I still do not understand what everyone hated so much about that film. It was a helluva lot better than "Man of Steel," and not just because it maintained continuity with the previous films instead of throwing canon out the window and calling it "reimagining" like Hollywood loves to do these days. They did startling new things (most notably Lois Lane moving on and raising Supermans kid with someone else in his absence) without the need to unmake any existing classic ones. The characters had depth and motivation, whereas in "Man of Steel" it was just "we are going to punch either across the world for a few hours." We got to see what being repeatedly screwed over by Superman did to Luthors state of mind, and what his abandonment did to Lois and his mom.

Even as a huge Superman fan I was deeply disappointed "Man of Steel" was just another action movie. My wife found the big showdown with Zod tedious and repetitive before it was halfway done, and so did I. She commented it was just the same thing over and over again, with no new scenes, which starkly reminded me how creative Donner was with the same basic scene in "Superman II." Not to mention how they ruined a big part of the traditional Superman tension at the start: Lois Lane knew Clark Kent was Superman before she even met him.