Critics are retarded.

RETURNS was too boring and campy. They removed 100% of the camp and loaded it with action, and they still whine.

Sighs.

Where were these guys when Nolan totally butchered Two Face?

Excel is wrong as Nolan's Two Face is more interesting then before.

They also removed 67% of the character beats.

I decided to see it again this morning in Imax 3D. 2D is definitely the way to see this, I didn't notice the 3D at all.

Liked the movie just as much as I did last night.

And this superman is 100x more awesome.

Its purists whining and nothing more. That is the truth.

The purists are the ones defending the film. Every reaction I've gotten on Twitter is, "Oh, so you don't read the comic book? Shows what you know!!"

wut. Purists are upset. Modern movie goers recognize the film for the awesome jaw dropper it is!

Fantastic! It's just an amazing film from start to finish. The first hour is great because it puts the whole backstory together in a way where it could all be communicated clearly without annoying filler. You got strong character development from just these little moments and the development for Lois and Clark gets better as the film progresses. The film doesn't follow the usual superhero storyline and just sticks with the events at hand without getting sidetracked with other BS. The entire cast is aces. The action though, that was what I wanted from a Superman movie. The action staying as fast as Superman's speed was a joy to watch and I was so giddy during that last hour of pure fighting.

Definitely one of the best superhero films made.

Um, yeah it does. About an hour spent with the hero while he learns who he is/develops his powers, then he gets the costume, and then the bad guy shows up.

It follows the superhero origin film template pretty rigidly, actually, down to the second half not being as good as the first half.

See also:

SPIDER-MAN
BATMAN BEGINS
IRON MAN

Not as awesome as its first half.

Can we just shake on the fact BATMAN BEGINS is great?

For the first hour and a half, I found this to be an entertaining film, if a tad disjointed as it cuts from nostalgic small-town past to hectic, plot centric present, a flaw I forgive in part because I remember how tedious The Amazing Spider-Man proved to be as it told yet again one of superhero mythology's most recognizable origin stories. Not structuring this film in exact chronological order lets it sidestep this flaw, even if the editing, the flow from scene to scene, is nowhere near as graceful as it could be. There are four or five astonishing sequences, though shortcomings also reveal themselves, including a thinly conceived vision of Lois Lane played by a disengaged Amy Adams. She is among the most gifted performers of her generation, yet fails to find the soul or pavement-pounding journalistic verve within this once iconic, here generic character. In general, the softer, more humane or humorous components of the Superman mythology are absent or poorly represented here, such as the Daily Planet, to the enterprise's detriment, even if it nails, say, the gravity of the father/son dynamics at play. The film's true plague, though, is its final hour: Christ, overblown is an understatement as it reaches a Transformers level of destruction, disorientation, noise, and violence without impact or investment. One super-punch is grand. Five, even. By the fiftieth, and by the thirtieth crumbling building (September 11th on steroids), spectacle has given way to exhaustion.

C+

I imagine this is just hideous in 3-D with the extensive use of hand-held cameras and the strongly desaturated color palette.

U suck, David

I 100 percent agree. It is much too much. There would be hundreds of thousands of people dead or maimed. The city is -toasted- by the end. How many damn skyscrapers collapse? Fifteen?

I love how it ends with Clark bicycling through Metropolis; they sure rebuilt it fast!

It's not even the size of the destruction -- if Zod was causing it I understand. But the fact Superman himself is causing this shit to happen... Yeesh.

It's like an alternate version of THE DARK KNIGHT where Batman finds the Joker's hideout and then activates a nuclear bomb just to be sure.

The romance with Lois is strange here, too. Their meet-cute is her being shot by a robot and him cauterizing the wound with his eyes.

The dour, macho tone allows no room for any playful romance, let alone any tender interaction, so his out-of-the-blue concern for her safety and hers for his is unearned.

The Lois/Clark romance exists purely because it's expected to happen. Sort of like Clark showing up at the Daily Planet at the end. The movie doesn't build to or earn that; it's just what is expected to happen, so it's tossed in.

Natural career progression for a rugged Gloucester fisherman.

He's so bad, I feel like it had to be a conscious decision.

Seriously, this film is a mess. I'd call it disaster porn, but I'm pretty sure Roland Emmerich films are more joyous than this.

I had expected some throwaway line about Clark liking to write. But nope.

He was reading Plato in one scene!

Oh, I don't mean this as a criticism, but rather an observation: I was surprised how "science fiction" a great deal of this felt. I know Superman's alien origin is always a central part of the story, but this is far more genre oriented, far more Star Wars, than the other films. Russell Crowe riding a dragon around Krypton, etc.

Within ten minutes the movie is a STAR WARS prequel and AVATAR and THE MATRIX.

I forget who it was (I think Dark Shape?) who mentioned how we'd be terrified of Superman after his fight with Zod, and I 100% agree. He shows literally zero regard for the buildings that are imploding around him that surely have people inside. If he cared about humans like we're told over and over again, he would have tried to bait Zod away from the heavily populated Metropolis.

This also made him snapping Zod's neck because he threatened to vaporize one family feel oh so hollow.

And that's why I'd take all those over Man of Steel.

Except maybe The Patriot.