Superman (2025)

PG-13 despite having a near-perfect tone for families.  It's always such a hard line deciding whether a movie deserves to be PG or PG-13.  I mean, all summer blockbusters are pretty much PG-13 if there's even a modicum of action, so all of this is moot.  Despite being such an uplifting and optimistic film, the violence is pretty intense at times.  While Superman goes out of his way not to swear, it seems like the other characters often pick up the slack for his lack of language.  Also, Lex Luthor is just plain ol' scary in this one in the best way possible.  Really, it's hitting a lot of buttons --enough that I didn't bring my four and seven year olds to the movie.  Still, I can't wait to show it to them...eventually.

DIRECTOR:  James Gunn

Yes, I'm writing this at 3:37 in the morning.  I have something to do at 4:00, so I thought I'd get a little writing in, despite the fact that I absolutely should be sleeeping.  This is the blog I've put the most thought into.  I should have written this immediately after watching Superman on Saturday.  But it was so intimidating!  I had so much to process.  I don't know if I've been subtle about this, but I've been so excited to see this movie since it was announced as Superman: Legacy.

There are multiple reasons why I've been excited for this movie.  I'm a huge Superman fan.  I have always been a huge Superman fan.  One of the most depressing things about Batman Begins was that I thought that there would never be a Superman film that was that emotionally thrilling.  But here we are.  Is it better than Batman Begins?  I don't know.  That feels like an apples and oranges question.  But besides being a huge Superman fan, I've also been extremely critical of the Zack Snyder approach to the DC characters, in particular the film Man of Steel.  I know.  There are a lot of fans of that movie out there.  Many of them are toxic.  Some are not.  The Synderverse has been this divisive cesspool of a franchise and when they announced that James Gunn, the guy from The Guardians of the Galaxy movies, was going to take over, I was thrilled.  It's funny, because pre-Guardians, I was not a Gunn fan.  Gunn often was a shocking director who really played up the offensive genre stuff that I didn't care for.  But as a mainstream director?  Man, that man knows how to cook.

For those looking at my quick take without any explanations, Superman (2025) may be the best Superman movie, even if it isn't my favorite Superman movie.  I can't help it.  When I say that I'm a huge Superman fan, I've been obsessed with the original Richard Donner Superman starring Christopher Reeve.  It's a movie that I try to watch as many times as possible.  For a guy who tends not to rewatch films because there are so many great movies out there and only so many years on this planet to watch them all, the fact that I have a few movies that get cycled back into rotation regularly is incredibly high praise.  The Richard Donner Superman does that for me.  It's that good.  It's so good that I convinced myself that Supeman Returns is a great movie because it hits a lot of the same notes as the Donner Superman.  

But the thing that James Gunn made?  My goodness, it might be the most impressive balancing act that holds onto the thesis statement of understanding who Superman is as a character.  Now, it took me a minute to get used to David Corenswet's portrayal of the Last Son of Krypton.  That's not a bad thing.  I just have to admit that it took some getting used to.  One of the things that I've always looked to Superman for is his ability to inspire.  Reeve had that in spades.  There was the Superman persona that he put on that was unflinching.  Corenswet's Superman instead wears --ironically enough --vulnerability on his sleeves.  Without a doubt he's incredibly powerful and he always tries to do the right thing, which is inspirational by himself.  But this is the Superman that has a little bit more Clark Kent in him than Kal-El.  

See, I tend to find the secret identities far more interesting in superheroes.  The public personas have to match the moral codes of the secret identities.  But the struggle of being a person was always really fascinating to me.  I think I've pointed this out a few times by this point, but I always really liked the Peter Parker sequences in the Sam Raimi Spider-Man trilogy more than the Spider-Man parts.   Reeve's Clark Kent struggled about whether or not he should embrace his powers, turning to Jonathan Kent to understand his place in the world.  That's why I always dug CW's Smallville because it was that focus on the non-superhero world that was always interesting to me.  But what Corenswet does is have his Superman not always get things right.  His heart is always in the right place.  There's no doubt about that.  But in terms of being perfect all the time, Superman --in this film --is all about trying his best and learning to forgive himself when he can't be perfect all of the time.

