More Human Than Humans — Superman
Superman is the original comic book hero. Sure, what we consider comics existed in various forms for years before his debut in 1938, but once he came into the cultural zeitgeist with Action Comics #1, the “Man of Steel” has been the standard by which all heroes are judged. An orphan from a distant and doomed planet, powered by the light and radiation from Earth’s yellow sun to give him abilities beyond any mere mortal, but raised humbly to care for the wellbeing of others, he was created to be an ideal. While obviously none of us will be able to outrun bullets, shoot lasers from our eyes, or, you know, FLY, Superman’s incredible skill set was a device used for storytelling purposes to encourage the reader to stand up for what’s right and fight for the betterment of their fellow man. The slogan of “truth, justice, and the American way” was always meant to be something to which we aspire, because anyone of good intent can make a difference, and together we can evolve.
Across many different types of media, Superman has remained that symbol for the better part of a century. From the comics, to cartoons, to serials, to the George Reeves TV show, to the groundbreaking 1978 feature film starring Christopher Reeve, audiences have looked to Kal-El and his companions not just for entertainment, but for guidance. We were taught that greatness lies within each of us. We just had to find a way to put it to use for the betterment of all. And while we’re all fallible, he was a constant, letting us know that we can learn from our mistakes, and that he could make his own and still be on the right side of a given situation of moral and ethical ambiguity. We won’t always succeed, but the attempt is its own noble act.
But then, something went wrong. After Superman II in 1980 (for which I have a lot of affection, but objectively it’s not THAT great of a movie), the focus on Superman’s sense of empathy seemed to fade into the background in favor of campy sequels, rote and formulaic programs, and eventually a set of films that either tried in vain to recreate the mystique of the first flick or completely rewrite the character as some gritty antihero with a god complex and a gross, CGI-ed upper lip. Sure, there were high points along the way, like the animated New Adventures of Superman in the 90s and the live action Smallville prequel series starting in 2001, but for the most part, the depictions of Clark Kent’s derring-do have fallen on one of two extreme ends of the pop culture spectrum. Either we have a cheeseball self-parody that’s so overpowered that we have to find hackneyed ways to sideline him so that he can’t smoke all the fools in 20 seconds to render the whole affair moot, or we have to bog him down in Zack Snyder bullshit where he’s constantly in slow motion, cares nothing for the collateral damage caused during his fights, and somehow ends conflicts because his mother is also named Martha.
It’s always been one of the best cases of dramatic irony that Superman, an alien, had more humanity than the actual humans he was sent to live among and protect. Coming from a world he never knew that destroyed itself, he simply took it upon himself to do whatever he could to prevent THIS one from doing the same. Somehow, that core of the character was lost in so many subpar projects over the last few decades. There’s always wiggle room for nuanced development (“the American way” was dropped a long time ago as the growth of information technology helped foster a global community that no longer required a U.S.-centric emphasis, for example), but more than anything, we needed a return to the basic goodness of what many of us consider to be the first true superhero.
Enter James Gunn. After rousing triumphs with the Guardians of the Galaxy series and saving The Suicide Squad basically from itself, he was given the reins to reset the DC Universe, putting the previous decade of oversaturated, moody, and wantonly destructive Marvel imitations out of their collective misery once and for all. Free to guide the studio towards its own identity rather than trying to outdo Disney while still cutting every corner, Gunn has written the first chapter of a new story with his version of Superman, an absolute win, not just for a summer blockbuster, but for audiences who’ve been clamoring for a new direction for comic book films rather than just a tired rehashing of old tropes. With a new cast, character-driven story beats, a balanced degree of humor and high stakes, and Gunn’s trademark visionary sense of action choreography and effects, this proof of concept shows that the powers that be made the right choice by turning things over to him.
There are certainly things to nitpick here and there, but in true Gunn fashion, he leans into the silliness of the more trite moments, not necessarily subverting expectations, but acknowledging the tried and true tropes while still having fun with them. For example, the film opens with a ton of text exposition on screen about the existence of “metahumans,” Superman’s origin, and an offscreen battle with a foe called the “Hammer of Boravia” where Supes took an L for the first time, with each line time-stamped to some variant of the number three. Already you can anticipate the likes of CinemaSins dinging this for their go-tos of “reading” and telling us about a battle rather than showing it. I’m already waiting for the audio outtake where the text is accompanied by “Three Is a Magic Number” from Schoolhouse Rock. But the thing is, there is a point to the cliché here, as the scene is set up to show that Superman isn’t invulnerable, and we do rejoin the battle with him partially recovered as a means to set up the main threats of the story. Once we do get back to Metropolis to continue the fight, you realize that had Gunn opened with this test of fisticuffs, it wouldn’t work, because we’d have no information about why it’s going down or how this “Hammer” is meant to be taken seriously. It’s like starting the movie in medias res while still kicking off from the actual beginning of this particular story.
