Starring: David Corenswet, Rachel Brosnahan, Nicholas Hoult

Director: James Gunn Year: 2025

Runtime: 2h 9m Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

Superman (2025) is a reboot of the Superman franchise starring David Corenswet as Superman, Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane and Nicholas Hoult as Superman’s nemesis, Lex Luthor.

The movie is directed by James Gunn, who previously directed the Guardians of the Galaxy series for Marvel, before defecting to DC to head up their new interconnected universe.

Is It A Bird? (Or Just A Turkey?)

In 1978, Richard Donner’s Superman launched the superhero genre with the tagline, “You’ll believe a man can fly.”

Released the year after Star Wars and three years after Jaws, Superman solidified a new age in cinema, the age of the blockbuster franchise.

It is an age which continues to this day, though not without a considerable amount of both franchise and superhero fatigue.

Following a string of box office bombs, critical flops, total and/or tax write-offs and general bedlam, director James Gunn is hoping to restore the DC Comics/Warner Bros. alliance to its former glory.

Can he once again make us believe a man can fly? Or will the Man of Steel get dragged down by Gunn’s worst excesses?

Up, Up And Away!

When Warner Bros. signed up as distributor for the original 1978 Superman movie, it began a partnership with DC resulting in some of the biggest blockbusters of all time, including 1980’s Superman II, 1989’s Batman, and 2008’s The Dark Knight.

1989’s Batman, in particular, remains one of the most successful films in terms of both box office and merchandise sales. This, in turn, led to Batman: The Animated Series, the vanguard of a decades-long run of high-quality animation shows and features from the studio.

Of course, we did have some bumps on the road. And while we can’t blame Warner Bros. for Superman IV, we can blame them for Superman III. (And the less said about George Clooney’s Bat-nipples in 1997’s Batman and Robin, the better.)

But those bumps aside, the WB/DC alliance didn’t really start going off the rails until the release of 2013’s Man of Steel, and the subsequent DC Extended Universe.

Corny though they were, the Christopher Reeve Superman movies were fun and optimistic.

While Zack Snyder’s take on the character was typically grim-dark (which was the style at the time), removing all colour and hope from the beloved character, resulting in a moody, monochrome mess.

Coming a year after the release of Avengers and an ascendant MCU, the executwats did what executwats always do – rip off their competitors without understanding what made them successful.

Thus began the tug-of-war between Snyder’s original darker vision and panicking executwats desperate to emulate Marvel’s bright and quippy tone. 

And rather than taking the time to do it slowly over multiple movies like Marvel did, introducing us to key characters along the way, Warner Bros. skipped the character introductions and frogmarched the audience to its big crossover movie without giving us any reason to care.

So, rather than being DC’s finest hour, 2017’s Justice League was the defining moment when the so-called DC Extended Universe began to unravel.

Warner Bros. is now hoping to fix all that by hiring James Gunn.

But Gunn’s probably not the best guy to be hiring if your main issues are an inconsistent tone and trying to jam too many characters into a short runtime.

And while Gunn is great when it comes to quirky misfits and antiheroes like Guardians of the Galaxy and The Suicide Squad, he’s not the right man to take the reins of a flagship character like Superman.

So, although Superman is meant to be a clean slate, wiping the DCEU clean and starting again, many of the same mistakes are evident.

Watching James Gunn’s Superman reminds me of the Billy Connolly sketch about swimming in the North Sea, “in yeh go yah big Jessie!”

We’re not given time to get to know the characters first, and instead get rushed along from set piece to set piece, when we’re introduced to even more new characters.

And while the world Gunn created is mostly bright and cheery, there’s still plenty of Snyder moodiness brooding beneath the surface, combined with Gunn’s trademark jarring shifts in tone.

I mean, I can take a campy, scenery-chewing Lex Luthor, and I can take a cold, brutal Lex Luthor.

What I can’t take is one that flips back and forth in the space of five seconds while shooting innocent civilians in the head. Is it time for another quippy one-liner, then, Mr Gunn?

Gunn also makes the conscious choice to provide us with a fully-formed DC universe and a ready-made Metropolis, no assembly required.

We skip the origin story completely, no Krypton, no Smallville, no Lois and Clark will they/won’t they? We find out they’re already an item in the opening minutes, and Lois already knows he’s Superman

Oh, sorry, yeah, spoiler alert, Clark Kent is Superman.

Zero time is spent establishing this world, bar a few lines of text at the very beginning of the movie before we get thrown straight into the action.

