If you’ve had your fill of comic book movies that’s between you and your Zod, but SUPERMAN (2025) is a particularly good one. It’s literally and figuratively colorful, it’s perfectly cast, it’s joyously funny and silly, but it deeply and sincerely loves its characters, especially its cornball hero and his do-gooder point-of-view. Also it heavily features cinema’s first great super hero pet. Being the rare one of these with a writer/director (James Gunn, SLITHER), not to mention the advantage of being the official kick off to a new do-over DC Comics (Detective Comics Comics) cinematic universe, it has a very specific setting, tone and visual style. In that sense it reminds me of what I liked about comic book movies in the ‘90s, but otherwise it feels very modern.
I personally believe that there’s more than one way to make a good movie, so I will not be disavowing Zack Snyder’s MAN OF STEEL, but I like that this one takes the exact opposite approach. Snyder’s version emphasized the awe – it was about a god-like being coming to a quasi-realistic earth, and how humanity reacts. We witnessed him as mortals, looking up trying to catch a shaky glimpse of him in the sky. Gunn gives us a world where “meta-humans” have been around for centuries, and Superman has been public for three years, so people are used to it. Right off the bat Gunn and director of photography Henry Braham (ROAD HOUSE remake) put the camera steady on Superman’s face when he flies, like we’re right there with him. He’s one of us.
For better or worse I think every previous Superman movie has fixated on what is needed to translate Superman for movie audiences, and/or for modern ones. How do we make them believe a man can fly? How do we make them think a guy like this is still cool? SUPERMAN is the first to have confidence in our ability to appreciate a raw, unfiltered comic book Superman. Gunn has his spins and takes on various aspects but he’s not saying “okay, here’s an angle on Superman that makes him relevant.” He’s saying, “This is why I love Superman and I think you will agree!”
That goes not just for the character, but the whole world around him, in all its goofy glory. I admit I was skeptical before Gunn made a talking raccoon a major character in the Marvel universe, but now I get it. The more ridiculous the concept the more rewarding if you figure out how to make it work. In the opening Superman has lost a fight for the first time, and he bloodily returns to his secret Antarctica ice fortress where a team of loyal robots help him heal with the power of magnified sunlight. And as you’ve probly heard by now he’s aided by Krypto, a little dog who can’t talk but he can fly and has super strength and wears a red cape. The state of the comic book movie in 2025 is that you not only can have Krypto, but you don’t even have to give one word of explanation.
In Gunn’s interpretation Krypto is a pain in the ass who always wants to bite and wrestle and doesn’t know his strength. (I wonder if there’s some Krypto superfan out there sore about portraying him as poorly behaved?) I often quote MOONRISE KINGDOM when the girl asks “Was he a good dog?” and the boy says, “Who’s to say?” Well, Superman admits that Krypto is not a very good dog, but he cares about him anyway, and the plot depends on Lex Luthor (JUROR #2 himself Nicholas Hoult) being able to bait him by kidnapping his dog. (Is it possible that the success of JOHN WICK paved the way for cinematic Krypto the Super Dog?)
I don’t know how the fuck they do it but they found David Corenswet (the sleazy projectionist from PEARL) and he instantly embodies everything I associate with Superman – the look, the deep but friendly voice, the sudden dorkiness when he notices Krypto wrecked his living room and asks him, “What the hey dude?” Though they explain how his Clark Kent glasses scramble our brains’ perception of his face he also goes through the trouble to put on a messy-haired, bad-postured klutz performance for his newspaper reporter day job secret identity. It’s fun for him. Alone with Lois (Rachel Brosnahan, Sam Raimi’s 50 States of Fright episodes) later they laugh about it.
Daily Planet reporter Lois begins the movie already dating Superman and knowing his secret, at a slightly precarious stage in the relationship because of its unusual challenges, but those don’t at this point include her getting kidnapped or falling off of things and having to be caught. In fact, she uses her investigatory skills (teamed with technological genius super hero Mr. Terrific [Edi Gathegi, THE HARDER THEY FALL, the vampire with dreadlocks in the TWILIGHT movies]) to rescue Superman and many others from an extra-dimensional black site.
Which brings us to our Luthor, in my (controversial) opinion done well in a movie for the first time ever. He’s a scheming tech dude with numerous government and military contacts and a WOLF OF WALL STREET energy, introduced running a command center by pointing at various computer stooges like an overdramatic conductor. There are thankfully no one-to-one stand-ins for real people here but he is a genuine comic book super villain (i.e. an evil genius) with many of the pathetic and insidious qualities of our current sniveling oppressors.
