Superman

Well, it looks like I'm on the wrong side of recent film history with this one. Quite a few early signs are that this iteration of Superman isn't finding favour with the critics. I have to say, I thought it was a lot of fun. Not a world beater but certainly an improvement over the previous Snyder editions (Man of Steel, Justice League, etc).

One highlight is the editing, by Craig Halpert and William Hoy. It's snappy and witty, and some of the transitions are fantastic - Hawkgirl dropping a wrong'un cuts to a soluble tablet dropping into a glass of water, for example. The fight sequences aren't too 'Transformer-ised' either, that is, it's possible to tell what's going on.

Writer/director James Gunn imbues the film with a lightness of touch and the humour, mostly from Nathan Fillion's Green Lantern, works most of the time. The casting is pretty spot on, too. In David Corenswet and Rachel Brosnahan, it's almost as though Gunn scoured the Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder lookalike contests (if they exist). Nicholas Hoult's Lex Luthor, with his filthy lucre and faux-moral outrage, has a clear whiff of Musk and his cunty ilk. His passionate anti-alien rhetoric comes right out of the MAGA playbook.

The (admittedly over-packed) story has Supe dealing with some controversy regarding his intervention in a potential war between Boravia and Jarhanpur, fictional countries that stand in for any number of states at the time of the films provenance - let's say Boravia is an amalgam of Russia and Israel, and the Jarhanpurians might as well be called Palestinians. When the 'Hammer of Boravia', another meta-human, akin to the 'supes' in The Boys, hands OG Supe his arse on a plate, we realise maybe this dude isn't totally invincible (leaving Kryptonite aside). And just as well, too, because there needs to be some peril, no matter how stretchy it is.

Look, there's nothing too original here but Gunn's ethos carries the film through its weaker moments - at one point, the Justice Gang are 'dealing with' an interdimensional imp outside the window as Supe and Lois are having a heart to heart, à la Guardians of the Galaxy 2's opening sequence. Understated isn't usually a DC trait but they needed to try something, and no better way than to inject some of the style that Gunn put to good effect in his previous DC outing, The Suicide Squad.

As mentioned earlier, there are some echoes of The Boys in this film's handling of metahumans and the public perception of them, especially the Kryptonian. Note how easy it is to sway public opinion, with or without the help of hundreds of pocket universe social media monkeys on keyboards. Don't dwell on that last sentence too long until you see the film.

To balance this a bit, I thought Superman's blind devotion to saving even the smallest squirrel or the most grotesque monster felt a little overdone, and the CGI super-dog just gave me the royal shits. And yep, the plot elements could have been pared down a touch as well. But hey, light and breezy craic, while still winding up conservative blue veiners? I'll have some of that.

Superman is showing everywhere now.

See also:

The Guardians trilogy is great but I think there's more linkage to Gunn's The Suicide Squad (2021). And who fancies seeing shiny head Luthor as a boy, in Chris and Paul Weitz's About a Boy (2002)?

(Film stills and trailer ©Warner Bros, 2025)