THE STORY – When Superman gets drawn into conflicts at home and abroad, his actions are questioned, giving tech billionaire Lex Luthor the opportunity to get the Man of Steel out of the way for good. Will intrepid reporter Lois Lane and Superman’s four-legged companion, Krypto, be able to help him before it’s too late?
THE CAST – David Corenswet, Rachel Brosnahan, Nicholas Hoult, Edi Gathegi, Anthony Carrigan, Nathan Fillion & Isabela Merced
THE TEAM – James Gunn (Director/Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 129 Minutes
Superman is down. As Hollywood’s latest reboot of the ultimate superhero story opens, the Man of Steel starts at a decidedly low point. The opening text informs us that exactly three minutes ago, “Superman lost a battle for the very first time,” as we see the Kryptonian icon struggling to breathe in a vast, snowy wasteland. It’s a bold way to announce David Corenswet – the latest actor to don the iconic red and blue uniform – and with this initial impression, director James Gunn makes it clear that he understands exactly how audiences need to be introduced to Superman. With a spotty cinematic legacy that includes only two or three films about him that can be considered anything more than “fine,” audiences may be skeptical about Hollywood’s ability to craft an interesting film around Superman. After all, he can be broadly defined as virtually unstoppable, meaning it can be hard for any threats to himself or those around him to feel genuinely perilous. Gunn’s decision to start his film by shoving his bulletproof hero’s face into the ground and having his first few vocalizations be sounds of pain is a brilliant dismissal of that trepidation. This Superman, although all-powerful, can clearly be knocked down, and Corenswet’s charming, relatable performance keeps the deific character from feeling too distant and lofty. A great deal of effort was invested in crafting his characterization, and the result is possibly the best depiction of Superman ever seen on film. But just as Superman switches between his triumphant heroic persona and sheepish human alter ego, Gunn’s film is a mix of achievements and shortcomings.
What it does get right is the way it skips past needless character introduction and exposition. You know the drill – Superman came to us via an interplanetary escape pod, sent by his parents from their dying planet, Krypton, as a last hope for the continuation of their species. On Earth, he transitions from a Kansas farmboy to a big-city reporter at Metropolis’ largest newspaper, the Daily Planet, under the pseudonym Clark Kent. He keeps his true identity hidden from everyone except, as this film quickly shows, his co-worker and girlfriend Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan). But things are far from easy for the couple. She – and what seems like the majority of Earth’s inhabitants – has objections to Superman’s latest action: intervening in the fight between the militarily mighty nation of Boravia and the scrappy people of the country of Jarhanpur. Lois expresses skepticism about Clark’s claims that he acted not on behalf of his adopted country, but as a do-gooder unmotivated by global politics. Regardless, he’s being pursued by a vengeful metahuman who calls himself the Hammer of Boravia. He knows precisely how to temporarily defeat Superman thanks to uncanny fighting skills, which turn out to be the handiwork of the villainous Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult). A tech megalomaniac and arms dealer, Luthor has a vested interest in keeping Superman away from the Boravian conflict. He manages to find a way to turn the tide of public sentiment against Superman definitively and won’t stop until his nemesis is gone forever.
What that overview doesn’t include is the film’s massive roster of supporting characters: heroic, villainous, and those in between. There are those who show up in every Superman story: his adoptive parents, Jonathan (Pruitt Taylor Vince) and Martha Kent (Neva Howell), his editor-in-chief, Perry White (Wendell Pierce), and Jimmy Olsen, a young Daily Planet photographer played by a perfectly cast Skyler Gisondo. But there’s also Lex’s shape-shifting right-hand woman called The Engineer (María Gabriela de Faría), a trio of fellow superheroes tentatively called the Justice Gang, an outer dimensional being named Rex (Anthony Carrigan) who can conjure any elemental substance, and a host of other tertiary named characters who also have defined personalities and importance to the plot. Oh, and Superman’s got a dog! All of these figures contribute to the drama surrounding Superman, making the film’s world feel expansive and lived-in, while at the same time causing it to seem overstuffed, especially for a major superhero movie with a comparatively short runtime.
