James Gunn faced a huge problem when he set out to make a new Superman movie: the perfect Superman movie had already been made. The 1978 Superman film starring Christopher Reeve, Margot Kidder and (RIP) Gene Hackman had perfect casting, perfect music, and, most important of all, perfect tone. Proving that a superhero movie could be smart and human and exciting, Richard Donner changed the movie making game forever and created a film that still holds up for heart and character.
The big advantage that James Gunn had going into making a Superman movie is that he knew the perfect Superman movie had already been made. Ya see, other folks who had made Superman films didn’t really care. The folks who made Superman a deadbeat dad (Superman Returns) certainly didn’t care. Zack Snyder had a perfect physical presence in Henry Cavill and the filmmaking chops to make the action startling and powerful, and he didn’t really need to look back.
But Gunn gets that the character WORKS, and he’s wise enough to see his way through to that despite all the outside pressure on this movie.
Superman, directed and written by Gunn and starring David Corenswet, Rachel Brosnahan and Nicholas Hoult, is the latest in a long series of Most Important Movies In The History of Warner Bros DC Plans™.
A previous one was Batman v. Superman, the “Martha” movie. As we reported in 2015, then studio head Kevin Tsijihara took comfort in watching it over and over again. The movie actually made money but was mocked so much that it led to the greatest DCEU disaster of all times – a title for which there is a LOT of competition – with Justice League. You can return to that car crash right here, and while we don’t have a record of studio execs watching it over and over, they must have because they decided to remove Zack Snyder and bring on Joss Whedon halfway through. And that didn’t turn out well.
Somehow, during the pandemic, The Flash became a NEW Most Important Movie In The History of Warner Bros. DC Plans™. Representing an already failed road map and with a star who had so many legal and emotional troubles that they couldn’t do any promotion, the movie was pre doomed, and yet somehow NEW studio head David Zaslav threw all the eggs in the basket, breaking most of them along the way. And there was that fateful endorsement yet again: Zaslav watched the movie several times and said it was the bomb:
Speaking at CinemaCon, Zaslav said he has seen The Flash three times and has the following praise for it: “It’s a very emotional movie… to me, it’s the best superhero movie I’ve ever seen.”
Instead it was A bomb.
With Superman (2025), luckily, studio heads seem to have learned their lesson and if they watched it obsessively, they kept that to themselves. With no Zaslav endorsement to weigh it down, Gunn has been left to do the heavy lifting…and as the co-head of DC Studios, he’s just the right person for the job, releasing a steady stream of soundbites, explaining why Superman wears trunks, praising his stars, praising comics makers, and stirring up a little outrage by promoting basic human decency, assuring that those who took issue with this will look like the villains they are.
Will Superman succeed where others failed? We’ll have the numbers on Monday but in the meantime, in my opinion, as a movie, Gunn and company pulled it off. They made a charming, exciting film that introduced characters known and obscure and, most importantly, made us want to see more of them.
I was predisposed to like this film as a Gunn fan, but I’ve been let down by my heroes before. And indeed the weight of studio hopes and a possible future superhero slate temper some Gunn trademarks into standard superhero fare. Let Peacemaker 2 be the home of Gunn’s lengthy Tarantino-manque soliloquies and dialogs: Superman has snappy but plot-progressing dialog, while passing wisecracks get slipped in here and there.
Since this is a review of sorts, I’ll mention the plot which involves Lex Luthor (Hoult) hating Superman and sending a couple of powerful metahumans to destroy him – María Gabriela de Faría sporting terrifying eyebrows and abs as The Engineer, who can manipulate matter, and a mysterious being known as Ultraman. As the film opens, Superman is gravely injured after a battle with Ultraman, resulting in the Krypto scenes we all love from the trailers.
Luthor’s anti-Superman efforts go on to include ginning up a war between the countries of Boravia and Jahranpur and then creating a pocket universe, as you do.
