Is James Gunn’s Superman the one we deserve…sadly no! I’m going to get controversial with this review, this movie could have been better. There is a better Superman story in there somewhere, but I think James Gunn was too preoccupied with going with what always worked for him in the Marvel universe. He just remade Guardians of the Galaxy with DC characters and not with a good soundtrack. James Gunn got a lot of things right, I’ll admit that. However, I think he was preoccupied with doing too much to try to make up for the fans that were turned off by Zack Snyder’s DC movies and I get it. As fans we have our personal favorites when it comes to Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and the rest of the Justice League. Some of you may want a more campy and light-hearted Superman movie, something resembling more of the Christopher Reeve Superman movies and I understand that. Some of us like a darker version of these characters which is what Zack Snyder gave us. I’m one of those fans! know that the true comic book fans are going to disagree with me but let me offer a different perspective. There’s a lot of things that I like about this movie, but there’s an awful lot that just doesn’t do it for me as a comic book fan, especially Superman fan. So don’t hate on me quite yet, hear me out and it’s okay to disagree with me. I truly hope that DC and Superman fans like this movie more than I do but as a film critic. I have to point out some of the most obvious flaws. And the hard truth is this movie is not as good as it could have been. If you’re old enough, you’ve different versions of Superman going all the way back to the Christopher Reeve movies it’s easy to compare, I’m going to compare this movie to Superman 1 and 2 and Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel. So let’s get to it fans…
What James Gunn gets right!! Yes this is very much a true comic book movie, it’s goofy, it’s silly, and almost as if he had been watching the Justice League cartoon as a kid just like me and decided to make that into a live action movie. That’s okay, but I’m personally not a fan of the goofiness from the cartoon being in a live action movie, that’s just me! I like the fact that we do get to see the Hall of Justice. There are a lot of great things from the comic books and honestly my personal favorite was the fact that we do get to see Krypto on the big screen. He did make the movie better. James Gunn did great when it came to casting. I will give it to him that David Corenswet is a good Superman and Clark Kent, not the best, I obviously have my personal favorites. Christopher Reeve and Tom Welling, but it is a good casting choice He nailed it with Lois Lane… Rachel Brosnahan is the perfect mixture of Margot Kidder and Erica Durance from Smallville. This was my favorite casting choice. She just so good in the role, she may not be in the movie much, but she makes all of her scenes fantastic and definitely makes the movie better. There is clearly chemistry between her and David when it comes to Superman and Lois. Nathan Fillion as Guy Gardner is perfect. He’s always good in a superhero movie and is a great scene stealer within this film. But the one casting choice James Gunn did not get right in my opinion is Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor. He is a great actor, but he’s a whiny child in this movie and all I wanted to do was slap him. Love Nicholas in other movies, There have been great Lex Luthor’s from Gene Hackman to Kevin Spacey, but my personal favorite who I think really nailed the part was Michael Rosenbaum in Smallville. Maybe it’s because we got to explore that character a lot more in a series than a 2-hour movie, but he was sympathetic, he was diabolical, he was not whiney. He was a great villain. James Gunn had a great way of retelling the Superman origin story by not having to go through it all again. We don’t have to watch a young Clark Kent wrestle with his powers, he’s already Superman when this movie starts. He’s been doing it for a few years and the beginning of the movie literally brings you up the date with him as Superman and how Meta Humans have come to Earth. This was a great choice because we don’t need another Superman origin story, no matter what earth it is in the DC universe.
