Man of Steel

Snyder is an adrenaline junkie forever jonesing for a fix; he does less building to the action beats than backing each one into the next.

Clark's multiple father-and-son tales are beautifully realized and it's a very fun movie to watch. However, the romance is shallow.

A gritty, realistic story shot by a director whose instincts constantly push him away from grit and realism, and into flash and fantasy.

Christliness has always been an element of the Superman myth. But this film's near literal insistence upon it becomes absurd since director Zack Snyder and screenwriter David S. Goyer don't dramatize the analogy, they presume it.

No fun costume change in a phone booth, no wowing humans with his powers and no repartee with reporter Lois Lane.

Man Of Steel plunges headfirst into a loud, breathless science-fiction slugfest, offering much spectacle but little wonder.

Man of Steel is a genre story without the cartoon-like elements seen in past superhero films, presenting a gritty, torment-ridden reboot of the character’s origin story with intense emotional genuineness.

While it might set itself apart from many superhero movies that came before it, it seems to do so arbitrarily as opposed to exploring those ideas in any organic way.

Man of Steel is fun and makes a lot of sense a lot of the time but is also dull and senseless some of the time.

You finish watching, hoping that better times might just be ahead ...