There are several other instances where you see something that on first glance appears patently stupid, but ultimately it not only makes sense, but becomes crucial to the finished product. Jimmy Olsen (Skyler Gisondo from Licorice Pizza) is not the doe-eyed Mary Sue character we grew up with, but instead he’s a somewhat dorky colleague treated on equal terms with the rest of the Daily Planet staff, and he’s also somehow the biggest ladies’ man in all of Metropolis. Seriously, every woman who crosses his path hits on him. It’s bonkers, but there ends up being a good reason for it, and it’s kind of spectacular when it all plays out. While this is decidedly a movie starring and about Superman (David Corenswet in his first major film role, though he’s been active on stage and screen since 2002), we have an entire team of sidekicks in the form of the “Justice Gang,” consisting of Nathan Fillion as Guy Gardner’s Green Lantern, Isabela Merced as Hawkgirl, and Edi Gathegi as Mister Terrific. For the most part, they’re comic relief, but Terrific ends up playing a major role in the climax, and even in the odder moments that feel like forced conflict, you can understand the viewpoints and difficult positions the otherwise shit-talking Guy is put in. We basically dispense with the courtship between Clark and Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan) and just have them as an established couple where Lois knows who he really is, and deal with more lived-in elements of a young relationship. We concede that Clark’s glasses don’t really fool anyone, and that he risks exposure due to him getting “exclusive” interviews whenever Superman saves the day. Rather than watch Pa Kent (Pruitt Taylor Vince) die yet again for “motivation,” we simply have him and Martha (Neva Howell) alive and well, because there’s no plot utility in him being dead, but there is purpose in him being a source of moral support for his adoptive son. Disney could do with a lesson on that front.
Essentially, Gunn gives the audience credit that they’ve seen a superhero movie before, know who Superman is and what he’s about, and can fill in whatever gaps he creates with their own imagination unless he specifically needs to spell things out. No shoehorned origin story, no heavy-handed montage of developing powers, no brooding, no forced retreading of old ground. Here’s Superman. Here’s the threat. Here’s how we go about it. Let’s have some fucking FUN!
As it turns out, that first battle with the Hammer, aka Ultraman, was a diversion. Controlled by Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult chews the scenery so well it must taste like a perfectly-seasoned steak), Ultraman has studied Superman’s fighting style since he emerged on the scene, so that Lex and his office of underlings can essentially get in his ear and rattle off a series of alphanumeric codes to give him the perfect countermove to Kal-El’s attacks. Once he’s taken enough damage, Superman is forced to flee to Antarctica, where Krypto the dog is able to take him to the Fortress of Solitude. There, he’s able to recover with the help of a team of robots (voiced by Alan Tudyk, Grace Chan, Pom Klementieff, Michael Rooker, and Gunn’s wife Jennifer Holland) and the relaxing final message sent to Earth with him by his Kryptonian parents, Jor-El and Lor-Van (Bradley Cooper and Angela Sarafyan). This is all orchestrated to lead Lex’s right-hand henchwoman, The Engineer (Maria Gabriela de Faria), to the Fortress’ secret location, so that Lex can infiltrate, destroy, and find some kind of dirt he can exploit to turn the public against Superman. The inciting incident involved Superman stopping the invasion by the fictitious nation of Boravia (led by its President, Vasil Ghurkos, played by Zlatko Burić from Triangle of Sadness) of the equally fictitious nation of Jarhanpur, which interfered with some of Luthor’s lucrative arms deals, and he needs some kind of ammunition to get the U.S. government to intervene and put Superman out of commission, as conveniently the world’s supply of kryptonite has been eradicated.
There’s a lot going on here, and there are so many places where, in lesser hands, the flick would go completely off the rails. The audience would be left hopelessly confused, the dialogue would get overloaded with sarcastic quips instead of worthwhile progression, the action would look uninspired (not to mention fake as shit), the whole affair would become a cynical exercise in product placement and sequel bait, and Superman would just murder people indiscriminately because he got sad once. Essentially, it would be a Zack Snyder film. But Gunn is better than that, as he’s demonstrated time and time again. There are a lot of plot threads, but he makes sure to resolve them in ways that follow the picture’s internal logic. There are snarky lines, but they’re properly spaced out, and the priority is still on making decisions true to the characters as they’re established (and hopefully at least somewhat accurate to the comics themselves).
We often hear complaints about political commentary, mostly from those who never understood the point of these tales in the first place. Remember what I said about “the American way” being dropped as a slogan? Yeah, some idiots in the media went NUTS over that as some sort of betrayal, the same way they did when Gal Gadot dared play a version of Wonder Woman whose costume wasn’t just the American flag as a halter top. So too does this film get aspersions cast at it for being too “woke,” as if Superman wasn’t always that way. He’s literally an alien promoting world peace. What part of that would ever gel with xenophobia and warmongering? Yes, you can tell that the subtext in this movie is not subtle. I mean, you literally have a vainglorious billionaire helping a vaguely Eastern European oligarch invade a neighboring sovereign state, one filled with brown people, in hopes of dividing up the land for profit. The parallels between our various national entanglements with Russia and Israel are pretty obvious, but in some respects, they’re also sadly prescient, given that this was filmed over a year ago, before some fairly recognizable outcomes occurred.
