Superman <img src="https://img.icons8.com/ios-glyphs/20/000000/star--v1.png"/><img src="https://img.icons8.com/ios-glyphs/20/000000/star--v1.png"/><img src="https://img.icons8.com/ios-glyphs/20/000000/star--v1.png"/><img src="https://img.icons8.com/windows/21/000000/star-half.png"/>

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)

Comments

The Running Man

This is Edgar Wright's ninth feature, just a smidge over 20 years since his reputation-making second film, Shaun of the Dead . The older folk reading this might remember the Arnie original from 1987, directed by Starsky himself, Paul Michael Glaser. I vaguely recall that film being silly and comically violent, one of a slew of Schwarzenegger pulp films of the era. This remake aims for similar stylings, but with a more po-faced, less ludicrous feel. The premise goes that Ben Richards (Glen Powell) needs money to ensure his child gets the proper medicine for her unnamed illness. He's lost his job due to 'insubordination', but really he's just a top bloke looking out for his co-workers. After promising his wife Sheila (Jayme Lawson) that he won't try out for the near-suicidal game show The Running Man, he applies for other shows on the sinister Network, and gets selected anyway. Of course, or no movie. The scenes in this part of the film are probably the most succ...

The Quiet Girl

This is a great film, especially in the way that it manages to create something interesting out of a reasonably mundane synopsis. A young girl is sent away to a relative's house for the summer where she is treated better than at home. Sounds like it could have a bit of Rohmer-style youthful awakenings? Or maybe some gritty Loach-ian societal comment? Even perhaps a revenge tinged 'fear the youth' theme? Well, it's none of the above, and more power to its style. The Quiet Girl herself (Cáit) is a newcomer, Catherine Clinch, and she was apparently found via an Irish language school call out. She's incredible - meek, direct, no airs nor graces whatsoever, with a clear-eyed awkwardness. She's almost like a little female Bowie in The Quiet Girl Who Fell to Earth (no, not a film but I thought I'd italicise anyway). There are orbiting performances that complement her perfectly. Carrie Crowley and Andrew Bennet play Eibhlín and Seán Cinnsealach, the couple who tak...

Predator: Badlands

So without me really noticing, this franchise has reached NINE films (if you include the two Alien vs Predator crossovers). The last three have been directed (or co-directed) by Dan Trachtenberg, who's also helmed an episode each of the TV shows Black Mirror and The Boys . I've got to say, carry on lad, because this is probably the best Predator film I've seen (let me revisit the Arnie one before I remove that 'probably'). This film starts as a revenge quest that soon morphs into a discourse on dysfunctional families and finding your groove in life. All wrapped up in a gnarly, bloody sci-fi romp. I say blood, in actual fact, none of it is human blood, all characters being either alien or synthetic humanoid. That in itself is one of the film's credits - none of the protagonists are human, and the nominal lead is usually a villain. Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) is from the Yautja race, the original 'ugly mother-fucker' Predator. The preamble n...

Nouvelle Vague

This opening screening of the Perth Festival's Lotterywest Film season is a cinephile's delight. It documents the production of Jean-Luc Godard's seminal feature debut, À Bout de Souffle (or Breathless ). The title refers to the New Wave of French film from the beginning of the 1960s, which railed against the tired, old ways of film-making. Nouvelle Vague actually looks like it was shot on film, it's riddled with scratch marks, there's are many big black dots indicating the end of the reel, and of course, it's in black and white. The director, Richard Linklater, is obviously a huge fan of Breathless . This is a lovingly made, breezy film, that isn't terribly hard-hitting or deep, but is a fine background to one of the classics. The casting is excellent, specifically the Jeans; Godard, Seberg and Belmondo, played by Guillaume Marbeck, Zoey Deutch and Aubry Dullin respectively. They all look the part and turn in performances just the right side of parody....

One Battle After Another

Before this film, Paul Thomas Anderson had at least one certifiable classic on his CV in There Will Be Blood . Now, make that two. In saying this, most of his films range from good to brilliant. This is his second adaptation of a Thomas Pynchon novel (after the uneven but interesting Inherent Vice ) and it looks at the lives of modern American revolutionaries, notably members of French 75. The group are apparently named after a WWI weapon, and then a cocktail, both of which have something of a kick. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Bob, The Rocket Man, who makes the ordnance for the group and is in a relationship with fellow revolutionary, Perfidia (Teyana Taylor). A combination of a run-in with Sean Penn's Colonel Steven Lockjaw, and a rash killing of a security guard triggers more interest in the group, and so a roundup begins. Perfidia is caught, then forced to name names before doing a runner. But not before she has a daughter with Bob, whom he is left to raise on the run. After this f...

