For more than a decade now, the people of superhero movies have not mattered. Not the superheroes and villains -they are extraordinarily important- but the everyday people the heroes are at least theoretically there to protect. Apart from immediate family, friends, or love interests, civilians don’t factor at all into the modern superhero equation -even though they are a critical part of what makes superheroes work as a concept. And so, when the major first act action set-piece occurs in James Gunn’s Superman, involving the titular character along with a handful of other heroes fighting a kaiju monster in the middle of Metropolis, it is notable that the emphatic focus of this Man of Steel in contrast to his colleagues is on getting civilians out of harms way. He even stops to rescue a squirrel, he cares that deeply about all living things.
That this is treated with astonishing controversy by some or with quaintness by others speaks to how far this movie genre has gotten from its first entry, also starring Superman -way back in 1978. And it speaks also to why Superman, as indiscriminate symbol of goodness and compassion, is an important figure to have back in 2025. Played by David Corenswet, this new interpretation of Superman is not the righteous god of the Zack Snyder era; rather he is distinctly and unapologetically human -an important choice that both reflects his lived experience on Earth more than his birth on Krypton, and sharply makes plain the resonance of his virtues.
Gunn doesn't belabour his audience with an origin story -indeed his way around this in the movie's introduction is both fun and clever. All of the pieces are already in place -Clark Kent in his job at the Daily Planet, the Fortress of Solitude his functioning home-base, Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) -here a powerful government contractor and temperamental Jeff Bezos stand-in- has already begun his vendetta against him, and most interestingly he is already in a discreet relationship with Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan), aware of his secret identity. He even has his cute little dog Krypto -a more significant character in the story than anticipated.
There is no real effort to ground the movie's world -Gunn's approach both creatively and stylistically is firmly in the realm of comic book aesthetics. Luthor wields advanced robotics, artificial reality, cloning, and nanotechnology from a command bridge of his own skyscraper, "metahumans" are prominent and active around the world -including a loosely associated group called the Justice Gang, of which Superman is a casual member, and Superman has his own contingent of helper robots who care for his Fortress in his absence. Beyond the details of the world, Gunn shoots the movie, and particularly the action and flying scenes, with an eye for the extravagant -from big sustained wide shots to precise close-ups and profiles- remembering what comic books look like better than most of his genre contemporaries. And his visual flare and colour is quite striking too, particularly on Superman's costume which, among other things, is boldly unafraid of the red briefs.
In a way they emphasize his vulnerability, which is something at the forefront of this movie as Luthor attempts to manufacture public opinion against Superman and his actions. And it’s a strong tactic because Superman, exceptionally earnest in all things, is a very emotionally vulnerable figure. We see it illustrated in a great theoretical interview he takes with Lois early on, in which he can’t handle tough questions on the legal, political frameworks and consequences that exist around what he sees as only objective acts of good -and he is sensitive to the backlash that has percolated over him too. The fear that his powers evoke in the public is very easy to exploit, and we see that when Luthor is able to wield a major revelation over him concerning what he was sent to Earth to do. Yet Superman doesn’t do his good deeds simply to prove he’s not a threat -he does them because it is right. If he had none of his powers, saving lives would still be his greatest priority in life -and it is what separates this Superman from others who seem motivated out of superior obligation or a conditioned sense of responsibility. In no way does Gunn’s Superman consider himself superior to anybody, and it is backed up by the life we see he has lived. He is way more Clark Kent than Superman.
That understanding and philosophy on the character goes a long way to making him engaging and likeable -even as we see far less of everyday Clark than we should. Corenswet’s honest and charming performance gives sufficient weight to those virtues, as he lets the rural farm boy come out in his every beat on screen, laying subtle foundations for the trust he conveys. It’s notable too that Corenswet is the first Jewish actor to play Superman, a character famously created by Jewish writers and informed by a Jewish immigrant experience. His chemistry with Brosnahan and the Lois and Clark dynamic on the whole is very strong -an adult, lived-in relationship that simultaneously resembles effectively the pairings of classic screwball comedies -Lois's modest cynicism is nicely contrasted by Clark's sincere optimism, and Brosnahan especially plays well the tensions of this.
The cast is full of engaging personalities. Hoult plays both Luthor's coldness and rage with vigour and an unmistakable venom towards his real analogues. The Justice Gang are fun -in particular Edi Gathegi's Mister Terrific, a superhero who masks his ideals in a veneer of ambivalence, and Nathan Fillion's Guy Gardner, a Green Lantern with an attitude problem -one of the movie's best sources of humour. Though they are tragically underrepresented, the Daily Planet gang are a delight -specifically Skyler Gisondo's proactive reporter Jimmy Olsen. Another enjoyable character is Luthor's assistant and girlfriend Eve, played by Sara Sampaio -initially a caricature of a vapid influencer, who reveals herself to be more distinct and interesting as the film goes along. Ma and Pa Kent (Neva Howell and Pruitt Taylor Vince respectively) also start off as seemingly redneck stereotypes, but are much more defined by the end -Pa Kent, as is tradition, imparting some vital wisdom to Clark ahead of the climax.
Much has been made of the "immigrant narrative" angle that factors into Gunn's conception of this movie. It's relevance as metaphor though is honestly not much greater than in previous iterations of Superman's story -the mere idea is just that much more politicized now. However, the manner in which he is persecuted through Luthor's platformed grasp of his narrative, the threads of commentary in the media and online, feels unusually pertinent to anti-immigrant sentiment in this moment in a way that Gunn couldn't have wholly predicted. Patterns of bigotry are easy to spot and easier to cast. It is true also of the background political quagmire of a fictional U.S.-allied nation Boravia going to war to ethnically cleanse the poorer neighbouring country of Jarhanpur. While the perceived resemblance of this populist Boravian President (Zlatko Burić) to a certain relevant world leader at the moment might not have the exact intent it reads as, the visual aesthetics of the war, the ethnicities of the Boravians and the Jarhanpurians respectively, and the setting of their conflict in the Middle East is no accident. It comes off as more pointed than it is, but it is still meaningful to see a twinge of honest morality relating to a real-world issue tied explicitly into the movie's well-articulated moral thesis.
The story structure on this film is very loose, meandering as it is driven by theme more than plot, and this sometimes results in it feeling cobbled. A couple side villains, though making for decent effects, have action-oriented confrontations with Superman that drag the pacing of the last act out considerably, and though creative, they also distract from the dramatic focus of the story -a side effect of Gunn’s throwing just a few too many ideas into the movie. But even where stuffed, Superman doesn't waver in its convictions; nowhere more so than in its genuinely inspirational image of a human hero in spite of his blood, emblematic of noble virtues that have been missing from the superhero film genre for some time: that ordinary people matter, life is precious and beautiful, and kindness is punk rock.
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