I adore Gunn’s first DC movie, THE SUICIDE SQUAD, and I’m so happy that this seems to be another corner of the same universe (with one direct connection). It isn’t in the same raucous R-rated spirit but it shares the same view of humanity (optimistic) and authority (cynical). Okay, yeah, it’s currently hard to swallow the idea of Luthor getting in trouble for what he does, but up to that point it’s an accurate cartoon version of contemporary evil: collaborating with an authoritarian government to wage war against an unarmed populace, using right wing media to propagandize the public against a perceived other, getting the government to rent his private military (“Planet Watch”) and prison (in a “pocket dimension” for maximum security). In the movie’s most upsetting move he uses facial recognition software to identify a random falafel cart merchant (Dinesh Thyagarajan) who tried to help Superman, brings him to the prison and executes him. He’s Stephen Miller evil even though his tools include black holes and fast-growing kaiju distractions. And you know what, there was a time when the idea of a billionaire being driven by profound jealousy of the attention Superman gets seemed like a laughable old comic book thing. Now it’s a fucking fact.
Superman is a real American who loves his redneck parents and the farm he grew up on but also the big multi-cultural city he follows his dreams and falls in love in – why would he have to choose one and be against the other? That’s fucking stupid. He’s down with everybody and everybody’s down with him, or at least that was the case for a few years. Currently he’s in hot water with some of the media (his girlfriend) for stopping U.S. ally Boravia’s invasion of Jarhanpur without consulting the government. I’m not sure how much Lois actually cares about that but you know how big time newspaper reporters are about authority these days. Superman doesn’t give a fuck about the politics of it, just that “People were going to die,” so he prevented that. I don’t think this could’ve been meant as the Israel-Palestine commentary some have read it as – it’s more of the STAR WARS phenomenon of timeless patterns appearing to be torn from the headlines – but it definitely speaks to my feelings about all that. History and geopolitics being complicated is no excuse not to act, because the immorality of atrocities is very straight forward.
You know how nice Superman is? When he stops a rampaging giant monster with Mr. Terrific, Hawkgirl (Isabel Merced, MADAME WEB, ALIEN: ROMULUS) and Green Lantern Guy Gardner (Nathan Fillion, SERENITY) they make fun of him for trying to spare the monster’s life. And he makes a sincere “we can work this out” type pitch to Luthor’s vicious henchpeople, including spiky nanobot-powered shapeshifter The Engineer (María Gabriela de Faría, THE EXORCISM OF GOD). Superman seems to have higher ideals than the other super heroes, though we still like them, particularly technological genius Mr. Terrific, who approaches a reality-tearing dimensional rift with the demeanor of a quietly fed up cool uncle. His delivery of the line “This is why you don’t create a damn pocket universe” will stick with me.
I still think all the discourse about collateral damage in MAN OF STEEL was silly, but yes, I too love Superman’s concern for every living being around. In one scene of urban destruction he actually bothers to rescue a squirrel! That almost seems like making fun of the whole idea, but truly it’s great to see him fly by a kaiju-torched office building and ask if everybody’s okay. He has intimate moments with people, like when he holds up a collapsed building to let a car drive out from under it and he and the driver make eye contact. Imagine if you shared that moment with Superman! You would never get over it.
That’s an element of the world-building too – when loudspeakers announce a mandatory evacuation I suppose that would be a familiar thing for citizens of Metropolis. I love that it’s not just generic crowds of people running – there are characters. I noticed a specific young hipster’s outfit, a woman carrying two turtles in a tank, things like that. It reminded me of when you have a particularly good artist and they can’t help but throw in unnecessary background details – some interesting person in a window or down on the sidewalk or on a TV screen. There are a million lives and stories going on in every direction.
I don’t entirely disagree with the description “overstuffed,” but I lean more toward it being overwhelmingly stuffed, as a deliberate stylistic choice. It’s not like the older comic book movies where it’s this is the one where Superman fights Zod, this is the one where Batman fights the Penguin and Catwoman. Even these days the major characters usually get an origin, the minor ones are usually being set up for a spin-off or a larger part in the sequel. To me this feels more like an animated series like Harley Quinn or Young Justice that drops us into a populous, pre-existing DC universe. It’s a highly detailed alternate world with its own corporations, government entities, international conflicts, cable news shows, even a coffee chain and once popular pop punk band called the Mighty Crabjoys.
That comes up in what is, believe it or not, a crucial scene in the movie: the one where Lois calls herself “just a punk rock girl from [whatever she said her home town was]” and Superman says he’s punk too, listing some bands he grew up listening to (she makes fun of them as pop punk). Then he makes the argument that maybe his way of being kind and helping people is the real punk rock.
I admit I flinched a little, feeling twinges of residual Subaru embarrassment. But also it’s a funny conversation because Clark is a total square saying what a total square would say, and I think Lois is both laughing inside and swooning at what a lovable dork he is.