The Fantastic Four: First Steps

A few years ago, we hit the S.S.P. (Superhero Saturation Point). And the best way for studios to arrest, or even maybe reverse, the law of diminishing returns is to JUST GIVE IT A FUCKING REST. There's enough residual goodwill in the fan base to guarantee profits....for now. But, as Malcolm Gladwell said, there must be a tipping point. So into this cinematic avalanche slips The Fantastic Four: First Steps , the first film of Phase Six and the thirty seventh overall! It's quite dull for the first 30 minutes, setting up the characters, ensuring the audience understands we're on a slightly different Earth (828), and a different time as well. It only gets going when the Silver Surfer (Julia Garner) appears and promises everyone death by devouring. She's not going to eat them, she works for a massive space turd called Galactus, played by Finchy himself, Ralph Ineson. He'll do the devouring. Here's the thing - this film is a perfectly serviceable entry, not brilliant,...

The Long Walk

I had a bit of time to spare while the car was getting a service so I decided to visit the Greater Union Morley cinemas one last time (it closed a few days after I saw this). I think this was the first cinema I went to when I came back from Japan in 2016 and sadly, it hadn't had a touch up since then, possibly not for a long time before either. Fingers crossed for a brand spanking new cinema complex one day. Anyway, the film I saw was The Long Walk , and it's a bit of an oddity. It's based on a Stephen King (writing as Richard Bachman) book from 1979. King seems to have a thing for these dystopian 'last one standing' stories (see also The Running Man , an Arnie adaptation was made in 1987, and Edgar Wright has a new version up his sleeve, opening soon). Director Francis Lawrence returns to the theme of his Hunger Games films, riffing on Battle Royale , but also, many of these types of films where characters get picked off one by one, from Alien to Monty Python an...

Hard Truths

It's been six years since Mike Leigh stepped behind the camera for the disappointing Peterloo but this film is a return to tip top form. In fact, by my reckoning, that 2018 historical record was his only career misstep. And in Naked , Secrets and Lies and Happy-Go-Lucky , he has written and directed some of the very best British films of all time. Hard Truths reunites him with one of the stars of Secrets and Lies , Marianne Jean-Baptiste. She plays Pansy, an angry, fearful misery guts who can't help but annoy her family (and members of the public) with her constant, nasty invective. At first, her moaning is quite funny until the realisation that this woman is suffering takes hold. Pansy is married to plumber Curtley (David Webber) and they have a son in his early 20s, Moses (Tuwaine Barrett) who doesn't say much and stays in his room playing flight simulator games. Both these guys deal with Pansy in their own way, in quiet despondency. Her only real friend is her sister,...

Sicilian Letters

This Italian Film Festival offering is a post-mafia story from writer/director pair, Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza. Ex-school principal and local politician, Catello (Toni Servillo) is released from prison in the early 2000s, only to be co-opted by the Italian Secret Service to help apprehend the last Cosa Nostra boss still at large, Matteo Messina Denaro (Elio Germano). Catello is the perfect patsy. He was a good friend of Denaro's father, Don Gaetano, who made Catello the Godfather to young Matteo. I should mention this is based loosely on the life of Denaro, though it's at pains to acknowledge that much of this story is fabricated (a title card reads "Loosely inspired by real events, though the film's characters are the fruits of the authors' imagination.") In this chunk of Denaro's life on the run, Catello is tasked with writing letters to the fugitive, via a bespoke butcher-based post office. Initially, Denaro is moved by Catello's prose a...

Splitsville

This is the second film I've seen in a row where two blokes wrote the film and also starred in it ( see previous review ). This time round the two blokes are Michael Angelo Covino (also directing) and Kyle Marvin. The coup was signing Dakota Johnson and Adria Arjona to play the wives, Julie and Ashley. On the face of it, it's hard to believe that these women would be with these two spuds, but the script allows for a suspension of disbelief. Marvin plays Carey, just over a year into marriage with Ashley (Arjona). On the way to a waterfront weekend with Paul and Julie (Covino and Johnson), Ashley explains that she wants a divorce. The trigger may have had something to do with them being part of a road accident death, a darkly amusing opening scene. Carey leaves the car in a panic and eventually finds his way to the beach house. Distraught, he decides to wallow with his friends until a discretion threatens to blow apart the relationship. To be clear, Julie and Paul's open rela...

Film Shapes

Search This Blog