Man of Steel
Warner Bros. Pictures | Release Date: June 14, 2013 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
55
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 47 Critic Reviews
Positive:
20
Mixed:
24
Negative:
3
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallJun 13, 2013
Man of Steel is more than just Avengers-sized escapism; it's an artistic introduction to a movie superhero we only thought we knew. Read full review
87
Film.comMatt PatchesJun 10, 2013
If the word “epic” has lost its meaning in the throes of recent summers, Man of Steel forcefully redefines it. Read full review
80
Time Out LondonDave CalhounJun 10, 2013
Feels both modern and traditional – a halfway house between the broodier Nolan way of shaking things up and the louder, bone-crunching style that director Zack Snyder established with films such as ‘300’ and ‘Sucker Punch’. Man of Steel is punchy, engaging and fun, even if it slips into a final 45 minutes of explosions and fights during which reason starts to vanish and the science gets muddy. Read full review
80
EmpireDan JolinJun 10, 2013
It aches for more depth and warmth and humour, but this is spectacular sci-fi — huge, operatic, melodramatic, impressive. It feels the right Superman origin story for our era, and teases what would be a welcome new superfranchise. Read full review
80
Total FilmMatthew LeylandJun 10, 2013
A bracing attempt to bring the legend back into contention that successfully separates itself from other Super-movies but misses some of their warmth and charm. But given the craft and class, this could be the start of something special Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comMatt Zoller SeitzJun 14, 2013
The most striking and curious aspect of Man of Steel is the way it minimizes and even shuts out women. Read full review
75
Charlotte ObserverLawrence ToppmanJun 13, 2013
David Goyer, who wrote the script for Man of Steel from a story he concocted with Christopher Nolan, found a new way to make us care: The title character is disturbed by everything in his adopted home. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliJun 13, 2013
Man of Steel is, first and foremost, a great spectacle. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter TraversJun 13, 2013
Caught in the slipstream between action and angst, Man of Steel is a bumpy ride for sure. But there's no way to stay blind to its wonders. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleJun 12, 2013
This is a pretty good action movie that justifies bringing back the Superman franchise -- a dubious proposition to begin with -- by taking the plight of the superhero seriously. Henry Cavill is charismatic in the lead role, Amy Adams is an ideal Lois Lane and, as the villain, Michael Shannon does the best Michael Shannon impersonation you've ever seen.
75
New York PostLou LumenickJun 10, 2013
Deploying an impeccable American accent, Brit Henry Cavill may be as charming as the late great Christopher Reeve. Read full review
75
The PlaylistCharlie SchmidlinJun 10, 2013
Goyer and Nolan have crafted in Man of Steel a taut, exploratory vision, and Snyder's later inheritance of the material indeed proves his best work since “Dawn of the Dead.” Read full review
70
TimeRichard CorlissJun 12, 2013
The action is plentiful and thumping; Marvel-size thrills await you and the generations of kids who still believe in Superman. I just mean that the movie finds its true, lofty footing not when it displays Kal-El’s extraordinary powers but when it dramatizes Clark Kent’s roiling humanity. The super part of Man of Steel is just O.K.; but the man part is super. Read full review
70
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzJun 12, 2013
If you like your summer-movie explosions huge, Man of Steel delivers. But it seems as if it might have delivered even more than a glorious noise. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyJun 10, 2013
As much spectacle and action — minute-by-minute, frame-by-frame — as any movie anyone could think of. Zack Snyder’s huge, backstory-heavy extravaganza is a rehab job that perhaps didn’t cry out to be done but proves so overwhelmingly insistent in its size and strength that it’s hard not to give in. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleKimberley JonesJun 12, 2013
Snyder has cast Man of Steel with dramatic actors, not action stars, and it pays off. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam LaceyJun 13, 2013
Here are a few adjectives that do not apply to the new Superman movie: Beguiling. Frisky. Nuanced. Quiet. Even the title, Man of Steel, sounds too flighty for this film. Man of Lead, or Man of Plutonium, maybe. Read full review
63
USA TodayClaudia PuigJun 12, 2013
The story, while sometimes soaring, is other times grounded by a hyperactive and numbing vibe. But Henry Cavill has the strapping good looks of the comic icon, and humanity to match his superheroism. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsJun 12, 2013
Snyder films the violence in Man of Steel the way he films most of the rest of the picture: Like a man chasing tornadoes and not even trying to keep subjects in frame. It's a choice, and not a bad one, necessarily — the Smallville farm scenes, in particular, respond well to the approach — but by the end it's a visually limiting one. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy BurrJun 12, 2013
Snyder knows how to put on a show, and Man of Steel has a massive scope that’s hard to resist... But what’s missing from this Superman saga is a sense of lightness, of pop joy. Read full review
60
NPRGlen WeldonJun 14, 2013
What it fails to supply much of — surprisingly, it must be said — is fun. This is serious business, Snyder seems always to be saying. This is badass. And given the sheer logistical size of the spectacle on display, it's a position that's hard to argue with. Read full review
60
The New York TimesManohla DargisJun 13, 2013