The more I think about it the more I love it because here’s James Gunn, who came from the genuinely fringe/outsider/DIY/transgressive cinematic world of Troma, tried to maintain his edgelordery and indie side projects while writing SCOOBY-DOO movies and shit, eventually grew into the big budget mainstream filmmaker he is now, which I personally feel represents someone who has grown as a person and as an artist without turning his back on the ideals of his younger self. But even making his previous super hero movies for giant corporations he could argue he was the guy on the outside, the one making the misfit toy space movie from the comic no normal person ever heard of, or the bawdy R-rated sequel where he gets to kill off a bunch of DC characters and make a joke about it. Now all the sudden he finds himself as the actual boss of a comic book universe, writing and directing the biggest, most mainstream, most boy scout super hero there is, and his way of going against the grain is that there’s no irony or hedging about it. He’s not saying okay, but here is the dark edge of Superman, this is what’s fucked up about him if you think about it, this is how he could go wrong. None of that. He believes in Superman.
So I think Gunn is making sort of a self-deprecating joke, comparing himself to a pop punk loving boy scout, but also I think he agrees with Superman. In a world so set up to divide us, to exploit us, to make us feel victimized and powerless and angry, protected only by shields of cynicism and snark, it is kind of an act of rebellion to be as nice and caring as Superman.
How is Superman current in 2025? He’s not. He’s some dork who still likes a band from when he was a teenager and this is the first time he’s hearing that they might be considered uncool. But he’s a good person and stays true to that, and that transcends having good taste in bands. You convinced me, James Gunn. I believe in him too. I can’t wait to see this again.
WARNING: SPECIAL SUPER SPOILER NOTE SECTION:
(this is a mandatory evacuation)
* The only provocative change to Superman tradition that I noticed is the twist that Superman’s message from his Kryptonian parents apparently has a portion he’d never seen that reveals they wanted him to conquer and populate earth. It’s kind of odd but meaningful, I think, to put his goodness on himself and his adopted parents and take away the old fashioned destiny bullshit.
(That said, there is one or more very obvious way they could explain this twist being a misunderstanding.)
By the way Bradley Cooper (THE MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN) is seen in a hologram as Superman’s father Jor-El, and my wife and I both believed his mother was played by Lady Gaga, but apparently the credited name Angela Sarafyan is not a pseudonym but a real actress who was in THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN PART 2 and many other things. Was it unintentional that it looked like an A STAR IS BORN reunion? Are we crazy? My friend Matt Lynch thought it was her too. Oh well, we enjoyed the illusion.
* There are lots of good supporting players that I didn’t have time to mention, but one of the best subplots involves surprising chick magnet Jimmy Olsen (Skyler Gisondo, “Young Moe,” THE THREE STOOGES) stealing Lex Luthor’s bubbly influencer girlfriend Eve Teschmacher (model and actress Sara Sampaio). Wendell Pierce (GET ON THE BUS) makes a very good Perry White. Frank Grillo (WOLF WARRIOR 2) is in a few scenes as A.R.G.U.S. director (military official) Rick Flagg Sr., and it is not necessary to know this at all but he’s supposed to be the father of the Rick Flagg in the SUICIDE SQUAD movies and he was introduced in Gunn’s very enjoyable animated series Creature Commandos. Grillo couldn’t dye his hair white like the cartoon because of commitments to other movies. Next time, baby.
* I think the score (credited to David Fleming [THE ALTO KNIGHTS] and John Murphy [MIAMI VICE]) is really good when it’s weird techno stuff for the bad guys, and overall it works, but I do think it’s a cheat to lean on John Williams’ theme. I know there are big footsteps to fill and all but that didn’t stop Hans Zimmer from knocking that shit out of the park. This Superman deserves his own brand new theme is what I’m saying.
* Luthor’s powerful masked henchman Ultraman turns out to be a flawed clone of Superman. I see him as a parallel to generative A.I. because Luthor hypes him up as superior to Superman but he’s an empty, lifeless xerox who can’t think for himself and depends on instructions from a team of technicians who closely studied all the moves of the real Superman.
July 16th, 2025 at 9:19 pm
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I’m surprised that you didn’t have anything to say about Supergirl, the giggly drunkard. It’s a new angle for the character on media other than comics, but I can picture them taking that stuff some really interesting places.
But the movie itself is interesting, too. I like this Clark more than any before, the way that he’s an unapologetic dork who listens to music that’s regarded as lame in-universe, watches his language, and genuinely loves humanity even as he proves as irritably testy as the next person. I dunno about the presence of the Justice Gang; the characters, despite Gunn’s words, didn’t feel like they served the story in a way that just Metamorpho, the only one who does anything of consequence, does. And I found the way Gunn deploys the usage of animals–be they Krypto the Super-Dog or a tiny squirrel–to be a bit obnoxious. Shortcuts to the ol’ heartstrings.
But overall, I’d say that this was probably the best Superman movie we’ve ever had. I’m not one to get precious about Donner’s. It was a great movie for its time. For its time. And the way that people still get precious about what it does has me shrugging; I always figure that you had to view it as a kid or experience it contemporaneously. I never did either of those things, and in the face of a post Raimi Spider-Man movie, it landed with a bit of a thud. I’d say that this reminds me of Raimi’s Spidey, in that it clearly aims to do a sincere take on these sorts of characters even as it pulls a bit of mischievous mean-spiritedness, and for the most part, I think it lands.