Superman

Super...man... he's not a man. He's an it, that's somehow become the focal point of the entire world's conversation. I will... accept that because this movie is... good.

Now this was a pleasant surprise.

Not that I ever doubted writer/director James Gunn per se, but I was wondering what exactly it would look like if he infused his trademark sincere screwball energy into a character who is the epitome of optimism and all that’s good in this world.

Superman is a tough character to get right. He’s a cape-wearing alien from Krypton who inspires both admiration and fear. How do you make a superhero who is unmatched in power yet represents the best of humanity even remotely interesting in a relatable way?

Gunn wisely eschews the overdone origin story for his Superman and starts his movie in a pretty inspired way: Superman (David Corenswet) just got his ass kicked for the first time and he immediately needs rescuing by Krypto, his poorly behaved and overly energetic superdog. Immediately our frame of reference for the character and this movie is established: This Superman is fallible but also try not to take this too seriously.

As we quickly find out, Superman may be powerful but he’s just an “okay” superhero in a world where superpowered metahumans are commonplace. Clark Kent isn’t doing that much better (relatively speaking) as he’s merely an average journalist whose three-month relationship with Lois Lane (a great but underused Rachel Brosnahan) is already on the rocks.

Corenswet looks like your traditional Superman - i.e buff, white, and square-jawed - but his take on the character as a “regular guy” is refreshing. His Man of Steel is an earnest chap who can laugh, bicker, and argue like the rest of us mere humans, all while carrying a relatable inner fragility his powers can’t overcome. Any Superman who cracks a joke following Henry Cavill’s depressing grim-dark Snyder-verse take would be considered refreshing, but Corenswet is genuinely convincing as a version of the Kryptonian who is hardly in control of any situation he’s in.

This is encapsulated by the movie’s best scene where Clark agrees to give Lois an on-the-record exclusive interview as Superman for the first time and she doesn’t hold back. Lois peppers Superman with tough but fair questions about his decision to end a looming war without government approval, and he slowly loses his composure as his ego takes punch after punch until he leaves in a huff.

Gunn is at his best when he gets the balance between screwball energy and seriousness just right, but sometimes his approach to subtext is to simply make it straight up text. That aforementioned interview scene annoyingly ends on a damp squib when Lois mutters dreaded lines like “I knew this would never work” and “I’m not good at relationships”. As accomplished a storyteller and writer Gunn is, it’s honestly baffling how he approaches certain relationship moments through cliche rather than the sincerity he’s so good at conveying.

Superman flies in at 129 minutes and Gunn wastes none of it, whether it’s being as unsubtle about character feelings as a right hook to the jaw or playing jump rope with silly and earnest moments. For a modern day superhero movie, that is relatively short and the movie zips by at such a brisk pace that you don’t have time to dwell on something too long before something zany happens. It’s probably for the better as some elements fall apart at the seams if you think about it too hard, like Superman rescuing a squirrel mid-battle instead of all the humans in close proximity nearby or Lex Luthor’s ridiculously convoluted plan.

Lex’s plan may be pretty stupid, but casting Nicholas Hoult was an inspired choice because he gets what Gunn is doing. Lex is like Elon Musk if Musk were actually somewhat competent, had two brain cells to rub together, and is high on his own supply instead of ketamine. There’s a Russian roulette scene midway through the movie where Hoult convincingly shows how his Lex can be smart and/or psychotic when he needs to be.

Yet for all of Lex’s convincing sociopathic tendencies and the smart stuff he does to be a proper match for his superpowered nemesis (like obsessively studying fighting moves for future battles and manipulation of world events that pushes the movie’s plot along), he also likes to do ridiculous things like training an army of monkeys to troll Superman on social media and monologuing about why Superman appearance has taken the attention away from him thus justifying his hate-boner for the Kryptonian.

Hoult’s Lex feels less of a satire or caricature and more a reflection of how ridiculous our real world has actually become. It’s pretty obvious that Superman is Gunn’s view on all the fuckery that’s going on in the world right now and it’s all there if you want to find it. Good thing Gunn is a talented enough director to juggle things well enough so you can also just breeze past all the immigrant/ICE agents/toxic tech-bro billionaire/geopolitical war stuff and just take the movie as a fun romp. The fun certainly helps make the movie’s politics more palatable than the alternative.

But regardless of how you watch Superman, it all somehow works! Yes there are overly corny moments mixed in with all the serious stuff, but when you’re in a world where metahumans and superdogs exist, everything is inherently weird so a bit of silliness is expected. Going hand-in-hand with the silliness is a much-welcomed visual langauge of bright colours that isn’t saturated or tinged with grey and brown (except for a 20 minute stretch mid-movie).

Most importantly, Superman doesn’t have any of the emotional manipulation that Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.3 and parts of Vol.2 smacked me in the face with. Gunn reins that in and manages to capture the core essence that’s been lacking in recent Superman movies: Hope.

Zack Snyder’s stupid grim-dark take on Superman erased what was meant to be the character’s defining feature and enough time - and loud annoying Snyder-verse fans on the internet - has passed that it’s mostly been forgotten. Thankfully, Gunn successfully recalibrates his Superman back towards being a beacon of optimism and the character’s inherent glass half-full view on humanity permeates throughout the movie. The scene of the kid raising a makeshift ‘S’ flag as a cry for help for Superman hits harder in the movie than in the context of a 2-minute trailer.

Whether you’re a fleshy human or one of the many metahumans with raging egos (like Nathan Fillion’s hilarious take on Guy Gardner or Edi Gathegi’s nitpicky tech-powered Mister Terrfic), Superman has once again become someone to believe in again and it’s not just because of his powers.

Ultimately, I just like how big Gunn went big for his new take on Superman and it mostly hits. With how dreary reality has been lately, it’s honestly nice to just watch something that’s fun (flaws and all) and can make you believe in some semblance of hope again. Just don’t think too hard on everything and you’ll be fine.