Overall, I thought it was a bad comic book movie in that it wasn't lighthearted fun nor did it follow the standard progression of your normal comic book movie.
However, if you take it as just a movie, then I thought it was pretty good.
General Zod was too wooden for me. The only time I had any level of belief in his character was towards the end, when he's picking up dust in his hand, talking about how he was born with a predetermination to protect/preserve Krypton at all costs. Michael Shannon is the actor's name. He's fine, but he's always playing the same character from what I've seen. I would have preferred someone with more range. I preferred Terance Stamp's General Zod much more. But, it was a different take on it.
Amy Adams is way better than fucking Margot Kidder. She did need better lines. Her being put in the middle of the action in various scenes felt forced, but that's movie land.
The fight scene between Zod and Superman was not good. It reminded me of the fight scene in Matrix 3 between Neo and Anderson. Two virtually indestructible beings going at it for too long. No real drama in it. The snapping of the neck was a big "what the fuck?" moment for me.
Alternatively, the fight scene between alien chick and Superman was a lot of fun.
Agree completely with LV regarding the gravity bullshit. Just come in with bad intentions trying to take over the Earth. The gravity shit sucked.
I thought the atmosphere explanation for why Superman's powers weaken vis a vis Kryptonite was pretty well done. Not sure how they're going to handle the kryptonite stuff in the future.
I liked the organicness of the alien technology. From the gray steel pin constructs on Krypton, to the various space craft --- both inside and outside --- to a lot of the armor, it had a lot of Giger inspiration to it.
Weird they made it where Lois Lane knows that Clark Kent is really Superman. That's a pretty big departure.
The product placements cracked me up.
Costner and Crowe definitely helped make the film for me. I want Crowe to narrate my life. If I had one worth narrating, that is.
Overall, I thought the movie was a lot of fun.
Originally Posted by proudoftexas
Yeah, the terraforming part could have been taken out and the movie would've been just fine.
Superman fighting the Ursa analog was hilarious to me too - it really showed how someone who's actually trained to fight + having Kryptonian powers can pound the crap out of Superman since he's so used to just relying on his natural powers to win fights.
I'm torn on the Kryptonian technology. It does look very organic, which gives it a much darker look which works for this darker movie. It's very different from the comics / previous movies where Kryptonian tech is very crystal based.
I did like the new justification for Kryptonite as well.
I don't mind that Lois knows who Clark is. That's actually how it was in the comics for quite awhile (before the new 52 reboot).
The arctic base scene was really surreal to me as we had Elliot Stabler, Toby Zeigler, and Felix Gaeta all in the same room.