Superman fights back against these foes, aided by the Justice Gang: Isabela Merced as Hawkgirll, Edi Gathegi as Mr. Terrific and Nathan Fillion as Guy Gardner. Meanwhile Lois Lane helps Superman fight back against Luthor’s other weapon: a social media trolling campaign being typed out by monkeys in that pocket universe.
I won’t give too many spoilers, but we also meet Metamorpho, Ric Flagg (Frank Grillo in a welcome return), Ma and Pa Kent, Jimmy Olsen and all the other accoutrements that you expect in a Superman movie.
Honestly, the plot hardly matters in an endeavor like this. It moves forward at a dynamic pace, and takes a few zigs and zags that keep you from predicting too hard.
There is definitely a bit more to it than meets the eye though. An element of the opening scene struck me as curious, and when it wasn’t mentioned again I assumed it was a red herring, only for it to come back in the third act with a wholly satisfying explanation that tied together the whole plot. That’s good writing!
Gunn’s other good writing is in picking up what made All-Star Superman work. He never made his admiration for the Grant Morrison/Frank Quitely classic secret and their fingerprints are all over this. The most important one is that Superman is a good person who wants to help people. That seems boring and bland in a world where anti-heroes are so appealing, but maybe it really is time for a good guy who is just that.
The main reason it works is Corenswet. He has the looks and dimples to star in movies, but the presence to be a movie star. He’s heroic, of course, but his Superman is sweet and kind in a way we haven’t seen since Reeve. Brosnahan comes behind Kidder and Amy Adams on the Lois List for me, but I have no complaints. Hoult’s Luthor isn’t campy like Hackman, and he brings a plausible villainous energy to the proceedings that never lets up.
Gunn’s love of quirky weirdos really comes out with the supporting cast, as always. Mr. Terrific is a total scene stealer – we’re told a spin-off is already being considered and it’s easy to see why. He’s arrogant, short-tempered and extremely competent – and a little mysterious which might not work as the star of his own show but we’ll see.
Nathan Fillion as Guy Gardner is the greatest thing ever. Sometimes when you’re at the movies, something happens on screen that just jumps out and digs its way into your heart to connect with a thing that was always there waiting to be fulfilled. Suddenly the universe and your place in it make sense. I am by no means a Green Lantern fan or even comprehender, but that is how I felt every time Fillion opened his mouth. He joins JK Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson and RDJ as Tony Stark as the most perfect casting ever in a comic book movie.
Now I haven’t mentioned Hawkgirl and she does NOT have a sublime moment or characterization. She reminded me of Mara in those Progressive commercials: hanging around with the main players to say something funny once in a while. And here I must mention that Superman is not a perfect movie, and most likely people are going to criticize the female characters, and it will not be unjustified. I won’t belabor the point in this piece but most of the women are severely underwritten (like Hawlgirl) or kind of, well, stupid. Gunn has been criticized for his handling of female characters before and we’ll probably see a big round of it again.
Will Superman save Warner Bros. and finally bring on the much dreamed paradise of a CONNECTED DC FILMIC UNIVERSE? DC has been chasing Marvel at the movies for so long that the MCU has risen and now fallen. Audiences probably don’t want a filmic superhero universe any more. But they do want good stories about characters they can root for. With the Guardians trilogy and THE Suicide Squad, James Gunn took little known bit players and gave us vibrant characters with interior lives and the promise of more stories to come. With Superman, he’s taken some of the greatest cultural icons of the last 100 years and done the same.
See you on Monday for the box office tally!
Ok I enjoy reading The Beat but whoever wrote this story you need to get your facts straight. Zach Snyder was not fired by Warner Brothers. here is the story.
“Zack Snyder stepped away from directing “Justice League” due to a family tragedy, specifically the suicide of his daughter, Autumn, in March 2017. According to The Hollywood Reporter, he needed to focus on his family and took a break from the film. Deadline reported Joss Whedon was brought in to oversee the completion of the film, including some reshoots and post-production work, but not to drastically alter Snyder’s vision. According to Screen Rant, Whedon’s version was different from Snyder’s original vision, but it was not a case of Warner Bros. firing Snyder.”
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