"Man of Steel"

So I took myself to the movies this afternoon to see the highly touted, much anticipated new Superman movie, "Man of Steel".  I have a couple of thoughts:

1. Why so serious?  Superman originated as a comic book, right?  Comic books are supposed to be fun, right?  The Superman movies of the Eighties with Christopher Reeve were fun, right?  Well, this one was so overwrought with symbolism, and IMPORTANT STATEMENTS, that I was expecting to see a screenplay credit by Arthur Miller or Eugene O'Neill.  And the stained glass window of Jesus behind Clark Kent's shoulder when he was in a church?  I mean, C'mon man!
2. It was a pure self-indulgence vehicle for producer Christopher  Nolan (the guy who did the last three overwrought Batman movies) and director Zach Snyder.  You can almost visualize the planning meetings.  "Hmmm, let's see how much money we can spend and how we can show off how clever we are by overdoing the CGI and the Special Effects."  As a result, instead of a tight, 1 hour and 45 minute movie, they have a 2 hour and 20 minute movie that goes way, way, way over the top and lasts way, way too long.
3. It was incredibly violent.  Really, if I was a parent I wouldn't want my kids seeing this unless they were at least 16 years old.
4. And getting back to point #1, it wasn't fun.
5. I guess I'm just not a super-hero kind of guy.

The cast included some heavy hitters - Russell Crowe, Kevin Costner, Diane Lane, and Amy Adams.    General Zod, the wacko villain in this one, was played by Michael Shannon, the guy who plays the wacko FBI agent in Boardwalk Empire.  Clark Kent/Superman was played by some British hunk of beefcake named Henry Cavill.  Since there will no doubt be a "Man of Steel 2", we will see Cavill at least one more time.  Not sure if we'll ever see him outside of this franchise again.  William Holden, he ain't.

The next such movie that I plan to see this summer is "The Lone Ranger", which opens on July 5.  I fully expect that to be an awful movie, but I'm dying to see how Johnny Depp will channel Jack Sparrow into the role of Tonto.