But to me, this is a feature, not a bug. Again, Superman was ALWAYS about standing up to powerful bullies, helping the less fortunate, and standing as a symbol of hope for those yearning for freedom. It’s a key element that was left out of so many properties associated with him over the past several years for the sake of maximum box office, but Gunn understands who this person really is, and has ever been. One of the best scenes of the movie is a date gone awry between Clark and Lois, where he consents to let her interview him, on the record, as Superman. What starts as an attempt by Clark to clarify why he stopped the Boravian invasion, adding that there were no casualties and that he doesn’t operate as an agent of the United States (another trigger for the jingoists out there), eventually devolves into a deluge of second-guessing and rhetorical traps. Lois isn’t doing anything wrong by asking these questions, but it soon becomes clear why Clark is so put off by them. We live in a world so jaded that the idea of someone using their power purely for good just can’t be taken at face value, no matter how genuine his desire to help is. This isn’t the first time a film has been used to hold a mirror up to society, but rarely has it been so expertly done. Our better angels too often get pummeled by society’s demons that positive gestures can seem completely foreign, and there are far too many in this country (and the world as a whole) who would loudly and violently resist anything they perceived as “foreign,” even if it posed no threat to them and even actively tried to make their lives better.
This movie covers some serious ground, but as previously stated, James Gunn also knows how to keep things balanced, lighthearted, and entertaining. The choreography and cinematography of the action scenes are phenomenal, especially considering most of it is CGI. It’s not just a bunch of digital noise. There’s a clear purpose and point to all of it, and the editing is so well done that you rarely, if ever, lose your sense of geography in a given set piece. Sure, there’s a slight sheen of fakeness on it, I’m guessing for the sake of premium screen formats (I saw it in 3D, but it didn’t enhance anything; you’ll be fine on a standard presentation), but it still looks great, because there’s fantastic attention to detail, and the effects look real enough that Gunn doesn’t have to fear showing them off in properly lit daytime shots, instead of obscuring them with fog and darkness like so many other lesser works.
Hell, the best effect of the bunch might be Krypto. Along with Terrific, the dog steals the show in nearly every moment he’s on screen, but never in a way that feels intrusive. He’s goofy, adorable beyond words, and can casually slam Supes and everyone else into the ground with a playful leap at their chest. Is that realistic? Of course not, but it’s still just the right level of batshit for these proceedings. Because it’s impossible to make a dog fly, obviously Krypto had to be digitally rendered for most of his scenes, but that doesn’t mean the production skimped on making him believable. Yes, most of the time he’s CGI, but whenever possible, there was a live canine actor on set (named Jolene) for the cast to interact with and perform around. One of the biggest complaints about CGI is that oftentimes you can tell that there’s nothing in the shot and there never was. At best the actors are given a laser pointer or tennis ball as a focal point for their eyeline, but otherwise they’re performing to thin air. Here, what was there isn’t what we see in the finished shot, but we can tell that there was actually a physical presence to react to, and that goes a long way, and five more years of technological development beyond the god-awful fake dog from the 2020 Call of the Wild gets us the rest of the way to a reasonable facsimile. When the Academy starts considering their candidates for Visual Effects later this year, a lot of attention will be paid to the bigger moments of rampaging monsters and buildings being destroyed, but a much more subtle yet committed effect like Krypto would be far more likely to get my vote.
All of this adds up to a film that would have been a relief and a success if it had merely been adequate. The DC Extended Universe was, by and large, a failure, because it tried to piggyback off of Marvel without putting in the work to get audiences to come along. Tonal whiplash would accompany every entry, even within the same franchise at times (WW84 and Fury of the Gods being the worst offenders), far too much license was given to toxic masculinity to the point that entire studio decisions were dictated by proxy by incels who could type out hashtags thousands of times per day, and every action sequence was a massive jumbled mess of bad effects and slow motion takes for their own sake (this film has, like, TWO slo-mo shots, and they both are done for good artistic reason).
James Gunn did put the work in. Is this an all-timer of a superhero movie? Probably not. Again, you can poke holes in a lot of moments, even the ones that end up retroactively working. But I’m giving it qualified top marks because Gunn has proven yet again that he knows what he’s doing, understands how comic book movies should look and feel, and respects both the characters and the audience to give them something true to them all, restoring the Man of Steel to his rightful place as the caped representation of our best selves. Back in 1978, the tagline for the first Superman film was “You’ll believe a man can fly.” After watching this Superman, I can say with absolute conviction that for the first time since then, I not only believed it, but I believed that we could fly as well.
Grade: A
Join the conversation in the comments below! What film should I review next? What are your hopes for this new DC Universe? How cute is Krypto’s little upturned ear? Let me know! And remember, you can follow me on Twitter (fuck “X”) as well as Bluesky, subscribe to my YouTube channel for even more content, and check out the entire BTRP Media Network at btrpmedia.com!
Originally published at http://actuallypaid.com on July 16, 2025.