However, this is a very silly superhero movie. There is too much goofiness in this film and everything happens too easily and there are no true consequences. Also Superman seems extremely vulnerable to even the simplest of things that can’t always be explained. We know kryptonite can hurt him, but some of the other way the Superman gets hurt just doesn’t make sense. He’s supposed to be a god and pretty much indestructible so to have him be so vulnerable when they pretty much explained it at the beginning of the movie that he is the most powerful Metal Human just seems weird. There’s a lot of great action scenes. James Gunn puts a lot into this movie because he’s clearly setting up the future Justice League without having to do 10 different origin movies, however, it almost feels like there’s three movies in one compacted into two hours. There’s just a lot that needs to be explained on this particular earth that unless you’ve read the comics you’re not really going to know what’s going on or you don’t have a CW series to bring you up to date when all the heroes get together in the multiverse. It’s an awful lot to digest for 2 hours. But true comic book fans are going to love this movie because James Gunn has a lot of tension to detail when it comes to the comics. I won’t really go into that because then we’re dealing with spoiler territory and fans to should enjoy this movie for what it is… you’re going to love it or you’ll be disappointed. But there’s a lot of comedy in this movie. It’s funny and I think James Gunn did a great job by not making everybody so moody and dark that you forget how goofy Superman can be. That was one of the most brilliant things about the Christopher Reeve movies and even Superman returns even though that’s the greatest Superman fan film ever made. I did laugh plenty of times in this movie and I appreciate James again getting back to the campiness, but I’ve also seen it before. Like I said I feel like it’s just a Guardians of the Galaxy movie and in a world where superhero fatigue exists, where we’re constantly rebooting superheroes, I need something that’s going to be different and try to wow me. Zack Snyder did that with a darker version of the DC universe, love it or hate it, you can’t deny that he did a different version of Superman and the Justice League than what we had previously seen.
So here’s what James Gunn didn’t get right. I understand that Superman is a symbol of hope. I understand that part of the Superman story is society’s struggle with accepting him as a hero or a god who comes to conquer but it seems like it’s too easy to manipulate society with deep fake technology and sound bites to twist that narrative within James Gunn’s Superman story. Maybe that’s just a commentary on today’s society where propaganda runs rampant without any fact checking on social media… where AI can easily create memes and audio and video that gives us fake news. I understand James Gunn is trying to put these characters in a more realistic society and if that’s what you’re going for then don’t make a true comic book movie. The worst part of this film is Lex Luthor. He’s not really a good villain like he should be. The only time he was ever a good villain in the comics is when he has his warsuit (action comics) and could almost be Superman’s equal. The problem with Superman is you have to have a really good villain, somebody that can match Superman… somebody that could actually defeat Superman and Lex Luthor is not it. He’s the guy that manipulates everything behind the scenes and his character does that to a point with manipulating the narrative of Superman. Again, not going to spoil it for you. But if you look at all of the Superman movies or TV series there’s only so many villains that really match Superman and they weren’t DNA clones… not going to say anything else, just watch the movie. At the end of the day, the villain for Superman has to make sense or there’s not struggle…Superman can win too easy.
For me one of the reasons I love Zack Snyder’s Man of steel is the ultimate villain was General Zod. That’s the perfect villain for a Superman origin story…a villain who is Superman’s equal. Maybe we haven’t gotten to supervillains like that yet, but if you’re going to have the first movie introducing Superman then you have to give us a good villain not someone so whiney like Lex Luthor in this movie…it just doesn’t work for me. I mean as annoying as Jesse Eisenberg was playing Lex Luthor in the Batman versus Superman movie, his manipulation of events was brilliant when it came to getting Batman to fight Superman. The other thing that I could care less for is when we’re introduced to Martha and Jonathan Kent. Nothing against the actors playing his foster parents, they didn’t have much to work with and the scenes are lousy. Martha and Jonathan Kent are important to Clark Kent / Superman and we’ve had great representations of those characters. John Schneider and Annette O’Toole were fantastic in Smallville. Kevin Costner and Diane Lane did an incredible job in Man of Steel. Glenn Ford did awesome job in the original Superman movie. All of them added more heart and depth to the character of Clark Kent. You could have literally picked any two actors just to read some awkward lines in this movie and it would have been better. If you’re going to have scenes in Kansas where he grew up and introduce that world to Lois Lane then you can’t make Martha and Jonathan forgettable and that’s what happened here. But for me the biggest flaw of James Gunn’s Superman movie is having too many threats and not focusing on a truly great villain.
