Superman is easily one of the most iconic superheroes of the bunch, but the Daily Planet’s most intrepid reporter has struggled mightily to make his impact on modern cinema. Part of the problem is that Superman’s origins are fairly hokey, something this current age wants no part of (just ask Bryan Singer and "Superman Returns," his now-reviled attempt to revive the series and the original film’s aw-shucks wholesome spirit).

There are two solutions to this problem. Option one is to tell a new, revamped and dark Superman story. Option two is to have Superman punch stuff really hard and make it look cool.

"Man of Steel" admirably chooses both options. While director Zack Snyder outdoes even himself in terms of epic visual spectacle, his attempt to churn out a moody, serious Superman story in the vein of Christopher Nolan – who serves as producer and provided the story alongside Batman collaborator David S. Goyer – lands with a thud.

The movie opens on Krypton, where the planet is falling apart literally and figuratively. While the planet’s core grows dangerously unstable from environmental decay, the genocide-happy General Zod (Michael Shannon) plots a military coup on the surface. With Krypton’s in its death throes, Jor-El (Russell Crowe) and Lara (Ayelet Zurer) launch their son Kal-El off to Earth, along with the Codex, a chunk of skull that serves as the DNA of the Kryptonian people.

Cut to two or three decades later, and baby Kal-El has grown up into beefy Clark Kent, with Henry Cavill of "Immortals" and Showtime’s "The Tudors" finding himself in the last son of Krypton’s tights this time around. He wanders the globe, performing small feats of heroic strength and valor in scruffy anonymity, until a discovery in the Arctic gives him his super suit and fittingly turns him into Superman.

The transformation isn’t quite as easy as just putting on the suit and becoming Metropolis’s savior. General Zod has found Earth and wants to turn it into his people’s new home. No, he doesn’t feel like sharing. Yes, that does sound like the plot to "Transformers 3" (with the egregious product placement – IHOP, Sears, Nikon – also in tow).

It’s a Superman tale for our times, which is to say darker (Snyder paints the film in every color of the grey spectrum) and more cynical. Superman isn’t the easily accepted savior of Earth. He’s a troubled walking deity, struggling with his powers, his role in society and his attempts to coexist with humans, who may reject him despite the massive personal responsibility and emotional cost he is willing to burden.           

The problem isn’t the ideas; it’s how Goyer and Snyder work them into "Man of Steel." Or don’t for that matter, as the first half of the film plays like a movie made entirely out of thematic point pounding. It’s as though someone stitched all of Michael Caine’s sermons from the Dark Knight movies together. Instead of weaving them into the story, Snyder and company continually pummel the audience scene after scene with its seriousness. It ends up stuck in big important action movie mode, bludgeoning me like a bag of Kryptonite bricks.

It doesn’t help that Snyder’s own personal Kryptonite is storytelling. His pacing for much of the first half of "Man of Steel" is breakneck to the point of roughshod. There’s no sense of build up and delivery. 

Combined with the script’s intermittent use of flashbacks to show key moments from Clark’s Kansas childhood with his adoptive parents (Kevin Costner and Diane Lane), it gives the impression the creators were trying to avoid making "Man of Steel" feel like a typical origin story. It’s a novel goal, but the pace unfortunately doesn’t give the audience time to feel anything, and the flashbacks always feel clunky.

While Snyder struggles with the smaller stuff and nuances, he’s more than capable when it comes to gorgeous visual spectacle and explosive action brio. To put it in Internet meme terms, boom goes the, well, everything. The opening sequence on Krypton is epic, setting up a fantastical world and then blowing it up in stunning fashion. A shot of Lara tearfully watching the planet explode before her eyes is one of Snyder’s best shots in a portfolio filled with great ones. A sequence retelling the story of Krypton in liquid metal is yet another impressive visual moment in a movie filled with them.

It all culminates in spectacle stacked on top of spectacle. When "The Avengers" came out, I asked how a comic book movie could ever hope to top it. "Man of Steel" tries by not just going big, but going pulse-poundingly massive. Entire cities are left in ruin. Each punch lands with a deafening shockwave. It’s a jaw-dropping wonder watching gods use our world essentially as their boxing ring.

The storytelling admittedly seems to get worse; for instance, the climax of the fight involves the lives of a few innocents, a weak attempt at raising the emotional stakes when Superman and Zod have already mindlessly killed several hundreds of thousands of people. The movie hopes you forget that troubling fact.

It’s still an exciting and bombastic finale, but by the end, "Man of Steel" is crushed by the weight of its own weightiness. Snyder’s mesmerizing eye and cares-to-the-wind action exuberance try to hold it up, as well as the performances, which are strong across the board.

Shannon’s Zod is more subdued than expected (there are only a few crazy, bug-eyed yells) but he’s still his usual ferociously intense self. His creepy, static-filled message to the people of Earth gives the film a much-needed jolt near the middle. Amy Adams also has just the right amount of zeal for Lois Lane.

Then there’s the Superman of the hour, Henry Cavill. He’s great, charismatic while also showing his inner conflicts (in an early bar sequence, you can see him summoning the strength to stop himself from punching a rude patron’s spine in half). He’s an engaging lead – capturing the iconic gravitas of a god with the emotional struggles of a human – and one of the main reasons why, despite this draining first installment, I’m interested to see where this darker take on Superman goes.

As for now, though, the S emblem on his chest stands for so-so, not super. Warner Bros. is happy though, as they’ve got their own s-word already in mind: sequel.