Regardless of where you stand on the subject of previous Superman adaptations, there’s a sense that none of them had truly been able to escape the gravitational pull of Richard Donner’s seminal original. While subsequent attempts saw such approaches as going full love letter (Superman Returns) or recruiting Richard Pryor in full slapstick mode (Superman III), none could match the gravitas and pitch perfect world building that the filmmaker achieved. Hell, even Zack Snyder’s Man Of Steel made a massive point of specifically being the complete opposite of the 1978 groundbreaker tonally – but still centered it’s plot around Kal-El beating seven shades of Krypto-shit out of General Zod and his cronies just like he did in Superman II.
However, with a new Superman movie soaring into cinemas with James Gunn at the helm and an entirely new DC cinematic universe hanging in the balance, can this latest take manage to finally break new ground concerning the Man Of Tomorrow? And if so, is going extraordinarily silly the way to go with it?
Much like the beginning of Star Wars, we are brought up to speed with a hefty (off-screen) backstory delivered by a selection of title cards. Metahumans have been around for centuries, it’s been thirty years since baby Kal-El landed on Earth from the exploding planet of Krypton, it’s been three years since a grown, super powered Kal announced himself as Superman and it’s been a couple of weeks since he took it upon himself to thwart an invasion by Bovaria of its neighbouring country of Jarhanpur. However, while his intention was to do good and stop the unnecessary slaughter of innocent lives, his unsanctioned intervention has made the US government exceedingly uneasy and leading the charge when lobbying to have him stopped is billionaire technocrat and professional hater, Lex Luthor. In fact, Luthor already has a bunch of irons in the fire when it comes to fucking over the Man Of Steel, with one of his flunkies, the super powered Ultraman, disguising himself as the armoured Hammer Of Bovaria and beating Superman within an inch of his life while the other, the nanite fueled Engineer, searches for the alien’s Fortress Of Solitude in the Arctic.
After recovering from his injuries thanks from an intense dose of vitamin Sun, Superman goes back to his identity as Metropolis reporter Clark Kent only to find that his well meaning mercy mission will have serious political ramifications – most of which are delivered by his fellow reporter and girlfriend of three months, Lois Lane.
However, in a world that already seems to contain bowl cut sporting Green Lanterns, screeching Hawkgirls, super powered dogs, pocket dimension prisons and fire breathing Kaiju, things are about to get a lot more chaotic. In an effort to calm a steadily panicking public, Superman opts to double down by being the hero, but when Luthor delivers a body blow with some highly personal information about his adversary’s heritage, it seems the world’s love affair with the Man Of Steel may be over.
To be honest, there was really only one avenue left for James Gunn in the wake of Zack Snyder’s super serious take on arguably the world’s most recognisable superhero, but even I was taken aback at just how silly Superman ’25 really is. Skipping large chunks of backstory both classic and recent (Krypton go boom, dating Lois Kane, a whole bunch of political grey area, his first ass whuppin’) we literally enter the story with the busted and battered eponymous hero crashing into the snow of the Arctic and calling for help. Help arrives in the form of Krypto, an excitable dog with superpowers that wears a little red cape and immediately we find that Gunn is not only here to be as ruthlessly comic accurate as he possibly can, but he shows that he’s willing to tread ground that even Richard Donner was unable to approach. To be honest, for the first fifteen minutes, this Star Wars style attempt to jump into a story already fully in motion was giving me vastly overstuffed, Amazing Spider-Man 2 vibes, and yet once the onslaught of comic accurate stuff manages to subside a little, Gunn’s Superman finds it’s feet with style. The secret sauce seems to be to make this universe fairly ludicrous and intensely colourful, which is something that James Gunn is uniquely qualified for after such previous form as The Suicide Squad and the Guardians Of The Galaxy trilogy, but even though the rate of silly is through the roof, he takes care to never veer into the realms of stupid.
Aiding Gunn in his mission to make Supes happy again is his cast and to quickly cut through the noise, David Corenswet proves to be something of the perfect Superdude. Managing to juggle the goofiness of Clark Kent, the torn nature of Kal-El and the downright goodness of Superman, he proves to be a perfect conduit to what Gunn is trying to achieve. Even better is Rachel Brosnahan’s Lois Lane who finally gives us a big screen version of the character that’s more than just Superman’s girlfriend. Matching Margot Kidder’s version for guile and having actual things to do other than pine for the man in the cape is incredibly refreshing and every time she shares the screen with Corenswet, it proves to be a perfect balance to all the freakish monsters and broad jokes. On the flipside, Nicholas Holt’s Lex Luthor isn’t much more than a slapheaded superhater who doesn’t have a whole lot of an arc beyond scheming, preening of screaming, but he’s thoroughly evil enough to prove to be a memorable foil.
If Superman has a flaw, it’s that the plot is so stuffed with content, everything tends to whizz by like a speeding bullet. The Justice Gang, that features Nathan Fillion asshole Guy Gardener, Isabela Merced’s Hawkgirl and Edi Gathegi’s breakout Mr. Terrific are obviously set for further appearances down the line and so bop in and out of the movie when necessary. Elsewhere, the extended crew of the Daily Planet seem curiously under served and a whole side plot featuring Metamorpho and his captured son causes the already overladen plot to groan under its Kaiju-like weight. However, the film carries such irresistible momentum and is supported so capably by Corenswet and Brosnahan’s chemistry, it ultimately proves to be a crazed, unhinged roller-coaster ride that manages to hit all the right notes during its chaotic cacophony.
For all of its missteps (Gunn has to fit a lot into the 130 minute runtime) Superman proves to be the explosive, vibrant and very, very weird shot in the arm that DC desperately needed and impressively feels like the first film since 1978 that manages to successfully lay down its own thing while not being overly beholden to Donner’s original vision. OK, so it uses John Williams’ classic theme and Corenswet’s performance hues far closer to Reeves than Cavill, but Gunn whisks together genuine heart, wacko humour (it bizarrely features the two best squirrel gags seen in a movie since Up) and gargantuan superhero sequences to give us the superpower of feeling genuinely fresh.
Just super, man.
🌟🌟🌟🌟
We Have Issues 