Before we dive in, everyone, head to your social media and ask James Gunn to give his marketing team a raise.
They somehow baited me into wanting to watch this film despite the fact that the actual trailers showed pretty terrible material. But does the film itself live up to (or down from) those trailers? Let’s talk. This is a spoiler review, so you’ve been warned.
The story
Have you ever wondered why Zack Snyder could never fit so many characters into a two-hour film? He never understood the key to it—a key James Gunn apparently masters in ‘Superman.” It’s the “tell rather than show” trope, or in layman’s terms, spoon-feeding. Because that’s precisely what this film’s target audience needs after the constant bashing of previous Superman movies. The film spoon-feeds every action, every motive, and every character trait to the point where even a five-year-old would find it childish. I imagine James Gunn wrote these scenes as drunken vacation notes, woke up, thought they were dialogue, and threw them into the film without a second thought.
If you’re a fan of the “Injustice” games or if you spend your time online fighting Snyder or Gunn fans (or James Gunn himself), you’ll find this movie a little too relatable. It feels as if Mr. Gunn, frustrated by years of hate tweets, made the entire internet a character in the film—a character he believes these keyboard warriors truly are: monkeys. I hope Mr. Gunn is happy with his two minutes of “Gotcha.”
The story feels like it received the least amount of thought, thrown straight into production after a rough first draft. The scenes are so imbalanced and immaturely made that not just I, but the entire screening room was laughing during serious conversations and yawning during the jokes. Especially during the ending and post-credit scenes, I heard widespread irritation from people who stayed all the way through. This is what happens when you write 650 pages of material on vacation. If this movie turned out like this, I can only imagine what the rest of Gunn’s projects will look like.
The movie revives the trope of one-dimensional NPC (non-playable character) citizens, last seen in Richard Donner’s movies. A monster is crushing its feet right on top of people, but all they care about is taking photos or passively watching the creature. “Man of Steel” sparked a huge, controversial discussion about the loss of public lives, but this movie won’t generate any such conversations because you’ll never, not once, care about a single civilian in danger.
Even the civilians didn’t care about themselves! The worst part was when Luthor released the clip of Superman’s Kryptonian parents asking him to rule mercilessly, which is weird, considering they asked him to help in the first half. What was the immediate reaction of the people? To throw stuff at Superman, who literally saved them from an ugly kaiju creature two minutes earlier. What part of “Rule over them mercifully” made them think, “Ah yes, let’s throw stuff at this puppet?”
Apart from everything, the scene that stands out for me is when Superman returns home and he finds Lois there, and she gives him a hug. I connected with this on a personal level. Sometimes life gets hard, but a reaffirming hug from a loved one goes a long way. That was one of the scenes that truly made me cry. The trailers did not do justice to that scene. It seems as if Superman was ignoring the alien entity, but in context, the same thing feels very heartfelt. They made Superman a very immature yapping dude bro, but I feel he works. He is a good guy in the end. There’s a speech he gives Luthor about what makes him human, and I feel that is something a lot of people never understand about him.
I was very much on board with not liking the Gunn version of Superman (who is constantly screaming and yelling in the trailers) before watching the film but when I was in a closed IMAX room and the social media is totally blocked off as there is no network for almost all the five hours I was at the venue, it really takes the adrenaline rush off me and settles me in. I’m not a fan of Gunn’s tropes, but they don’t annoy me as much. I did not like the movie, andit’ss evident, but I only see it from a technical standpoint. The movie felt a little too rushed in the two-hour time frame, and maybe a longer film could’ve worked a lot better, but the amount of pressure this movie has, I understand the need for it to be made to convince literally everybody. Even a squirrel from a thousand miles away.
The political aspect of this film (as the marketing material claims it is a political film) is frankly just a surface-level added-to-plot scenario. The motivations are half-baked and satirical, showing world leaders as comedic puppets. It’s more of a bad joke, as it’s just Luthor. There is a backdrop of conflict, but the film does nothing to make us care for any of those people. It is used as a cheap excuse to throw some social media comments at Superman. I thought that the scene where people are throwing stuff at Superman (in the trailer) would be meaningful and something very political, but the context just makes it all the more lame.
