes the movie to a happy ending despite just featuring would should have been a dark moment.

The actors and characters suffer from how the story and script is put together. It’s a complete failure of character that all comes down to one single element; every character is this movie captures WHAT they are, not WHO they are. They are characters by name alone, because with that removed, none of these characters have any sense of personality or identity. The movie can convey that Lois Lane and Superman are people in this movie, but it doesn’t show why they are characters and who they are as characters. Superman is way too moody and bland, and since he’s motivation is written terribly and he has no sense of character progression, there’s nothing meaty to grab onto except the fact that the movie LOVES comparing him to Jesus. The villain is also incredibly forgettable; Zod has no sense of personality or even strong motivation, just a screaming idiot who the audience knows nothing about. It leaves the ending feeling hollow because the audience knows what he’s doing, but not why he’s doing it. The choice of actors is actually pretty decent in how they look and sound, but none of them are given anything good to work on so it leaves them feeling like false models of familiar roles. Amy Adams and Laurence Fishburne start off with personalities for their characters, yet quickly turn into nothing roles as it continues. Russell Crowe and Kevin Costner are already boring actors, so connecting them with boring writers will leave them giving horribly bland and forgettable performances. Despite not always giving the best performances, these two ironically could work within these parts, but everything that made these characters endearing and impactful is erased for heartless messaging and boring exposition, they aren’t really at fault for how poorly their scenes are delivered (although they definitely don’t help).

For a movie so lacking in color and brightness, the movie’s effects are surprisingly pretty good. Despite how uncreative the areas can be and how no real action happens until the last forty minutes, any scene that has something with CG doesn’t look too bad and it actually works pretty good in the action sequences where even if it doesn’t look realistic, its cool to see. This doesn’t always work like in the climax where the final clash between hero and villain is so drained of caring and is solely focused on showing massive buildings blow up which results in a hollow feeling ending, but the movie actually has a legitimately great action scene just before the final act involving a trick stop. Its quick and filled with all the typical ‘Dragon Ball Z’ elements that would normally come with this level of fighting, but it always had good camera work which showed it off. The rest of the camera in this movie is just shaky and unnatural, featuring a lot of awkward zoom-ins during the action that takes out of the moment rather than enhances it. The writing for this movie is beyond tiring and generic; Christopher Nolan and David Goyer are two choices that are purely wrong for this movie. Goyer’s incomprehensible, annoyingly simplistic, and stupid writing mixed with Nolan’s overly dialogue-heavy, pretentious ‘speech’ writing leaves this movie feeling too simple and too complicated at the same time. Nobody talks like humans, mainly speaking in speeches for the most part, and any long-winded speech in this movie is so much like any other speech of its type in this type of movie. It isn’t saying nothing new and just makes it feel all the more stupid and empty. This film just in general feels bleak and lifeless, which is made even worse by the bleached, and ugly visual design that makes everything look miserable, washed-out and lacking in soul (the exact opposite of what a Superman picture should provide).

Superman isn’t written as a man in this movie, he’s a toy; a marketable toy that pretends to be deep and dark, but is instead moody and bland, with no understanding of why people liked him in the first place. THAT is the real reason why this movie doesn’t work as a superhero movie and a Superman movie; it talks about the concept and idea of Superman so much, that it never talks about Superman as a person. It could have the long-winded dialogue, the mindless action, even the pointless non-linear story, but since its characters are so lacking and so clearly not written to be interesting, there nothing worth caring about in your movie. Its true that as films go, its not terrible and even the criticism shown here can be sat through if the movie connects with you in a different way, but its one that has very little memorability behind it despite being the one that pretended to be darker and harsher. There are some actors that are trying and some ideas that could be okay if fleshed out, but unfortunately, its not enough to save it. It makes sense why this is a polarizing movie to some, but overall, there isn’t many things that are super about this movie.