Kickstarting a new superhero franchise is an almost impossible task, especially when the hero in question has as long and varied a history as Superman. But that hasn’t kept Warner Bros. from handing over the reigns of the newly created DC Studios to director James Gunn (The Suicide Squad, all three Guardians of the Galaxy movies), a move that not only seems like a good bet but also a safe one. Gunn frequently has the uncanny ability to crack the toughest stories and make them entertaining, heartfelt, funny, action-packed, and epic—and some of those elements show up in force in his Superman, which takes arguably the most famous superhero in the world and boils his story down to its essential element of being the most human alien to ever exist.
Forgoing the character’s origin story (sort of) and opening with the end result of Superman (now played by David Corenswet, Twisters, Pearl, The Greatest Hits) losing his first battle to a masked villain called Ultraman, who we find out fairly soon is an enforcer for genius tech giant Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult, Nosferatu, Juror #2). It’s a gutsy way to open the movie because it shows our hero at his absolute lowest point. It turns out that a few weeks earlier, he was attempting to stop the fictional nation of Boravia, an ally of the United States, from invading the neighboring Jarhanpur, and Ultraman (nicknamed the "Hammer of Boravia") was striking back at Superman in his home city of Metropolis, severely injuring him in the process.
Superman manages to get his super-powered (and ill-behaved) dog Krypto to drag him to his Fortress of Solitude in Antarctica, where he has a small army of robots that are able to heal him. Little does he know that another one of Luthor’s field agents, known only as The Engineer (Maria Gabriela de Faria), who has nanotechnology in her blood that makes it possible to create anything she can think of with her body, is following him to discover the location of his secret, hidden fortress. Once he leaves to go find Ultraman again, Luthor and his cronies fully invade the lair, looking for anything they can use in the Kryptonian technology to defeat or humiliate Superman.
We also meet this film’s version of Superman’s alter ego Clark Kent’s co-workers at the newspaper the Daily Planet, including his secret love interest Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan), photographer Jimmy Olsen (Skyler Gisondo), sports reporter Steven Lombard (Beck Bennett), and editor Perry White (Wendell Pierce). In fact, the film is positively swimming in secondary characters who have varying degrees of importance to the overall story being told, while others are simply there to set up future DC Studios projects. Luthor has a ditzy lady friend named Eve (Sara Sampaio), who mostly just takes selfies of herself and Lex in different locations. Her importance to this story is ludicrous and, frankly, annoying and implausible. We meet Clark’s earth parents (Neva Howell and Pruitt Taylor Vince), a Kansas farm couple who ground their son when he needs them most; I wish they had been in the film more.
We also get other heroes, specifically three from the Justice Gang (there is fierce debate among the three as to whether that’s the actual name of this team), Nathan Fillion’s Green Lantern Corp. member Guy Gardner, Isabela Merced as Hawkgirl, and the fascinating Mr. Terrific (Edi Gathegi). Superman isn’t officially a team member, but they all frequently work together.
Also on hand is Frank Grillo’s Rick Flag Sr., who works for the government; but when the Luthor becomes a one-man, government-sanctioned, law enforcement agent, that means Flag must unwillingly take orders from him. Using recordings from Superman’s birth parents that seem to encourage their son to conquer Earth rather than simply protect it, Luthor discredits his reputation, and after Superman turns himself in, Luthor imprisons him in a pocket dimension that uses unstable portals to travel in and out of. In the other-dimensional prison, Superman meets another would-be hero Metamorpho (Anthony Carrigan), who is key to robbing Superman of his powers, making him susceptible to Luthor’s demands.
Going any deeper into the eventual threat to all of humanity or the way that Lois and the Daily Planet team help save the day would be pointless and not especially interesting. And even broaching the subject of how Luthor is brought down might make me too angry to finish writing this review.
But here’s the thing: I liked huge parts of Superman. I think Corenswet is a great Clark Kent/Superman. Not only does he sell Superman’s inherent goodness, but he captures his inability to see why people might not trust him or why simply saving the world from a bad situation isn’t always going to sit right with all people. He’s still very much an in-progress hero, and nowhere is that more clear than a mock interview he allows Lois Lane to conduct with him early in the film to prove that he’s media savvy (he’s not). Not only is it a great scene, but it’s the one that endeared me to Brosnahan’s portrayal of Lois, which is among my favorite in her the history of the character on screen or in a TV series.
Many believe that a superhero movie is only as good as its villain. I’m not sure I fully buy into that, but I do feel that Hoult—an actor I truly admire—is dreadfully miscast in Luthor. He plays him like an overly sensitive, emotionally driven alpha male instead of the smartest man in the world who considers consequences and thinks several moves ahead, like any great chess player. Instead, he’s impulsive, petty, and not especially smart. He’s the film’s biggest misstep, and I fully blame Gunn for writing the character so ineptly. Hoult is doing the best with the material he was given, but for all his talent, he can’t save the portrayal of one of the greatest villains in the history of comics.
I’ve always enjoyed Gunn’s work because he makes choices and takes swings that other filmmakers simply wouldn’t dare, and more often than not, they’re the right ones. Superman is a rare instance in his filmography in which he makes too many of the wrong choices. The film suffers for it, certainly, but that hardly makes the rest of it the worst Superman movie ever made or something that is wholly unwatchable. Not exactly high praise, but Gunn’s Superman finds a way to fall short without completely falling on its face.
The film is now playing in theaters.
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