To those who say, "Well, at least it was better than Bryan Singer's Superman Returns," we say: "No freakin' way." Sure, Bryan Singer's Superman continuation might have been a little light on action, but there was something about that movie's sensitivity and careful approach that set it apart from other superhero flicks of the time: with Man of Steel, director Zack Snyder only cares about whacking you over the head with incomprehensible battle after incomprehensible battle, hoping to keep you interested. Such efforts had the opposite effect, of course. Man of Steel seemed to promise audiences a fresh, "realistic" and Christopher Nolan-influenced take on the Superman mythology, but there's not really much of a trace of the Dark Knight filmmaker anywhere in the final product. Of course, having Nolan's name attached to the project meant that the hype went into overloaded: those who expected a Superman movie on par with one of the recent Batman movies will have been sorely disappointed. The only thing that really works in this oddly cold and fun-less movie is Michael Shannon's maniacal villain, General Zod. It wasn't just the high doses of CGI that caused Man of Steel to fall flat: everything, right down to the bizarrely-implemented structure, to the by the numbers romance story, didn't work. So much so, in fact, that actually watching Man of Steel didn't feel anywhere near as enjoyable as it should have done: you might even say that the whole thing was surprisingly boring. Henry Cavill proved himself to be an all right Superman, at least, but overall this bombastic, miscalculation of a blockbuster failed to thrill in all the ways it really should have done. Like this list? Let us know in the comments section below.
