MoS gets a bum rap.
I liked that it takes a very bold and very different look at Superman's upbringing. Furthermore, it has gotten a lot of hate, largely due to misconceptions.
Jonathan Kent didn't tell Clark he should have let the kids drown. He said "maybe" he should have. As in, he didn't know how to answer to the question. He was protecting his kid from a world that he (rightfully) thought would hate and mistrust him because he's an alien.
Kal is who he is because of his moral, midwestern upbringing. In every iteration he's a good person because he was raised to be altruistic, not to take advantage of those weaker than him and to HELP those who cant help themselves.
Arguably, this character? The ZS version? ISNT SUPERMAN. because of John Kent would never have said "Maybe". He might have said "YES, but there's going to be a price to pay for your exposure". But never "maybe".
My son, who was 10 years old when I took him to see it on Fathers Day had HUGE problems with this movie. Specifically Clark NOT saving Johnathan from the tornado. He was so troubled that a son would NOT save his dad that we had an extensive conversation about it walking to the subway from the theater.
I tried to explain to him that as a parent our first and strongest obligation is to protect our children. He listened and understood.
But after a long pause said: "I would STILL would have saved you. You would have been mad. But you would have been ALIVE."
That was one of my biggest problems with MAN OF STEEL as a "superman" movie. Not Kal himself, but the tone and world around him. It's not inspirational. It's not hopeful. It's not humanity looking up at the sky and saying "hey maybe we can be better just like HE is."
It's people suck and even a school bus FULL OF YOUR CLASSMATES might not be worth saving.
Even with me saying all to this MAN OF STEEL is probably my favorite DCU movie. Visually it's AMAZING looking. But it's mostly because I don't view it as a Superman movie. I just look at it as a generic first contact/alien invasion movie. Maybe even an Elseworlds type thing. But (to me) that's not Superman, more importantly it's not the message that Superman would propagate.