I know that the internet is losing it over this movie.  I'm sure that there's a fair share of people out there who are already sick about reading about Superman.  (I actually don't know how long I'm going to be writing this thing out just because I have so many thoughts and am trying to find a throughline to connect all of those thoughts.  Sorry, people who wanted just a quick take on Superman.  I'm going to be like the rest of the Internet and not shut up about it.)   I read a comment somewhere that Superman is kind of doing what Barbie did a couple of years ago.  For those who don't remember the Barbie phenomenon, Greta Gerwig (another indie director who got shepherded into the mainstream?!) took what ultimately an incredibly commercial property and explored the history of the character to remind us what it means to be a good person in a world that wants you to fail.   For women, it was a way to open the door to men to show how stupid their behavior was, even if it was unintentional while offering honest ways to improve.  Superman...kind of does the same thing.  

The thing that annoyed me and many other film viewers off about Snyder's Superman was he was bleak.  He kept being God all of the time, almost unconcerned with the problems of the little guy.  Gunn's Superman is all about the little guy.  It's about loving one's neighbor and never considering himself more than others.   There's a shot (admittedly, I think in a dream) in Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice where people are grasping at Superman as a deity.  It's very people clamoring for Jesus's cloak to have their blindness cured.  This Superman would be mortified by that thought.  He's grateful to a dude who gave him a free hot dog and remembered his name.  I mean, one of the things that has always been teased about Superman is that he's a boy scout.  He's too good.  He rescues cats from trees.  I always liked that about Superman, but Gunn goes the extra mile and shows that Superman actually cares that much for life.  I know you've probably already heard about this, but he saves a squirrel in the middle of a kaiju fight.  He even tries to save the kaiju.  I love that.  I love that so much.  

The reason?  Superman treats kindness like it is normal.  One of the things that's being thrown out in the atmosphere of this movie is "Kindness is punk rock."  If you watch the movie, you'll get where this is coming from.  There's almost something metatextual about the fact that Superman is both a dork and kind of punk rock in this movie.  Gunn's aware of it.  He has Lois Lane comment on Clark's lack of self-awareness when it comes to how lacking in cool he is.  But Gunn also has his way saying that the person who doesn't care about being cool ultimately is the coolest guy of all.  He's a guy who doesn't mind that he's a bit of a dork.  Heck, as frustrating as Clark is for Lois, that's probably why she loves him.  It doesn't hurt that he looks handsome.  But when Lois is walking around the Kent farm and analyzing Clark's childhood bedroom, she sees that he might be the most earnest guy in the world.  And that's coming from someone who has a secret identity.

I'm so itching to go into the poltical stuff, guys.  If the purpose of this blog is to throw up all of my thoughts as if I had an enthusiastic group of people deconstructing the movie around a TGI Friday's table full of appetizers, you know that I would be leading with politics.  But also don't want to simply tag the ending with another big win for Gunn.  The way that this movie is cast is so dead-on, no-notes perfect that I don't know who stole the film.  I know that Edi Gathegi as Mr. Terrific is getting a lot of love right now. I can't blame anyone for thinking that.  Mr. Terrific was incredibly cool.  That fight sequences with the T-Spheres was one of my favorite sequences in the movie and I don't know that anyone would think that was a hot take.  But this is also a movie with Nathan Fillion as a pitch-perfect Guy Gardner.  It's like Fillion is just playing up a version of his own public persona.  I'm not saying Fillion is obnoxious.  But he's been the object of a lot of people's obession for a while now and he's now weaponized it into Guy Garner.  I want to list.  Skyler Gisondo?  Oh my goodness, do I have a new favorite Jimmy Olson?  He's perfect.  I knew that was going to be the case.

