Film Review: "Superman"

James Gunn brings the DCEU roaring back to life with a superhero film that is a powerful and uplifting balm for these bleak and troubled times.

Hello, dear reader! Do you like what you read here at Omnivorous? Do you like reading fun but insightful takes on all things pop culture? Do you like supporting indie writers? If so, then please consider becoming a subscriber and get the newsletter delivered straight to your inbox. There are a number of paid options, but you can also sign up for free! Every little bit helps. Thanks for reading and now, on with the show!

---

Warning: Full spoilers for the film follow.

I’ll be honest. I’ve never been a huge fan of Superman as a superhero. He was always just so painfully earnest, and while there have been more than a few hotties who’ve played him over the years–Christopher Reeve, of course, but also Tom Welling, Dean Cain (blech), and Henry Cavill–I’ve just never felt the urge to go see a Superman movie. However, given that James Gunn was at the helm of this one, and given that it’s supposed to mark a brand-new era in the shambolic DCEU, and given that David Corenswet is gorgeous and Nicholas Hoult makes for a great sneering villain, I figured what the hell.

Reader, I wasn’t just not disappointed in what this film offered. I was truly blown out of the water. While it can be a bit overstuffed at times, there’s just so much damn heart in it, and David Corenswet is so incredibly charismatic and appealing as Superman, that I emerged from this film with a big grin on my face and a pride in being American that I haven’t felt since November of last year.

First, a bit of summary. The film throws us right into the deep end of the pool, with Superman (David Corenswet) having been defeated while battling the metahuman known as the Hammer of Boravia. Having recovered from his defeat with the help of the dog Krypto and his robots, Superman returns to battle, soon becoming pitted against Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult), even as he also tries to make his relationship work with Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan). Once Luthor successfully turns the public against Superman and has him arrested–and imprisoned in a pocket dimension–it’s up to Lois, her fellow reporter Jimmy (Skyler Gisondo) and the Super Gang (Edi Gaghegi’s Mister Terrific, Nathan Fillion’s Green Lantern, and Isabela Merced’s Hawkgirl) to save him and help him restore righteousness to the US.

There’s no question that Superman is one of the most topical superhero films that we’ve seen in a while. Though the script was presumably being written long before the full horrors of the second Trump administration came into being, there are numerous moments that tie in with the terrifying reality in which we found ourselves, most notably in the middle portion of the film, when Superman is imprisoned in a pocket dimension so as to be out of the eyes of the public. It doesn’t take a genius to see this as tying in unsettlingly well with the world in which we now live, one in which, every day, people are taken away and imprisoned, sometimes never to be seen again. Gunn skillfully immerses us in the terror and the horror of this world, and he makes it clear that Luthor and his enablers are the true monsters.

I’ve read more than a few reviews that have taken aim at the rather dour tone that takes up the middle of the film. To me, though, this is precisely the point. Superman forces us as viewers to not look away, to feel what it is to be powerless and at the whim of those in power who don’t care about honor or principles of compassion or empathy. When, for example, one of Superman’s human friends is shot in the head by Luthor in a vicious game of Russian roulette, the film forces us to identify with Metamorpho, who has himself been suborned into transforming his hand into Kryptonite and gazes in horror at what he’s allowed to happen. It’s a brilliant moment that jars both Metamorpho and the viewer out of the stupor complicity.

And speaking of Lex Luthor…

I’m of the belief that Nicholas Hoult is at his best when he’s leaning in to being a weirdo narcissist–as he did in The Great, in which he played the deeply disturbed Peter III to Elle Fanning’s Catherine the Great–and there are more than a few echos of Peter in Luthor. I won’t say that this iteration of Superman’s most infamous nemesis is particularly well-developed, but in this version of the Superman universe he doesn’t have to be. He’s just a very jealous and narcissistic and truly small little man, one who has to lean on gadgets and a second-rate clone of Superman, as well as his henchmen and henchwomen, to achieve his ends. Hoult plays him to the hilt, of course, and he makes him so unbearably blustering and obnoxious that it’s tremendously cathartic to see him finally defeated. If you see more than a few echoes of our own tech oligarchs, particularly the notoriously thin-skinned and quite dumb Elon Musk, then I’m sure that’s deliberate.

Now, I will say that there is a lot going on in this movie. In its just-over-2-hours of runtime it manages to cram in: an international conflict, Superman dueling his clone, a giant monster that wreaks havoc on Metropolis, a revelation about Superman’s parents and their intentions for him, lots of stuff about Lex Luthor wanting to set himself up as a king in all but name, and of course the Super Gang. It’s to Gunn’s credit that he keeps things moving at a pretty fast pace, one that doesn’t bog down in too much exposition or worldbuilding. This can be a bit disorienting at first, but once you lean into it it all works surprisingly well, particularly since Gunn has such a keen visual eye that captures the beauty of a superhero movie (there’s so much color that I almost didn’t know what to do with myself, considering the desaturated palette so common in superhero films these days).

It’s really the human factor that makes this film shine, though. Corenswet and Brosnahan have remarkable chemistry, and they shine both together and alone. The scene in which Superman agrees to an interview with Lois is a thoughtful one, particularly since it forces him to really think about the consequences of his decisions. Corenswet is, I think, the perfect Superman for our era–at once ingenuous and doe-eyed and also remarkably steely in his sense of self-righteousness–and I hope that he gets to return to the role. Brosnahan is also superb as Lois, bringing a sort of Courtney Cox/Gale Weathers’ energy that I appreciated.

Just as Wicked did last year, Superman offers us a bit of wish fulfillment, allowing us to indulge in the fantasy that those who are willing to put their own selfish, megalomaniacal desires first–whether they be tech oligarchs or frizzy-haired Eastern European dictators–will get their comeuppance (watching the dictator of Boravia, Vasil Ghurkos, played by Zlatko Burić, meet his end at the hands of Hawkgirl is particularly satisfying). While the real world may be a far more miserable place than Metropolis, one can only hope that, like the people of the beleaguered Jarhanpur (Ukraine, anyone?), we find the strength within ourselves to challenge those who would make the US, and the world, a dark and cruel place.