Apart from all of that, the fact that the supervillain is beaten by the Daily Planet staff was one big highlight. I really loved how the team gathered the evidence in all the ways they could and deduced it to expose Luthor. The treatment of Eve Teschmacher was bad in the context that she was reduced to someone who’s just obsessed with Jimmy, but the use of selfies to uncover the plot was the one thing I did not see coming!
The characters
Superman is the most important character in comic book history, with so much rich lore attached to him. Stripping that lore away and treating him like a character nobody respects is off-putting for him and his legacy. It feels like a D-list treatment for an A-list character, where the purpose of these characters is more about roasting each other rather than giving that much time to character building. I’m glad the movie isn’t called “Superman: Legacy,” or that would have been very ironic.
I do appreciate the scenes where he saves a few people, though, even while hundreds are dying in the background.” Man of Steel’s” biggest mistake was showing people. If they hadn’t shown people in an attempt to showcase consequence and casualty, and Zod had just destroyed buildings, it would be” certified fresh” right now.
However, I will mention that David’s portrayal of both Clark and Superman is wonderfully distinct. I like how they use Clark’s bent spine trope as a disguise even while he’s with Lois. And as much as I feel Gunn uses animal baits to distract audiences from the lack of depth put into the making of his films, the scene with him saving the dog and squirrel, the old lady, and the lady in the car was all amazing.
Even for someone who isn’t a fan of Gunn’s usual stylistic quirks, particularly his characters’ tendency to scream, one scene truly stands out as a massive win for Superman fandom. It’s the moment near the end where Lex challenges Superman’s humanity. Superman responds by articulating how he loves, feels fear, and experiences pretty much everything just like a human. This dialogue is a powerful tool, regardless of what segment of Superman fandom you belong to, to defend any version of Superman who exhibits emotions and makes mistakes, some more than others. And David Corenswet delivered it beautifully.
LexLuthor’ss biggest strength in this filmisn’tt his wit, but his ability to remember combat moves as if his three years of research were just playing”“Injustic”” on PS4. I don’t know if this movie will hit the box office mark, but it will definitely interest people in buying Injustice games on all platforms. He’s a literal keyboard warrior who thinks he’s smart, but his entire plan depends on the tech at his disposal. Without it, he’s just a whiny bore. Great portrayal by Nicholas Hoult, though; he was engaging throughout. But it’s still funny how he has no backup plan at all. More reasons for storytellers to actually read source material before adapting characters, so they don’t write such abominations. Although not to be completely against the character, as he did have good stuff to showcase, like the pocket dimension and his collection of prisoners, and of course, his ruthlessness was so fun to watch.
Lois Lane is a beast! She commands every scene she is in. I spent the last year defending RachelBrosnahan’ss casting as Lois Lane, having seen”“The Marvelous Mrs. Maise””she’ss a phenomenal actress, and the chemistry between her and David Corenswet works. But the film doesn’t give that chemistry time to flesh out, nor does it give Lois the required time for a good character arc. A longer runtime would’ve fixed this issue, I feel. All the female characters in this film seem to be there primarily to be objectified. I didn’t feel a sense of individuality in any of these women.
Talking about his parents, the Kents are basically just dumb people with no real impact, serving only to fill screen time with awkwardness. You either have an overprotective and smart Jonathan or someone with no brains at all, folks! And their Krypton parents, for some reason, want him to rule mercilessly after giving the lecture on being a symbol of hope. Not a fan of that.
The Justice Gang is awesome. The names in this film are laughable (another one is”Planet Watch”), but the power showcase was impressive. Writing for these characters and casting Guy Gardner (Nathan Fillion) was quite off-putting, as their entire conversation is based on internet trolling about their appearances.
There’s a segment at the end where they intervene in some half-baked conflict between Boravia and Jarhanpur after a kid calls Superman as if he’s praying for a savior—we only see them enter the field, and that’s it. In “The Lord of the Rings” terms, this would feel like Aragorn screaming,” For Frodo,” and the movie cuts to Frodo and his quest to throw the ring into the pits of Mount Doom and a happy ending. Doesn’t it feel exciting now, does it?