In his smartest decision as a writer, Gunn’s focus on Superman’s otherness works seamlessly. After all, Superman came to this country unconventionally and forged an identity as a citizen, working hard to uphold the national ideals for which America often claims to stand but rarely actually embodies. The real-life parallel is obvious but never unwelcome, and Gunn mines it for all its worth, showing just how quickly this country can turn on immigrants out of an irrational nationalist fear of The Other. Gunn also emphasizes the plight of the underdog, through both Superman himself and the besieged people of Jarhanpur, who can be seen as a stand-in for the people of Ukraine, Palestine, or any other nation facing the might of an over-militarized force.
But too many other story elements don’t work quite as well. There are simply too many characters taking up space, which has the unwelcome side effect of reducing our time with the titular hero. In fact, it feels like he spends most of the movie getting his ass kicked in repetitive action sequences, with Gunn making the audience wait a long time to see Superman fully unleash his powers. And when he finally does, it’s beyond thrilling. Still, there aren’t many cinematic images more rousing than a heroic shot of Superman, and this film contains far too few of them. And, as always seems to be the case when he’s in the director’s chair, Gunn has a habit of highlighting anything that he finds amusing at the expense of a consistent tone. Despite the do-gooder romanticized perspective of the film’s main character, which Gunn doesn’t shy away from, the writer-director can’t suppress his glib comic energy, even when it doesn’t feel appropriate.
Much like the writing, Gunn’s visual choices oscillate between inspired and confused. And much like Gunn’s last DC film, “The Suicide Squad,” this movie is insanely colorful, smartly not shying away from resembling the comic books that were once Superman’s primary home. And although it’s set mainly during the day, with the yellow sun from which Superman derives his powers absolutely blasting into the camera lens, the nighttime scenes are well-lit with an eye for comprehension, which is a nice change of pace for a modern-day Hollywood blockbuster. But one visual choice that the film makes doesn’t pay off, and it’s deployed frequently. When Superman flies, the camera gets uncomfortably close to his face, distorting his features as if he were being viewed through a peephole. It’s a mystifying decision, because it neither achieves anything thematically nor is it visually appealing.
But as it should be, “Superman’s” greatest asset is Superman himself. Corenswet is simply astounding. He’s charismatic and easy to root for, but best of all, he’s not perfect. He’s not idealized to the point of feeling bland. His Clark is impatient, and he gets frustrated with the world’s limited tolerance and complicated geopolitical actions (who can’t relate to that?). It’s not hard to buy that he’d want to potentially cross some arbitrary boundaries in the name of what’s obviously right. As such, he’s the perfect Superman for our times. Too often, it feels like the world moves away from that which benefits the greater good in pursuit of power and profit. But unlike most of us, Superman actually has the ability to do something about it on a grand scale, and when he does, he faces realistic pushback from the powers that be.
Besides Corenswet’s Superman, the most successfully executed characters are the three metahumans that make up the Justice Gang. The always-funny Nathan Fillion plays the Green Lantern as a well-meaning but dopey meathead (a character type that Gunn is fond of across his films), and Isabela Merced makes for a Hawkgirl who’s fierce in airborne battle but sympathetically sardonic on the ground. Edi Gathegi rounds out the trio as Mister Terrific, a superhero with technologically advanced powers and a sturdy, no-nonsense attitude. Gathegi gives him a captivating above-it-all energy that gets frequently, and hilariously, undercut by those around him. He’s excellent, delivering a truly scene-stealing performance.
As Superman’s two most essential co-stars, Brosnahan and Hoult both do their best with the limited characterization the screenplay provides them. Brosnahan’s Lois Lane is spunky and headstrong, but her relationship with Clark lacks the spark necessary to really sell them as an inevitably matched couple. This film’s Lex Luthor is extremely angry and vengeful, prone to long-winded speeches about his motivations and hopes. It’s a one-dimensional character, and Hoult embodies him in a way that makes him feel totally real, but as written, Luthor isn’t a compelling villain.
Superman has always been an example of what humanity can be and what we can accomplish if only we could put aside the nonsense, distractions, and pettiness. He may be a golden boy, but in James Gunn’s “Superman,” he’s not without flaws. Here, he’s fallible, but thanks to David Corenswet’s performance, still captivating. Despite this film’s unevenness, DC Studios has found a Superman who feels as right for the character as Christopher Reeve must have felt nearly 50 years ago, giving DC fans hope as Gunn and co. usher in a new version of the ultimate superhero for a new era.
