Man of steel

Rating - 8/10

The good
-Acting
-Action
-Characters
-Universe

The bad
-Cinematography.

Man of Steel is a re-imagining  of the Superman comics, staring Henry Cavill as Clark Kent, aka Superman, as he fights against the antagonistic General Zod (Michael Shannon) while finding his place amongst the people of Earth.

The pacing of the story is very fast, scenes come and go very quickly, but at the same time the individual scenes do take their time and tell what they want to tell, so it never feels rushed. It's a very different feel to storytelling, and one that I feel the film nailed perfectly. I never felt like I was being rushed along or lost, but at the same time it moved efficiently, telling the story very well and never feeling like it dragged.

All of the actors were on their A game, delivering fantastic performance after fantastic performance. Cavill sucked me in instantly as Superman, carrying himself very well as the Man of Steel himself. He had this very sincere and yet imposing presence, like he could wipe everybody out in the room if he chose, but you still felt safe around him, like you could sleep well knowing that he was looking out for you. Ideology wise the philosophy of the character felt extremely well balanced; the idea of the Alien Superman and the human Clark Kent felt very at peace. I was afraid that they would take the extreme of Superman being the Kryptonian before he was the Earthling, but they evened it out and created a great moral contrast. There was a sense that he could side with the villains at any time, but not to the point where you didn't believe that he would stay true to his believes.
The character of Louis Lane (Amy Adams) was also very well done. She struck me as a very no nonsense reporter, who would never stop until she got the story that she wanted. She was very involved in the story and helped out the hero in a way that never felt like she was dead weight who was just there to be the damsel. When she needed saving it was because she was in over her head, never like she was just put in danger for the sake of being in danger.
Zod was a fantastic villain, created as a very believable villain; you could understand his point of view but still disagree with him. His philosophy is well established and the actor did a brilliant job of portraying this incarnation of the character. I never got the impression that he was doing what he did to just take over the world, but rather that he felt like he was supposed to do what he does for the good of his people. This creates a contrast with Superman; one is the guardian of Earth, the other the guardian of Krypton.
The rest of the cast was fantastic; there wasn't a second where I saw actors in a role, I saw them as their characters.

The fight scenes were amazing, in particular the super powered fights. Characters moved at blinding speeds, smashing their opponent through building after building. It felt very reminiscent of an Anime in it's over the top style, really embracing its comic book roots. This extends to the flying scenes; giving the sensation of flying through the sky at a break neck speed.  Other scenes suffered from unstable cinematography, looking very close and nonsensical, making it hard to tell what was going on.

However the cinematography was just hopeless. The camera had a real problem holding still and shot far to close to see what was going on. It felt like camera man was a drunk unicyclist with personal space issues.
That being said the rest of the film was good enough that I was able to enjoy myself despite this huge problem with the film, which is probably my only criticism.

The planet of Krypton at the beginning of the film felt very fleshed out despite a limited screen time, with a very distinct and original feel; clearly a lot of effort went into this world which helped to establish the philophy and history of this world, which helped flesh out the main character in ways that wouldn't be possible if the focus remained on his human origins.

AS A FRANCHISE

A lot of talk has gone into the re-telling of the established Superman origin story and how boring it is. Personally through I felt like here it was handled well. The film clearly had its own take on the character and established itself as its own version of the character. It was a make or break situation, which the film really made its own.

SPOILER TALK

Killing is one thing that a super hero doesn't do, especially Superman. But the way that it was handled in this film was just so good. He was clearly forced into the situation to kill Zod and struggled with the decision. And even when he did kill, he was clearly in a state of torment, in a way that a lot of films, especially super hero films, never seem to do. But here it worked.

AS A FRANCHISE

A lot of talk has gone into the