Also, the fact that every character constantly makes fun of each other makes me wonder what Gunn’s supporters (who claimed he understands and respects these characters) were on about. I really loved the scene where Mr. Terrific saves Lois. It felt like Yondu, but for DC. But if Gunn wants a real chance at the DCU, he needs to focus on these characters and stop treating them like jokes. On one hand, his most loyal fan is defending how the look of Guy Gardner is comic accurate and how Gunn understands him, and on the other hand, Gunn uses him to poke fun at the haircut or the costume, or everything that they do. It just doesn’t blend in well.
Jimmy Olsen is a pretty interesting character, I must say, but the movie certainly wasted Wendell Pierce as Perry White by not giving him a better part to play.
Ultraman is such a puppet, so different from his actual comic character. But since this film doesn’t really care much about characters or their comic origins, James Gunn surely makes his way into sabotaging yet another rich lore. The Kryptonian parents have a cliché, half-baked motive, which makes me wonder how James Gunn decided to make this the canon universe going forward.
Metamorpho fills the Drax void after Dave Bautista chose never to touch the character again after Guardians of the Galaxy. I actually liked this bit. The entire sequence of Superman crushing the glass window and saving everyone with Krypto’s help was amazing.
Despite Gunn trying his best to distract us from the weak plot with””animal baits”” it stillcouldn’tt stop anyone from noticing how badly the film was made. My screening room had some of the biggest DC and James Gunn fans, and everyone felt equally disappointed. There might have been a point to quarrel after the film based on the choices, but I hardly think Snyder fans should be wasting their time fighting with Gunn fans over this mess of a film. No one in their right mind can unironically defend this film.
Technicalities
The cinematography is serviceable at best. It feels like it was shot by a bunch of interns. The shots are awkward and badly framed. The flying sequences are all forgettable and bad.
The Score, a remix of the 1978 score, shows no new creativity—just lazy work that sometimes feels abrupt. However, the score individually is surely very unifying, and it has a great choice of music as well, which I believe is a trope I’d always appreciate about Gunn.
The costumes were horrible—not a single good one. I’m still wondering why I chose to gear up for this film by wearing its merchandise (something I’ve never done before) and how it ended up being such a massive disappointment in every aspect.
The writing is the worst part of the film, due to all the unfunny jokes, spoon-feeding, and ruined emotional moments caused by one-liners. I specifically think the Boravia leader’s character was the worst put on screen. How did no one, while making the film, object to the shot where he says Superman interfered because he likes the women of Jarhanpur? What? How do you even think of something so lame? But it’s Gunn, so it’s not surprising.
The editing of this film is yet another letdown. At no point does it feel coherent. The flow breaks every five minutes. It tries to bring in too much and then doesn’t pay off with anything.
One particular scene I want to talk about is the interview between Clark and Lois. The seriousness of the issue just disappears between all the quips. I’dd like to recall a scene from JossWhedon’ss”“Justice Leagu”” and”“ZackSnyder’ss Justice Leagu””—the same scene with different treatments: the conversation between Barry Allen and Henry Allen. Both cuts have that scene run for about four minutes. Joss Whedon focuses two minutes on the funny bit involving Barry drawing on a bald man’s face, while Snyder dedicates the entire time to the conversation between a son and his father.
Snyder had four hours; he could’ve easily used the comedic bit, but what was the need? Without the unnecessary inclusion, the scene in Snyder’s cut keeps us hooked on the emotional weight of the conversation, while in the theatrical “Justice League”, the scene just comes and goes. The same happens with the interview scene. It just comes and goes.
I’m not trying to pit the two takes against each other, but it’s merely an observation that unnecessary quips do ruin the scene. Makes us question whether the actual intent of this conversation was regarding Superman’s intervention or his amateurism during interviews.
To conclude,” Superman” is a generic mess of random things crammed into one, marking it as a weak start to a cinematic universe that doesn’t give a damn about its characters. This movie feels like it could have been an Elseworlds limited series with David Corenswet as Superboy rather than Superman, and it would have been a fun watch. The right term to define this film would be parody, although, if you are too generous, you may call it comedy.
For better or worse, it’s a very human film that gets Superman right, and there are good action sequences that keep you engaged. Other than that, it’s a mess. But if you do want to watch something light-hearted for the weekend, this one might be just your thing!