Caught up with the plot yet? No? Tough shit! Cuz here’s another batch of characters known only to DC Comics nerds.

Within minutes it’s obvious that Gunn’s desparate to appeal to the DC fanboys, meanwhile regular audience members stare at the screen going, “huh?”

The Good

Krypto: The addition of Krypto, the super-powered dog, helped to differentiate James Gunn’s Superman from its predecessors, which is why he featured so prominently in the marketing.

Gunn’s decision to base Krypto on an actual dog he owned was a stroke of genius. We’ve all had that one nutter of a dog with an abundance of energy and limited common sense.

Giving such a dog superpowers is a terrifying prospect. It’s one thing having a dog that won’t stop chasing cars, it’s quite another when the dog can put a huge dent in an Abrams tank.

Except Krypto is also adorable.

There’s a scene when Superman returns home to Smallville feeling dejected and defeated, waking up in his old room with the dog sat on his chest, wagging his tail as he awakens.

If you have any shred of humanity in you at all, you won’t be able to stop yourself from going, “awwww!”

Maybe it’s because I’m a dog person, but Krypto was my favourite thing in the movie, followed close second by…

The Cast: He’s not the best Superman, but I’m confident in saying David Corenswet is the best we’ve had since Christopher Reeve, and in some ways even more relatable.

Similarly, Ma and Pa Kent, rather than representing some idealised vision of the American farmer, are bona fide rednecks, often inarticulate but well meaning, working class people who are moral without being preachy.

Sure, Kevin Costner in Man of Steel had a stoic dignity and gave great speeches, but can you picture him getting up at 5 am to milk the cows?

We also got the best Lois Lane in years. And though I’m bound to Margot Kidder by generational loyalty, Rachel Brosnahan’s portrayal is easily the most comic-accurate.

So while Margot Kidder was a tough cookie, she always wilted in Superman’s arms, while Brosnahan’s character doesn’t allow her love of Superman to get in the way of being a hard-ass journalist.

I like how Gunn handled the Daily Planet crew in general, but specifically the character of Jimmy Olsen, who, despite being every bit as nerdy looking as you might expect, this Jimmy Olsen’s got serious game.

He’s also got a past with Lex Luthor’s girlfriend Eve (aka Miss Tessmachaaaaaaar!), who, again, is given a clever modern twist.

Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor is another perfect casting decision, though I just wish they gave him a better script.

Together these are enough characters for the movie, so I don’t understand why Gunn opted to pad the cast out further with additional (mainly obscure) superheroes.

We later discover that this team of heroes (name pending, but they’re the beta version Justice League essentially) already knows Clark Kent is Superman. I mean that’s a big deal, but it’s just brushed aside with some feeble quips. But then, Clark Kent in this movie is kind of a no-starter here anyway.

Still nice to see jerkass Green Lantern (Nathan Fillion as Guy Gardner) on screen finally.

Cameo: There’s also a cameo from one of my favourite characters from the previous administration. We only see him in a short TV interview montage, but it’s enough.

Obvious in retrospect, but I’m glad he made the jump to these new DC movies.

When you see it, you’ll know.

The Two Johns: Nobody will ever top John Williams’ original Superman score, so why bother even trying? Instead, John Murphy makes the theme his own by giving it a axe-shredding dad rock twist. This revamped theme then becomes the fulcrum upon which the rest of the movie’s score pivots.

The John Williams score is an integral part of my childhood. And I’ve been a fan of Murphy’s work since I first heard his score for Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels back in 1998.

When it comes to tier IP like this, it’s so easy to fall into the trap of pandering to the fans, be that with call-backs to lines from earlier movies, or previous scores from classic composers.

John Murphy’s score strikes that delicate balance between originality and homage. So my brain immediately registered two thoughts: “that’s definitely John Williams’ theme” and “that’s definitely a John Murphy score.” (The latter thought being notably absent from 28 Years Later. Not to worry John, you definitely picked the winner here.)

The Bad

The Script: It’s always the script these days huh? I mean it’s not as bad as some recent entries (/stares coldly at Mission Impossible: Final Reckoning) but still, given that this is meant to be the primary load-bearing pillar of the new DC reboot you’d think they might as well give it a bit more polish.

This is especially true whenever Lex Luthor is on screen. Hoult is great in the role, but he doesn’t have much to work with script-wise.

