Which was the better portrayal of Superman?

Its funny, but when MOS came out I quite liked it, perhaps the bold action sequences and the wonderful sound track blinded me to its flaws. Superman Returns on the other hand annoyed me straight off, but the more I watch it, the more I think it got a lot of Superman's character spot on. Basically if you took out the last half an hour of the film on that kryptonite island, I would be fairly happy. On re-watching MOS however, I now have to agree with fans who say it was a poor Superman portrayal, although I still appreciate many aspects of the film...

So which portrayal did you prefer?

I don't know whats more horrible the Super-kid from Returns or the penis shaped cryogenic prisons from the start of MoS :P

MoS. No contest. #justdavidsgoyerthings

MOS man it ain't perfect but it'll do

MOS

Superman Returns had good moments, but to me MoS had more and better potential for sequels. I wouldn't want Superman Returns to get a sequel if given the option. They used an obsolete Lex Luthor. Since the original Superman movie, we've had better ones in the comics, shows and animated series. It's time for the real Lex Luthor to make his appearance on the big screen.

Man Of Steel

Pretty much this. The "evil real estate agent" Lex always annoyed me. It looks like they are going with "genius with a big business" Luthor here, which is a very good start.

Also, they overused Kryptonite in those pre-MoS films. When it does make its inevitable appearance in the DCCU, I hope that they will be smart about how they approach it and that it is used more sparingly.

Easily Superman Returns, that Superman was at least kinda likeable even though he didn't show much emotion but it was more than MOS.

Superman Returns had the better, more complete portrayal of Superman. That's not to say MoS failed in that regard, but anybody watching the film with an objective mind can tell Cav-Els character arc was never meant to be completed in one film.

MoS was really good.

MoS.

MOS

MoS. No contest. For all its good intentions, Returns was an absolute nostalgic snoozefest, more worried about revisiting the first movie than in telling a compelling Superman story for a new generation of viewers.

Would probably give a slight edge to Superman Returns.

MOS by far

I'll take mass murdering Supes over bland supes.

Beata

Better portrayal? Returns. MoS Superman was Superman yet.

Man of Steel in just about every way possible is better than Superman Returns

One was a semi-bland Superman.

The other was a newbie Superman, but wasn't really acting like Superman until the last portion. It wouldn't be that bad if only Henry showed his charismatic vibe beforehand.

MOS. Superman returns didn't do anything. MOS gets way too much crap. He was a great superman. Fighting for what's right even when he has no idea what he's doing.

I swear we've already had one of these threads? Even so, I much prefer MoS.

Yeah, I think consensus has been reached

MoS. No Super Stalker.

MoS Superman was a more interesting character, and his actor wasn't half-assing his performance

MoS.

MOS by far.

I surprised that SR’ script even got green light for production. Really, “real estate” Luthor, Superman, who hightailed from Earth for 5 years without even bothering to explain why he’s doing so, add stalking, child of whom he didn’t know, lack of action, overall superhero melodrama/romance – nostalgic tribute genre of this movie and actor who doesn’t even give off Superman’s vibe.

Nice way to reintroduce Superman to current generation of viewers (sarcasm)… I had to listen for years how much Superman s…cks, outdated and ridiculous because of SR from some of my acquaintances. Ironically, after MOS the very same people decided that he is “worth following and might be pretty awesome”.

MoS all the way. I don't care if people were pissed off about the destruction and him killing Zod. It was a much greater movie than Superman Returns ever was. So much in fact that the numbers and critics to SR don't lie. It was a flop, and honestly it was a total disappointment. It was like Siegel took the first two with Christopher Reeve and made a third, that incredible has it might seem was terribly made. If I could erase that movie from my mind I would.

MoS on the other hand was fresh, new, brought some pretty complicated moral debates and was action packed. The only things that really failed was the secret identity stuff and how Clark relationship with Lois developed in that movie. Lois should have never been able to discover who the misterious alien with superpowers really was. And at the end they could've shown Clark meeting Lois at the Daily Planet for the first time and leave it at that for now. Their relationship could and should've been developed only in future movies.

And this is it. This is my honest opinion.

Man of steel for me. I like henry Cavill as superman. I also liked the moving speed that superman had and the backstory

MOS is the better movie, both are bad as Superman adaptations.

I find it a little annoying when people call him a murderer, murder has a few stipulations

noun

1. 1.the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another.

unlawful, sure any deaths might fall under that one, but premeditated, that was all Zod, Kal tried to stop the murder, and then there's the human part (but I think we can overlook that)

there's also that fact that it's questionable if he killed anyone at all, he broke an awful lot of glass, but there wasn't much that he did that guarantees he killed anyone

Exactly. Superman was working directly with the US military against the Kryptonian invading forces. He was effectively acting as a soldier in that regard. To say killing Zod or any of his cronies would have constituted murder is absurd. Also, deaths were confirmed to have taken place due to the World Engine. None are known to have been caused by the scrap between Supes and Zod tho.

Superman felt more like Superman in Superman Returns

I don't know how one could even contemplate rating absolutely anything from Superman Returns higher than anything in Man of Steel.

<<<duh

Returns. Routh actually nailed it as Supes IMO.....too bad the rest of the movie sucked.

superman returns didn't feel like a superman movie at all. he barely did anything at all. that movie was boring as heck. the mos was great. i don't get how people can criticize clark for killing zod, but all of the avengers killed people. heck, the avengers 2 started with them murdering fodder.

Man of Steel

Mos.

Neither

Superman Returns= Focused way too much on Character development, too little action.

Man Of Steel= too much action. Little time for good plot and character development.

Man of Steel.

Man of steel.

The guy from Superman Returns didn't know he should have worn his underpants inside of his costume. Man of Steel learned to wear his underpants, under his costume.

Therefore, Man of Steel. XD

superman returns was just dumb. clark kent disappears for 5 years and no one thinks to look for him. heck, lois lane and clark had some kind of romance brewing. at the least they were best friends. you would think that lois would have tried to move heaven and earth to find clark. then he pops up and gets his old job back. at the same time superman just happens to come back. clark might have just put on an ' i am superman' shirt.

Man Of Steel.

MOS was brilliant despite what critics say. It was the most detailed, and most fighting scenes a Superman movie had ever had. Not to mention the battle with Zod had more depth and meaning than Christopher Reeves battle with Zod in 1979 Superman 2.

This was the first Superman movie that provided so much backstory on Superman's home world Kyrpton and why the planet self destructed.

Batman VS Superman was great as well but was lacking on time. I get it we had to follow Batman and see exactly what forged him into hating Superman at first. But the overall thing was Batman vs Superman fight wasn't long enough. I mean for a movie titles batman vs superman they should at least had a few fight scenes. Nope just one.

"MOS was brilliant"

lol

MOS at least had better action scenes. Return did not.

Agreed