thats not accurate - he had to stop the machine (and did, using his ‘baby’ ship to create a black hole (?) that sucked all of krypton into it and pucnhing a hole thru the world maker) , then he could deal with Zod afterwards - and did. If he had chosen to fight Zod without taking out the machine first - even more of Metropolis, and the world, would have been devestated.
half the destruction of metropolis (and that poor city on the other side of the world that no-one bothers to mention) was the fault of the machine - alot of other destruction was caused by the fight between Kal and Zod.
The fight in Kansas between the Army, Zods men and Superman was definitely one that Superman would/should have tried to move - but Zods folks chose the battleground.
Faulting comic book movies for being predictable is dim witted. Of course you know how the movie ends. It’s how you get to that ending that matters.
It’s only an idiot who needs originality all the time. I know the plot to Hamlet. I’ll no doubt reread it several times before I die. Even though it’s predictable, it’s still the greatest piece of literature ever written.
As an aside, the concept of Superman representing optimism in crimefighting and Batman cynicism as a point of conflict between them started, IIRC, sometime in the Seventies in the comics. That, at least, is where I first remember seeing it.
Then you don’t like Superman. Superman is about optimism. He’s the ultimate good guy.
Wanting a gritty story about how superhumans would hurt people is fine, but it’s not what Superman is about. They call him the "Big Blue Boy Scout: for a reason. He’s fundamentally an optimistic character.
Sure, you can get a lot of drama of challenging that optimism, once you set it up. But when you just make him a shitty person from the beginning, it doesn’t work.
I actually wasn’t sure how they were going to put Batman in this film, since Superman is already at Batman levels. I thought maybe they’d make it interesting and reverse their roles, but I found out that’s not the case.
It’s as much out of character as Kirk is in the new Star Trek movies. But at least there’s an excuse for that: time travel changed things.
You can take an optimistic Superman and put him in the real world. That’s a movie. Marvel killed the type of movie you want. Special effects have caught up to comic book writers imaginations. Audiences want to see what a real Superhero fight would look like. Not a silly fight against that can get cleaned up with a broom. Two Kryptonians fighting in the middle of the city will cause damage. Glossing over that is silly. Thinking that Superman would be able to take every fight into the middle of the desert is also silly and would make a very boring movie.
I’m pretty sure that Superman only fought Zod once he came back from the Indian Ocean; I don’t believe the other machine was actually over a city or anything. It was out in the middle of the sea. Supes wasn’t around to stop the doomsday weapon over metropolis, which had to be done by mere mortals. Superman did tell them how to do so, however.