Yes, we understand that there are thinks like the multiverse and pocket universes, but it isn’t believable that Superman isn’t going to snap Lex Luther like a twig when he steal’s his dog or that Superman can be easily defeated by his goons. He just gets beat up way too much in this movie and constantly has to heal without any real explanation on why he’s vulnerable except for Kryptonite. James Gunn is trying to avoid telling the origin story of Superman and people figuring out his true identity, but drops us into a story where we need that explanation within this particular DC universe. It doesn’t matter how much we know Superman, we’re on another Earth where the characters are different. How everything works is different than what we have seen previously even though there are a lot of things that are the same. If you’re going to reboot the DC universe on another Earth then you have to explain the rules of that universe. That’s world building 101. And that’s where I felt like Zack Snyder got it right with Man of steel. We get an origin story that’s a little bit different but we get simple easy explanations why Clark is vulnerable to the villains and how he adapts. I also have a problem with how Clark Kent / Superman really wrestles with being the man of steel and making tough choices. That’s another thing that Zack Snyder got right because in order to save humanity, he has to kill a Kryptonian. We’ve never really seen Superman wrestle with those kinds of choices because the stories always seem too easy.
So here’s the thing, James Gunn his made some good superhero movies… there’s no denying it. And it’s easy to stick with what works especially when you’re in charge of rebooting the DC Universe, However, I don’t want to watch Guardians of the Galaxy again. Yes, I want a different take on Superman. Of course as a comic book fan I want stories to be more closely aligned with the comic books. Like I said James Gunn gets it right with that concept, but I also need superheroes having to make hard choices and wrestle with their actions. That’s always what has made Batman great. Everything was too simple in this movie and while it is a great way to introduce this version of Superman for what will obviously be for bigger stories, the way they introduce him to the world and how he already knows about Meta Humans while having a relationship with Lois Lane could have been told in the first hour of the movie while we dealt with a bigger story in the second half. This movie feels too much like the first act of a bigger story that could have been told in two hours.
It’s an okay movie. It’s not the best Superman movie. It’s not even the best Superman movie since Superman 1 and 2 with Christopher Reeve. It’s silly and it’s fun and there are some nice moments, but its hard to connect with the characters that we already know. We don’t know this version of Clark Kent and Superman as well as Lois Lane, we need to take some time getting to know them and it feels like everything has already been established without explanation. . I’m not saying we need another origin story, but James Gunn throws lot into this movie almost like he’s throwing spaghetti on the wall and hoping some of it sticks with nice references to Action Comics. Like I said, some of you are really going to love this version of Superman. For me, I’ve seen better versions. And yes, it may be controversial to say, but Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel is a much better movie. I’m not saying it has better casting when it comes to Lois Lane and Clark Kent. I admit, Amy Adams is not as good as Rachel Brosnahan when playing Lois Lane. But Man of Steel tells a more concise story of how we are introducing us to Superman in a world where society can trust him and how he finally becomes the Man of Steel that we all know. James Gunn’s Superman is like taking five or six origin movies and throwing it into one film so we don’t have to go through all that again. I totally understand because you can’t have the same road map for these new DC movies that Marvel did 15 years ago… fans don’t have the patience. However, I’m optimistic that this version of the DC universe will get better and I am excited for James Gunn’s version of Justice League. For me, this Superman movie doesn’t land the way it should, but he does his best to introduce the Man of Steel from Action Comics in a DC universe that doesn’t have to be as dark as the Zack Snyder DC films. There’s a lot to like about this movie, but it’s a very average Superman movie and not the best… at least for me. But I will end this review on a high note… the greatest thing James Gunn did for Superman was having the Superman theme in the film even if it’s a different take on John Williams’s music. That Superman theme is iconic and should always be present in a Superman story. If Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel had this music then that movie would have been almost perfect. So James Gunn does get the music right and that’s important. For me its just a 6 /10!
