Weakest argument ever. The screenwriters can make it end however they wanted to.. they can write a story however they wanted to. Why not write a story that actually has Superman in it? A story where Superman saves people. You know... Superman. Note: they were so ashamed that they were writing a Superman movie they hesitated before using his name, and when they did, it was a joke. Notice in Superman 2 that he was less interested in fighting Zod in the city than he was stopping people from getting hurt. That's Superman. What was in this movie was not Superman.
Although for all of that concern he had, notice that Superman DID still spend quite a lot of time fighting Zod, Ursa and Non in the city. And only finally drew them away to the Fortress after everything else he tried seemingly failed. Granted, those villains inflicted a pretty pathetic amount of damage to Metropolis compared to the villains in MOS, but that doesn't change the fact that people were still clearly being endangered. And Supes didn't really seem to be trying that hard to pull the villains out of the city, when you really look at it. As for the MOS Supes "not being Superman", he still stopped Zod and his men from destroying the entire freakin planet, and nearly killed himself in the process of stopping the World Engine that was destroying Metropolis. Which I'd say is a pretty Superman-type of thing to do, and more than makes up for any other mistakes he might have made along the way. It's just hilarious to me that people continually seem to ignore that whole part of the story.
I saw this when it was released and this evening I watched it for a second time (on Blu Ray). I liked it fine when it came out albeit it with a few quibbles. I think I like it a bit better the second time around. The destruction still seems a tad overdone, but the final fight sequence doesn't feel as protracted as it did the first time around. Two real quibbles remain. The overall colour palette is still too muted which I feel makes the film look washed out. And while not horrible by any stretch I find the music soundtrack to be largely unimpressive. It's pretty much just audio wallpaper.
I think my issue with the music is more to do with the fact that is not John Williams. His Superman theme is iconic but that my childhood Superman in 20 years time if another Superman movie is made childreen of today might feel the same way as I do today. And I'm sure I've said it before they could easily have ended the movie with Zod sucked away with the rest of the Kryptonians and it would still have been a decent movie.
^I dunno. It kinda seems like a lot of recent big blockbuster movies have had fairly weak scores with weak themes. Zimmer ended up falling short going up against both John Williams' Superman theme & Danny Elfman's Batman theme. Meanwhile, Michael Giacchino's Jurassic World score pales in comparison to John Williams' work on Jurassic Park & The Lost World. I don't have a problem with the Superman/Zod fight at the end. I'm more bothered by the mass destruction caused by the World Engine. There's an enormous section of Metropolis that isn't even rubble. It's been reduced to a fine powder! So, while Superman technically "saved the day" by killing Zod, the death toll was already so high that it doesn't feel like a win. I can't really quantify it or rationally justify it. (Many millions more died in Independence Day, yet I don't have a problem with that movie.) It just doesn't feel like a Superman movie to me. It's just so dark & joyless.
I haven't seen Jurassic World so I can't comment on the score, the the Dark Knight saga had a decent enough score. Wass it as good as Elman's theme perhaps not, but tastes in music even if it's just instrumental is subjective.