The action is truly it's saving grace. 1st half with all the story wasn't good for me as executed but had interesting ideas. I found myself thinking I could've watched a movie just about Russel Crowe on a dying alien planet riding dragons and what not as it started completely forgetting this is about Superman.
The flashback scenes went a bit too many but they served their purpose. If it wasn't for Crowe as Jor-El I would've had a paragraph of hate for the Johnathan Kent in this movie. Terrible values instilled in this dude. Had to wash my mind out with an ep of Smallville. That death scene wasn't touching and that "maybe" answer was atrocious. The genetically engineered slant made it hard for me to fully see Zod as villain though, son was just made that way. Like that's a whole topic movies have already revolved around specifically and even more so since it falls under nature vs. nurture. Overall, I didn't care for much of the story aspects in this. Supes being lost in life, why Zod's ppl came back. That 1st hr and a half was just me preparing for the action.
Boy did they deliver. By the time they stopped the world engines from terraforming the planet I was like damn they done ****** up Metropolis more than the Avengers messed up NYC. Plus the killing of so many ppl didn't even have me mad, I kinda felt it was a good thing and did kind of make it more realistic. None of that Supes saves the day with like 1 fatality. This was some real destruction. Plus this is after they ****** up Smallville
Somebody else said in the MOS thread but that whole fight scene reminded me of the one in Thor but better, just like Metropolis stuff was better than the alien invasion in Avengers. So I'm thinking Supes is gonna snap Zod's neck and be out. Nah, that fight scene was dope. I aint see something like that since Norton's Hulk killed the Abomination in Harlem and that's what the fight was similar to but better.
Action wise, I can at least say WB/DC saw what Marvel did, learned from it after their **** ups, and finally managed to produce something better in that category. So for me the movie was pretty good. The supporting cast was forgettable (Fishburne aint need to be in this), at best I can say it was cool to see Detective Stabler go out like that, not sure if Jenny/Jimmy Olsen even showed up in this like I heard rumored, the easter eggs sucked, etc. I feel all of those extreme critical reviews are going too far. This wasn't perfect or even really great but it was nowhere near trash especially with where we're at superhero movie wise. When you hear stuff like Superman kills or Lois knows his id right away and other stuff eyebrows will be raised but when I saw it I didn't care about all the death, him killing in that situation, or little ticks a comic fan would be livid about. If anything if they had cut out some of stuff earlier this would be even better and right around SM2. So I'd def put this above Begins, IM, and Raimi's Spidey. Overall in superhero films, it's up there but I'll wait awhile and see how I feel about the movie in retrospect and then grade it's replay value and my desire to even want to watch it again (which is even more important).
Oh and I'd bang both of Kal-El's/Clark's moms