It’s compounded by the baffling decision to just throw us headfirst into Metropolis with very little setup. So we don’t understand any character motivations. I mean, I know Lex Luthor hates Superman because I’ve seen various other iterations of the character.

But if I’m a newbie who doesn’t know much about the Superman mythos, this movie gives me practically nothing. 

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s Kitchensinkman! Aside from the clunky dialogue and a convoluted script, the other main issue I have with this movie is that it tries to shoehorn in too many ancillary characters when there’s no need to.

One does get the sense that James Gunn doesn’t seem all that interested in telling a Superman story, so much as making a movie that coincidentally happens to have Superman in it.

So, true to form, he stacks it with some of the more obscure DC superheroes, including one even my nerdy ass never heard of.

I mean, don’t get me wrong, Mr Terrific is exactly that, and, though I had to Google him, he steals every scene he’s in.

Similarly, this movie’s Green Lantern incarnation is the most entertaining we’ve seen to date, and, though Hawkgirl doesn’t get much to do by comparison, I certainly wouldn’t kick her out of bed for screeching.

Clearly, Gunn’s setting these up to be the basis of a new Justice League movie, and I’m down.

But he also needs to be mindful of past DC failures. After all, frogmarching the audience towards a Justice League team-up before the groundwork was set is precisely why the last attempt at a DC universe failed in the first place.

Gunn’s taken the wrong lesson from all that, however. Following the whole “release the Snyder cut” fiasco, he’s likely decided that the best course of action is to pander to the nerds.

One can argue it’s an aesthetic choice which emulates the serialised nature of comic books.

As a kid, there’s always that sense of confusion when you pick up a new comic, always midway through the story, though eventually you settle in and pick things up from there.

But trying to do the same thing with a movie doesn’t work. It confuses and potentially frustrates audiences, particularly those who aren’t so well-versed in DC lore and who are – surprise, surprise – expecting a Superman movie to be entirely about Superman.

And speaking of DC lore, let’s talk about the…

Canon Issues: And no, I don’t mean the studio that made Superman 4.

I’m talking about the pre-established narrative, which we all know and accept as part of the Superman story. And although he skips the origin story completely, Gunn nonetheless decides to throw a spanner in the works, which may irk some fans.

Without spoiling it, it’s to do with Supe’s parents. And becomes a major plot element, which didn’t sit well with me. Firstly, because it seemed contrived, but also because this movie has a surprising amount of…

Cynicism: Here’s yet another example of why the new administration is exactly the same as the previous administration.

I mean, I quite liked Henry Cavill as Superman. I just hated the fucking scripts they gave him.

Man of Steel also just happened to come out around the time of the messiest, craziest breakup of my life. I needed a distraction – “I know, Superman will save me…”

…”What the fuck is this miserable moody bullshit?!”

I was hoping Gunn’s take would be a complete 180, but it isn’t.

It has all the same issues as the Snyderverse; a convoluted script trying to pack too much in while introduing too many characters at once, coupled with moments of unbridled cynicism and bitter mistrust aimed at a character whose entire raison d’être is to be a beacon of hope for mankind.

Desaturate the colours 500% and add in 20 minutes of superfluous slo-mo shots, and you basically have Snyder Superman.

But, hey, say what you will about Zack Snyder, at least he never got involved in…

Real World Geopolitics: So this is where the movie started to unravel for me.

For some inexplicable reason, amidst the superheroes, giant monsters and various inter-dimensional McGuffins, James Gunn thought it was a good idea to add a geopolitical crisis into the script.  

Forget kryptonite, Superman’s main weakness has always been real-world conflicts. It’s why he spent the 40s pimping war bonds instead of blasting Hitler with his heat vision.

Exploring this dichotomy is exactly what prompted Alan Moore to write Watchmen – because how can you reconcile a Superman-level hero with real-world problems?

Gunn completely ignores this point and injects a global conflict which essentially boils down to a poorly-disguised mashup of Gaza and Ukraine – dude, what the fuck were you thinking?

We have an unrestrained genocide in Palestine, compounded by famine – all subsidised by the US tax payer. Meanwhile, missiles and attack drones rain down on innocent civilians in Ukraine while our so-called leaders do nothing.

I’m sitting in the cinema, brooding upon this as we watch tanks rolling into the desert and terrified children chanting for Superman to save them. 

Which doesn’t fucking happen in the real world.

Then we get the Superman theme heaped on top and it just feels sadistic, rubbing salt in the wounds.

The sad part is this is precisely the kind of shallow spectacle that out-of-touch Hollywood hyper-egos think is deep and progressive.

