Format: Streaming video from HBO Max on Fire!
The problem with Superman as a character is that it’s difficult, at least on the face of things, to make him compelling. When you have a character who can essentially do everything and whose weakness is extremely rare, how do you craft a story where that character is challenged? It’s been tried a number of times, of course, most recently by James Gunn in the rather simply named Superman. Gunn has proven himself to be a smart filmmaker and an equally smart screenwriter. I went in relatively cold but with a good deal of hope.
And it paid off. As I said, Gunn is a smart filmmaker and a smart screenwriter. The problems with Superman are mainly around giving him a compelling challenge. That’s hard to do physically, and in the case of this film, that does feel like a bit of a cobble. Other challenges, though, are probably more interesting. Public opinion is mutable, and becomes one of the mina problems in the film (although more could be done with it). We know that Supes is eventually going to defeat the bad guy, but how does he overcome bad press and failing in the court of public opinion?
It's hard not to look at the current political climate in the U.S. and see that James Gunn has decided to dive face-first into it, and with good effect. Much of the swaying of public opinion in the film happens specifically because he is frequently called out as an alien, as someone (or something) different from the rest of us, someone whose motivations must be suspect and can be assumed, forged, and fed to the masses as a problem. The character has always been a bastion of honesty and good intention, which makes him vulnerable to doing what he thinks is right (giving himself up, for instance) much to his own detriment.
But I’ve gotten ahead of myself. Gunn makes the very smart decision not to once again give us an origin story. As the audience, it is assumed that we know the basics of the Superman story, although we’ll get a few reminders as exposition through the film. Superman (David Corenswet) has just prevented a war by stopping the country of Boravia from invading neighbor Jarhanpur. In retaliation, Superman is defeated by a metahuman calling himself the Hammer of Boravia. He retreats to his Fortress of Solitude, tailed by another metahuman called The Engineer (María Gabriela de Faría), who is an associate of billionaire Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult). So, we’ve got our bad guys, who will eventually break into the Fortress, trash it, and steal the recording from Superman’s parents, broadcasting them telling him to take over the Earth, turning public sentiment against him.
Superman, of course, is also newspaper reporter Clark Kent, who in the film is in a relationship with fellow reporter Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan), who knows his identity as Superman. With public sentiment turning against him, more and more emergencies are being handled by a group calling itself the Justice Gang, manned by Green Lantern Guy Gardner (Nathan Fillion), Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced), and Mr. Terrific (Edi Gathegi). We’re also going to eventually meet an additional metahuman called Metamorpho (Anthony Carrigan) who can change his body into any combination of chemical elements—a character I honestly never thought I would see in a live action movie.
There are a lot of moving parts here, and Gunn manages to keep the running time to a relatively trim 129 minutes, including credits. In a world where many of the MCU movies top 2 ½-3 hours, this is a real accomplishment. More importantly, what happens in Superman is relevant to the world today. The idea of fear of immigrants, the quick swaying of public opinion based on unverified comments, the lack of concern on loss of life for personal gain, and most importantly the desperate fear of so many people that those people who aren’t like us are better than us, that they need to be stopped because we’ll be made irrelevant in our own country and world.
Before I get to the point of all of this, let’s mention a few things that are important. Gunn, as always, squeezes in some legitimate comedy that works because it’s not the focus of the film and comes across as natural. Corenswet is perfectly believable as Clark Kent—in fact, the whole cast is solid. These are people who are interested in the story and buy into what Gunn is doing, and it shows in the final project.
As I said above, the problem with Superman as a character is that it’s hard to make someone whose powers are “everything” and whose weaknesses are something so rare that it literally no longer exists on the planet. Gunn manages this not simply by putting Supes in a position that we can identify with, but he does so by making him human. I won’t spoil this, but he makes a hell of a speech at the end that brings this point to bear.
Superman, and that includes this latest Superman on camera, has always been a power fantasy. But it’s not the typical power fantasy. Iron Man is a power fantasy, too—in fact most superhero movies are a power fantasy in some respects. Tony Stark is the guy that a lot of dudebros want to be—sexually aggressive and gets away with womanizing and being dismissive of others, always right, wildly wealthy, and with a manufactured power that stems from equal parts of his own genius and his own tremendous privilege. Superman is a power fantasy of what it would be like if someone who had limitless power decided to use it for good. What would it be like if someone who could destroy the planet and the lives of everyone decided that the good of other people was paramount?
We live in a world where we don’t have a Superman, but we have dozens of Lex Luthors. And because of this, Superman is aspirational, filled with hope, and a joy to watch.
Why to watch Superman (2025): It makes the most of a character who struggles to be compelling and relatable.
Why not to watch: The court of public opinion angle could be amped up significantly.
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