REVIEW: Superman isn't very super in sloppy reboot
A movie called "Superman" ought to have the character doing superheroic things.
“Superman” is a sloppy mess so overrun by vestigial characters that an ill-behaved superpowered dog outshines the world’s greatest superhero.
Writer-director James Gunn promised a more hopeful reboot of the DC Comics franchise. Instead, he delivers a Superman who needs rescuing more than he rescues anyone and is largely ineffective against the film’s threats.
The 2-hour, 9-minute movie refuses to let Superman do superhero things. He spends most of the time getting battered by monsters and villains assembled by an unhinged Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult).
The film opens with Superman (David Corenswet) crashing in the Arctic Circle, battered and bruised. Expositional text flashes on screen to reference off-screen events that make little sense unless you’ve read comics for decades.
A superpowered mechanized assault on Metropolis, we’re told, is Boravia’s retaliation after Superman stopped one of its wars.
We see none of it, which is a shame, because Superman stopping a war and fighting a big metal thingamagig are exactly the things you would put into a Superman movie.
Instead, Krypto — a curly-haired terrier mix in a cape from Krypton — rescues a downed Superman and drags him to the Fortress of Solitude, where chatty robots patch him up.
Clark and Lois (Rachel Brosnahan) are dating, but the relationship is rocky. She worries his “exclusive” Superman interviews could expose his secret identity and lectures him on journalistic ethics.
Brosnahan delivers perhaps the best Lois Lane in screen history. Corenswet is likable as Clark Kent-Superman, even if he lacks a defining hero moment. Hoult turns in the best Lex Luthor to date.
This terrific trio spends precious little time together.
Instead, the audience endures side quests to meet the Justice Gang. The name is a work in progress, as the characters repeatedly tell us in a dud of a running gag.
The Temu Justice League includes Green Lantern (Nathan Fillion), Mister Terrific (Edi Gathegi), and Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced). These D-list heroes do most of the hero work while Superman loses every fight. A line or two of introduction would help.
Gunn’s film isn’t a failure; it’s just trying to do too much. Littered with cameos and quarter-bin heroes, it feels like an extended setup for a new cinematic universe.
The 2025 incarnation of Superman is not as grim as Henry Cavill in “Man of Steel” (2013). Yet, it has fewer superheroic moments than Brandon Routh got in the unfairly maligned “Superman Returns.”
Gunn’s “Superman” never comes close to matching the spirit of Christopher Reeve in “Superman” from 1978.
Corenswet is a more likable Superman than Henry Cavill or Brandon Routh, but his Superman is a punching bag. The audience never gets the sense that Superman is all that super.
If you market your film with a “Look Up” campaign, give us a few moments worthy of goose bumps, not scenes of Superman falling out of the sky spitting blood.
DANIEL P. FINNEY is a member of the IOWA WRITERS COLLABORATIVE, but don’t hold that against them. Please visit their page to view a full roster of writers and consider subscribing to their columns. Writing is hard work; people ought to get paid for it. If you enjoy it, throw them a couple of bucks. They earned it.
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