Movie Review: Superman

Superman 2025 starts off in a very established universe. We are given some opening text to get viewers up to speed on the world, that superheroes are a well known thing and that Superman has been openly operating as a hero for three years now as the world’s most powerful hero and then promptly smashes him into the arctic, utterly defeated.

It’s a bold choice to be sure, setting up the expectation that this will not be your typical Superman movie. I do applaud not retelling his origin once again as Superman is the Most well known fictional character in the world and I’m not opposed to getting right into some action but this opening is a misstep in my opinion. Writer/director Gunn is well known for his fast paced stories, snappy humor and well executed action sequences be it physical or VFX driven. But his story is built upon the premise of Superman failing right from the get go.

The plot of the movie demands that Superman be rapidly put into a position where he goes from being the most trusted and revered hero on Earth to one who can be quickly reviled by humanity via the manipulations of Lex Luthor. Gunn who himself has been a victim of cancel culture is likely working out some personal stuff here and I get the sense as someone who went from being loved for his work to nearly losing his career has forever colored the man’s opinion of fandom. Because that’s what this plot device feels like, toxic fandom manipulated by online haters. In fact Luthor weaponizes the internet against Superman for this very purpose in the most silly Golden Age of comics way possible.

That is one thing I can credit Gunn with here, like the legendary All Star Superman comic series Gunn leans heavily into the flavor of the Golden Age with its silliness and things happening without explanation and that is fine for us comic geeks who can spot the many Easter eggs and references but not for the casual audience who have to be wondering, who is this, why is this important or I don’t understand what this means. You can write broadly or you can write for a demographic and while Gunn tries to do both here I don’t think he quite succeeds.

Because this world is already dense with history a lot is thrown at the viewers at once and because of this shotgun approach of world building towards future projects like Supergirl and Peacemaker there’s a lot that gets lost in the process. Superman is one of those things lost. While this absolutely feels like a comic book movie (Gunn brings the sort of MCU flair to the DCEU that Warner Brothers has been craving), it doesn’t feel like a Superman movie. It’s more an ensemble piece than anything else and because of this many opportunities to develop Supman as a character are missed.

In fact Superman does not always feel like Superman and other times he very much does. Corenswet when allowed to portray Superman does a fine job. But in the scenes that require Superman to be overly naive or sometimes even kinda dumb he struggles. The mistake of Luthor in most media and reflected here is thinking his battle with Superman is brains over brawn. Lex thinks Superman is simpleminded because of his folksy values, but this is not true, Superman is highly intelligent. But you wouldn’t know that from watching this film. Even Superman displaying his “brains” comes off as something very simple.

Other characters also miss the mark as far as characterization. While Mr Terrific’s abilities and look are spot on, his personality lacks the coldly analytical aspect of his comic counterpart in favor of him being a bit more street than Spock in nature. Hawkgirl gets no character development in this overbloated cast but Guy Gardener and Lois Lane are actually picture perfect but Jimmy Olsen is DISTINCTLY unlikable and proves to be a terrible person. Hoult plays Luthor well, with obsessive menace being both reckless and intellectually superior at the same time but the final exchange between him and Superman really diminishes the character quite a bit with some shockingly corny dialogue from both Superman and Lex.

Superman is a film you can enjoy, yes but in its own way it’s as far off track as Snyder’s grim Man of Steel was. Go watch Superman the Movie if you want to see a real Superman flick.

SCORE:
2.5 out of 5

Director: James Gunn

Starring: David Corenswet; Rachel Brosnahan; Nicholas Hoult; Edi Gathegi; Anthony Carrigan; Nathan Fillion; Isabela Merced & more…