Ballsy is a bad way to judge a movie's quality, no offense :P

I think Man Of Steel did kind of rely on ballsy in the sense of going in a new direction for the sake of going in a new direction. What I mean is that I don't know if they really put in the thought for a unique feel for Man Of Steel. Superman Returns seemed like a well-intentioned homage to the old movies, so I wouldn't say it was intended to rely on nostalgia. Perhaps that's what it ended up doing for people that weren't fans of the movie.

But to me, Man Of Steel's fresh new direction was just masquerading the goal of going toward the successful route of the Dark Knight trilogy; dark and seriously dramatic. I still think Superman needs to find its own niche as a fresh franchise and Man Of Steel wasn't the answer. Warner Bros should not have felt the easy need to rely on having Christopher Nolan connected to try to make it work. The man doesn't need to be an answer to everything for DC characters.

And so I wouldn't rank Man Of Steel the highest out of all Superman movies. I wouldn't rank Superman Returns highest either, but I just enjoyed Superman Returns more because it had a sense of fun similar to the original movies and the nostalgic homage seemed unique. It genuinely felt like they wanted to evoke the feel of the old movies and that's often rare with new movies so long after their originals. Usually everything wants to be done entirely different, sometimes only for the sake of it, such as what I thought of Man Of Steel.

I'd go with Superman, Superman 2 and Superman Returns. I think Superman Returns just had a beautiful story: returning in the story while also returning to movie theaters after so long.

I think Man Of Steel can improve and I don't think it's beyond saving, but it's tough to foresee major improvements with the same director coming back and the inclusion of Batman, which now has the filmmakers sharing their time with other new actors/major characters. With the inclusion of Batman, it just seems like they rushed in and said to themselves, "We're so proud of what we did with Man Of Steel, the only way to improve is merging with another hero and keeping all else constant."