But then we have our leads.  I've talked about Corenswet and I stand by him.  But the real standouts were Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor and Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane.  I got on a pretty hardcore Mrs. Maisel kick and I knew --I KNEW! --that Brosnahan was going to be the quintessential Lois Lane.  And this is coming from a guy who thought that no one would ever beat Erica Durance.  (Ms. Durance, you are still a marvel and incredible in that role.  I'm just very impressed by Brosnahan.)   Listen, the long and short is that this Lois doesn't take anyone's crap, she is an incredibly capable reporter, she's got her own emotional baggage that she's dealing with, and she is a 10 when Superman is an 8.  Heck, she makes Superman an 8.  Do you get that?  That's incredible.  

But Lex?  Oh, my goodness...Lex Luthor!  Now, I have to put Hoult at a tie with Michael Rosenbaum for best Luthor.  Hoult himself admitted that he grew up obessed with Rosenbaum's Lex.  (I hear that Rosenbaum himself cameos as one of the Luthor thugs.) But I don't think I've seen the Lex Luthor from the comics really make his way to any form of visual media before.  We've gotten billionaire Lex Luthor.  We've had criminal Lex Luthor.  But ur-genius billionaire criminal who thinks that he's the good guy of the story?   We haven't had that until Nicholas Hoult took over the role.  The fact that he's calling plays instead of punching is absolutely perfect for the character.  We get the hate and the self-righteousness of his actions when it all really boils down to old-fashioned racist xenophobia.  

And now I got to the political part.  Somehow, Superman is both way more political and progressive than I thought and almost non-political at all.  Part of that is that Gunn didn't make this movie today.  That's one thing that conservative pundits don't get.  While there are moments that absolutely align with what's going on now.  I mean, people look at the plot to stop a war between two countries as Israel and Palestine (even though I see it as Russia and Ukraine) and that's been going on since the movie started filming.  But did not one look at the Alligator Alcatraz prison that Luthor sets up for people who criticize him?  That's some pretty messed up stuff.  But the thing that's actually frustrating about the whole thing is that the part that bothers most conservatives like Dean Cain is the stuff that is central to who Superman is.  He's an immigrant who desperately wants to be like every other American and the way that he does that is through constant kindness.  That's the part that bothers them.  Come on.  It's who he is.

I almost forgot my favorite part: the end.  I have been rallying against Man of Steel because it's a bummer.  But the bigger problem that I had with that movie was the read on Jonathan Kent as a parent.  Now, the Kents in this movie were divisive, at least when it came to me and my wife.  The Kents in this movie are exactly who I never knew I needed them to be.  One of the things that Gunn really pushed for was a look at what it really meant to be a Midwestern farmer.  The Kents have always been a bit too well off for people with money problems.  One of the key points of Smallville was that the Kents were always struggling to make money, yet they lived in a house that should have been on a puzzle.  Instead, now they live in a double-wide.   Their health probably isn't the best.  But these were two folks who raised this kid they found and did the best job they could with him.  He probably didn't have much, but they gave him everything that they could.  I never understood the Superman who was obsessed with Jor-El and Lara.  While it is lovely that he wants to know about where he came from, I always saw Jonathan and Martha Kent as his parents.  That final shot, where he wanted to watch films of his family, I nearly cried.  It was beautiful.  That's the story of what it means to be a good person.  Superman is Exhibit A about how it is more important how your raised than any kind of genetics.  The Kents taught Clark everything he knew about how to be a good person, down to the avoiding cursing.  That's why Superman is good.

From a film perspective, I couldn't even tell you how Gunn got such a complicated movie to land right.  There are so many beats to this film and it's not even that long of a movie.  But the further this movie went on, the better it got.  I don't know how he did it, but he made the best Superman movie of all time.  I love the Donner Superman and probably always will.  But I have to chalk a lot of that up to nostalgia.  But from an objective standpoint, Superman 2025  is an incredible movie that I can't wait to watch again.