Superman – 3 stars out of 4
I still remember the first time my family rented movies. We were getting together with another family down the block, and for the event my parents picked up three VHS tapes along with a VCR to play them on. The titles? Disney’s “Pete’s Dragon” (for the kids), Blake Edwards’ “10” (for the adults), and Richard Donner’s 1978 classic “Superman” (for everybody).
Fair or not, the OG Christopher Reeve movies have been my gold standard whenever anyone tried to bring a new Superman to the big screen. 2006’s “Superman Returns” with Brandon Routh was watchable but forgettable, and even though Henry Cavill was a perfect casting, 2013’s “Man of Steel” felt like someone was trying to turn the Superman into another Dark Knight.
All of this is to say that I went into James Gunn’s 2025 “Superman” with tempered expectations, a healthy skepticism I’ve learned to carry ever since the pandemic signaled the end of the Good Superhero Cinema Era.
And now that I’ve seen it…it’s pretty good. It’s fine. It definitely feels like a “Superman” movie made by the guy who made “Guardians of the Galaxy,” for better and for worse. It’s nowhere near the Christopher Reeve original (or its sequel), but I don’t know that it matters. In an era where superhero movies have embraced the concept of the multiverse, James Gunn’s “Superman” just feels like a fun variant on everyone’s favorite Kryptonian import.
Since all those other movies already covered the origin stuff, Gunn decided to drop us in the middle of the new Superman’s tenure. Still moonlighting (or daylighting?) as intrepid reporter Clark Kent, Superman (David Corenswet) is about three years into a mostly successful run defending the people of Earth against a range of super-and-not-so-super baddies. So as with the recent Zac Snyder films, the plot is going to explore how to reconcile the Son of Krypton in our modern world.
For this story, the villain (Lex Luthor, played by Nicholas Hoult) is classic, but the premise is very 21st Century. There’s a little geopolitics and a lot of techno-babble, and when Luthor gets hold of some incriminating home videos during a raid on Superman’s Fortress of Solitude, he turns the court of public opinion against his curly-haired arch nemesis.
Gunn gives us a host of heroes and villains to reckon with. Superman has already staked out his relationship with Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan), but also gets to team up with a trio of fellow “metahumans” including The Green Lantern (or at least one of them, played by Nathan Fillion), Mr. Terrific (Edit Gathegi), and Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced). They come in handy against baddie metahumans like The Engineer (Maria Gabriela de Faria), and there’s also a super-powered dog, which should tell you all you need to know about the tone of the movie.
Speaking of tone, again, this is a James Gunn production, which means “Superman” gets the same generous slathering of quips and record drops that endeared audiences to “Guardians of the Galaxy” back in 2014. It’s OK in doses, but the humor is used so much that it undermines the gravitas of the title character. It’s more like Gunn made a “Guardians of the Galaxy” version of “Superman” than the director of “Guardians of the Galaxy” made a “Superman” movie.
That humorous element might be the one thing that keeps Corenswet’s performance in a box. Where Reeve always played Superman as a noble but kind of stiff outsider–a Boy Scout in red briefs–Corenswet’s Superman behaves like someone saturated in modern culture and mannerisms ever since he crash-landed on Earth as a toddler. Brosnahan provides a nice foil as Lois, but in spite of some spirited and memorable turns in movies like “Mad Max: Fury Road” and “About a Boy,” Hoult doesn’t get much to do with his shot at Luthor.
Visually, “Superman” is both fun and vibrant. It won’t set any new standards for CGI, but it frames some generous action against a lot of stuff that’s at least interesting to look at. Coming from the Snyder films, it executes an aesthetic change similar to Gunn’s “The Suicide Squad” reboot in 2021.
If you’re looking for a refreshing, bright, and hopeful antidote to the Snyder movies, you’re in luck. If you’re looking for something to reach the level of the Reeve movies, you’ll be disappointed. If you’re just looking for something new and unique–at least compared to the other “Superman” offerings–you should be more than satisfied. James Gunn’s “Superman” didn’t leave me breathless for more adventures, but it felt like an interesting way to add some variety to the film catalogue of Earth’s greatest superhero.
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“Superman” is rated PG-13 for standard superhero mayhem and profanity.