Picture from the new "Man of Steel" movie. Not sure the retro look works....

[FSogol]

[Lefty Nast]

1. The stupidity of Hollywood...you don't mess with Superman's iconic outfit

Changing the Batman outfit is one thing, you even might get away with Spiderman changes, but Superman is an American icon. A pox on Hollywood....lol

[FSogol]

2. Actually, one of the major problems with "Man of Steel" is that

the producers are embarrassed about the conventions inherent in the genre. Because of this they are afraid of:

the character having shorts on the outside (like wrestlers and circus performers of the late 1930s)
the character's name (they only say it twice in the movie and they usually smirk when saying it)
the name Metropolis is never mentioned
Jimmy Olsen is missing
He is less than super since he saves very few people not named Lois in the movie
the character being too virtuous (young Clark is a jerk)

and so, all those millions buy a movie that employes a shaking hand camera to make it seem more like some reality "news" show and less like a good superhero movie. It an attempt to make the movie more realistic, they actually make it more like one of those video games called a "fighter" where 2 characters spar, doing jumps and flips and specials. Add in self-righteous cheese flowing out of Kevin Costner's mouth and smirking army dudes (and dudettes) and the movie is a mess.

They did do several things right:

Krypton is pretty cool, they left behind the other movies, Greek God-like togas and mist for a advanced science civilization. Too bad they couldn't have shown more.
The speed of Kal-el and the Kryptonians was perfect.
Many movies have the cheesy 3 point landing, but when a Kryptonian came down, there was real weight behind it.
Russell Crowe

My 2 cents.

[Goblinmonger]

3. Totally agree with your downsides.

I felt it was more existentialist angst than superhero movie. And in that regard they were trying to make Superman a bit more like Batman and, well, that just ain't right.

ETA: I thought the Christ imagery was WAY over the top and really took away from the film.

Another thing they did right:
Casting Michael Shannon. He rocked.

[Broken_Hero]

4. They mention Metropolis

when the world engine split from the main ship, the Air Force guy said one bogey was heading south(Indian ocean or something) and the other was heading for Metropolis.

And he saves the entire planet, not just Lois, Zod was going to build a New Krypton on the bones of the human race. He also saves Col. Hardy, one of his crew from the same helicopter, at least 7 folks from the burning oil rig. I think he only saved Lois three times

I agree about the Kevin Costner thing, the tornado scene was utter bs. I didn't mind Jimmy Olsen not being in this, never really cared for the character. I does appear a lot of folks smirk at comic book heroes, I didn't even think about Superman's name being mentioned in this film, and I only recall his name being used once.