By far, this is the best origin story movie of any comic book hero that Ive ever seen.
Normally, in an attempt to tell the two people out in the audience who don't already know the origin, how this character came to be who he is, a lot of action is sacrificed.
Im not a fan of Superman. I only saw Man of Steel because it was a father's day gift from my sister in law who sent all the men in the family to the theater.
That being said, I thought this movie was very, very good. I went into the film expecting a disaster on par with Superman Returns, thinking the only entertainment I would get out of the next two and a half hours would be compiling a laundry list of screw-ups that happened this time around.
That didn't happen. I saw only two instances in the entire film that might ruffle some fanboy feathers. Not that this is a bad thing, I am 100% behind filmmakers staying true to their source material if they are going to make a film that is going to rake in the majority of their cash hand over fist from fans of said material.
Some people may not be able to get past those two instances, and I wouldn't hold it against them if they decided to just flip the bird and say "no." "That's not Superman"
For me though, I thought it was a great film and I ended up really liking Kal-El as a character in this movie. He wasn't portrayed as this douchey, superpowered boyscout for the entire time. You got to see that he had several human elements to his character. He got pissed off. He wanted to cut loose on people that deserved it. He was a relatable character in this film that he never was to me in the comic books.
The couple of instances that deviated and stand out, I was fine with because I was never big fans of them in the first place. Of course, Im referring to
Spoiler!
Lois Lane knowing from the outset who Clark Kent really is. I didn't need to see 2-3 films of just staring slackjawed at the screen, completely dumbfounded as to how she could not simply see past a pair of glasses and know who he really is.
and Superman breaking his no killing rule with Zod in the end. It goes against pretty much everything in the comics, and animated films, especially the animated film Superman VS The Elite, in which this subject matter is the main plot of the film, where The Elite are vigilantes who employ lethal force on offenders, where Supes just captures them and offers them a chance to break out and cause more death.
As for Man of Steel, I didn't have a problem with him killing Zod. It made sense, in terms of trying to portray this as a realistic film. The only regrettable thing about it is that we now have no chance for Michael Shannon's General Zod to return in any other films, had Superman simply found another way to banish him to the Phantom Zone with the rest of the Kryptonian rogues.
Comic Book, Ultimate Boyscout Superman probably would've found a number of ways to stop Zod from frying that family without killing him. But for a modern, realistic take on it, killing him seems to be the only outcome that makes sense.
I thought it was a great movie, and I find myself looking forward to a sequel.