Let me start off by saying I have never been this excited about a movie in a very very long time now with that said I went in to the Man of Steel with moderate expectations. Why? because it's a Superman film and I believe that it's fairly hard to make a great Superman film because of the sheer magnitude of the character not to mention the expectations on this film to jump start a DC shared universe and erase Superman Returns from people's minds. So let me make this review as simple as possible.
I love how to movie started off with so much action and intensity; yes we know that krypton will explode and young Kal-El is sent off to Earth beforehand but having a coup in the middle of it was a great idea; it added emotion and drama to the action mix along with making the Kal-El send off much more epic. It did was all beginnings need to do. Set the stage. Now from that point on I'm with most people when they say the flashbacks are a cause for concern shall we say. It did bother me in a sense at first because I thought that they would concentrate of Superman's past first then work up to his adulthood until he wears the cape so the flashbacks were a surprise to me but after those first couple flashbacks, it all clicked for me. There really isn't anything in Superman's Smallville days that are important enough to concentrate on except for those important talks and lessons that Pa Kent had to give. This lessons would be Superman's foundation not just for being a hero and doing what's right but for trying to as human as possible. The flashbacks touch perfectly on the important lessons that Superman had to learn, not to mention some of these flashbacks, like the tornado and Pa Kent watching a young Clark wearing a red cloth for a cape were absolutely fantastic. Also regarding how the flashbacks may be out of order, they are and it's perfect. When recalling a memory the time we acquired those memories is irrelevant to the time we choose to access them later in our lives. Which means what happens in the tornado memory does not necessarily have to be the last flashback (trying to avoid a spoiler there). Now I admit the first part of the movie moved a little fast for me and it left me wondering if there was a mistake in editing somewhere. Those two parts were when Superman is in the interrogation room and he agrees to surrender to Zod. One moment he's talking to the General and the next he's in the desert holding hands with Louis. The cut was so fast I thought maybe they could have showed him being escorted outside maybe just to sort of prep the new scene. The last one is when Clark goes from being lost and confused on the ancient scout ship to doors opening and out comes Superman. I thought that scene should have been more epic. Too fast was the choice to wear the cape, Jor-El barely had to do any convincing. However from that point on it's all epic. The music, the effects, the emotion, action, even the sadness was worlds apart any superhero movie I've seen so far and I can't believe I'm saying this but yes, even to the Avengers and the Nolan Batman movies (with the exception of the The Dark Knight). This is a different Superman than what we're use to seeing make no mistake. Every Superman we've had on the big or small screen, even the animated versions don't hold a candle to this version. In Man of Steel, Superman truly has some hard choices and some will lead to a very dark version of him that some fans may have a problem with but that's what makes this version great, it's realistic as far as choices and consequences go and even if you're Superman does not make the choices any easier than it would be for me and you. This is an emotionally, morally and in a couple of instances even physically vulnerable Superman and I think it's great! So let me try to get to the finish here. The soundtrack was brilliant, the effects was brilliant, Henry Cavill, Amy Adams and Michael Shannon were brilliant and even with my minor complaints in the first part of the movie, yes, Zack Snyder made a brilliant Man of Steel film.
While still not as great as The Dark Knight, it was better than Iron man 3 (simply because I did not leave disappointed).It was on par with the First Iron man and Batman Begins and it was a little better than The Dark Knight Rises because of that epic last fight scene which TDKR did not have because Bane was taken out by the Batpod if I recall (no Catwoman did not kill Bane, she pressed a button, the Batpod did the heavy lifting in that instance)Oh and was it better than the Avengers? I'll leave that up to you.
Man of Steel gets a 5 out of 5 in my book