At once frantically overblown and beautifully filigreed, Man of Steel will turn on everyone it doesn’t turn off. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierJun 11, 2013
The serious-minded result has many super-cool moments. But when it gets clunky, it’s super-meh. Read full review
60
The TelegraphTim RobeyJun 11, 2013
It has heft, it looks amazing, and it's businesslike to a fault. Read full review
60
Village VoiceStephanie ZacharekJun 10, 2013
It’s a relief just to watch the actors act once in a while, and thankfully, Snyder is astute enough to punch some breathing holes in this steel-clad colossus. Read full review
60
The GuardianAndrew PulverJun 10, 2013
The whole film ends up feeling weighed down: though Man of Steel bounds from one epic setpiece to another, you're left with the nagging feeling that you just can't work out what the central twosome see in each other. And for Superman and Lois Lane, that's hardly ideal. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubIgnatiy VishnevetskyJun 12, 2013
Like Snyder’s Sucker Punch, it’s a confused but fascinating mishmash of religious, military, and sexual imagery. Read full review
58
IndieWireEric KohnJun 10, 2013
While certainly the most dazzling Superman movie to hit the big screen, the 143-minute Man of Steel is also the longest, and it only justifies that heft because it leaves room to keep the effects coming. Read full review
50
SlateDana StevensJun 13, 2013
If this version of Superman is to have a future — as Warner Brothers seems convinced he will, having already green-lit the sequel — I hope Snyder will dial back both the casualty count and the Krypton mythmaking and instead focus on establishing a fictional Earth that’s rich enough to be worth saving. Read full review
50
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerJun 13, 2013
Taking a cue from the “Batman” series, the film is dark and thudding and overlong. Read full review
50
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaJun 13, 2013
At least an hour of Man of Steel's excessive running time is devoted to the sort of crash-and-burn, slamming-into-skyscrapers CG fight scenes that we've already seen in "The Avengers" and "Dark Knight," "Iron Man," and "Spider-Man." Man of Steel is just the same old same old. Read full review
50
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezJun 13, 2013
What went wrong with Man of Steel? The early teasers promised Terrence Malick. The finished film is more Michael Bay. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranJun 12, 2013
While its ambition and scope pull one way, its pinched and unconvincing sense of drama pull the other. Read full review
50
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinJun 12, 2013
The movie isn’t dead on arrival, like Snyder’s over-reverent "Watchmen." But it’s pleasure-free. Read full review
50
Portland OregonianMarc MohanJun 12, 2013
Man of Steel has too many characters and too much plot, resulting in a movie that feels overstuffed and overlong. Read full review
50
McClatchy-Tribune News ServiceRoger MooreJun 12, 2013
If every generation gets the Superman it deserves, Man of Steel suggests we’ve earned one utterly without wit or charm. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperJun 11, 2013
A mostly underwhelming film, with underdeveloped characters and supercharged fight scenes that drag on forever and offer nothing new in the way of special-effects creativity. Read full review
50
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyJun 11, 2013
The local multiplex is lousy with celluloid crime fighters. So what turf is left for good old Clark Kent? That's the nagging question that director Zack Snyder's Man of Steel tries — and ultimately fails — to answer. Read full review
50
ObserverRex ReedJun 11, 2013
Redundant, unnecessary and a colossal waste of talent and money, you can pretty much sum up Man of Steel in the scene in which a lady police officer watches with her mouth wide open as Superman tosses aside tanks like Tinker Toys. “What are you smiling about, captain?” asks another cop. “Nothing, sir — I just think he’s hot.” Read full review
40
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternJun 13, 2013
Here's one more studio extravaganza brought down by numbing action and an addiction to generic digital effects. Read full review
40
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottJun 13, 2013
So we get no zippy, Tony Stark-flavored one-liners. No comic-relief characters. No nonsense. But that means we also get no up, up and away, either. Read full review
40
SalonAndrew O'HehirJun 13, 2013
Despite looking, feeling and (especially) sounding expensive – this is one of the loudest summer spectacles of recent years – Man of Steel is second-tier and third-generation Chris Nolan-flavored neo-superhero material. Read full review
40
Time OutJoshua RothkopfJun 11, 2013
The better actors — Kevin Costner, chiefly, as the adoptive Earth father — strain to supply warmth, but mostly, the minutes stretch into great expanses of blahness, much of them filled with Transformers-grade skyscraper snapping and bloodless catastrophe. Read full review
40
VarietyScott FoundasJun 10, 2013
The humorless tone and relentlessly noisy (visually and sonically) aesthetics leave much to be desired. Read full review
38
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsJun 13, 2013
A soulless, overblown bore. Read full review
38
Slant MagazineChris CabinJun 12, 2013
All its faux-patriotism isn't played for satire, but instead utilized to align the film with an idyllic, unquestioned vision of goodness. Read full review
37
Washington PostAnn HornadayJun 13, 2013
Snyder tries to up the spectacle ante with ever more explosions, crashes, thermal blasts, topological realignments, gunfire and mano-a-mano fistfights. But the result is a punishing sense of diminishing returns and a genre that has finally reached the point of mayhem-induced exhaustion. Read full review
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