Meanwhile a bunch of coke snozzling executwats greenlit it thinking, “our metrics show consumers think war is bad, so this is sure to help our bottom line!”

Good taste never comes into the equation, especially when we’re never more than 15 seconds away from another out-of-place joke because James Gunn is…

Completely Fucking Tone Deaf: James Gunn’s major flaw is his issues with tone. Guardians 3 being a prime example, where he’s torturing animals one minute, heaping on the Marvel sass the next.

Superman is much the same. In one scene, we’re taken completely by surprise as an innocent character gets straight up executed – no, build-up, no warning just BLAM! – but we’re not given time to process it, as seconds later we’re back to the wisecracks and fantastical imagery. Which brings me to my final point.

Pocket Dimensions: The central McGuffin tech on which this entirely new Superman reboot pivots is a weird and confusing plot device that’s even more confusing than the multiverse.

Making it the location of one of the movie’s main central set pieces wouldn’t be so bad except it happens to be the most boring video game-looking garbage in the entire movie.

The Hokey

Superboy: One interesting deviation from past cinematic Supermen is that James Gunn’s incarnation emphasises the super over the man.

Christopher Reeve was an upstanding alpha male who bristled with confidence and compassion, while Cavil masked his awesome powers behind a thin veil of stoicism.

Corenswet is adolescent by comparison, fully in control of his powers but lacking the emotional maturity to deploy them correctly.

He’s less of a square-jawed Man of Steel than he is an awkward dufus, prompting Lex to make a point about the battle of brawn versus brain.

While I loathe the war subplot, it nonetheless gives Superman a much-needed character arc.

Ironically, everything else in the movie is fully formed, except Superman himself.

Which leaves plenty of room for the character to grow in future movies.

We don’t see much of Clark Kent, and so we’re robbed of the same kind of masterful dual performance as Christopher Reeve.

That said, I do love Corenswet’s portrayal of Superman, and he’s certainly up to the Atlas-like task of holding this entire DC reboot on his shoulders. (But please give him better scripts!)

Super Scene

This movie is an odd one, veering from cynical to hokey and back again, but at the centre, Corenswet’s Superman remains consistent.

There’s a brief couple of seconds during an action scene where he takes the time to save a squirrel from getting squished, and it tells you everything you need to know about who the character is, and what he’s going to continue to do in future movies.  

Scriptonite

This movie has many flaws, which I’m mostly willing to ignore. I mean, it’s a summer blockbuster superhero movie, after all, and we’re not here for the script.

That said,  the whole Putinavia attacking the People’s Republic of Palestan subplot is just WAY too close to the bone.

So for once, the bad taste in my mouth I had on leaving the cinema had nothing to do with the so-called butter stuff they poured on my popcorn.

It vexed me so much that I considered giving this movie a two-star review, as it just put a dark shadow over everything.

Then other scenes re-emerged, which I kept replaying over and over in my head, reminding me of the moments I enjoyed.

There are many reasons to like this movie. The cast is perfect, the soundtrack is amazing, and the depth and ambition of the world-building is unprecedented.

All of these efforts have to be applauded ….and the lill’ doggie! Hello lill’ doggie! Awwww who’s a good doggie?!

Sorry, where was I? Ah, yes, I was attempting to articulate the extreme cognitive dissonance I experienced while watching this movie.

I mean, come on, James, use your fucking brain. There’s a reason Sabre got unceremoniously axed from that last Captain America movie.

And while I’m not saying you can’t make socio-political statements in a Superman movie (it’s baked into the character’s DNA), it needs to be done with subtlety and tact.

Two areas where James Gunn is famously weak.

Where he’s strong, though, is in characterisation, humour and spectacle – and Superman delivers on all three.

In many ways, Gunn’s Superman is superior to his predecessors. In others, he repeats many of the same mistakes as the DCEU he was brought in to reboot.

The result is a deeply flawed movie with flashes of brilliance, further uplifted by an incredible cast.

Also Watch…

Superman (1978) / Superman II (1980): I’m lumping both of these together since they were essentially conceived, and for the most part filmed, at the same time.

They also feature cameos from Marlon Brando as Superman’s father, Jor-El and a script by Mario Puzo, best known for writing The Godfather.

1978’s Superman is the gold standard for superhero movies. It was the first of its kind and remains one of the most successful. Christopher Reeve’s nuanced performance as both Superman and his goofier alter ego, Clark Kent, remains the definitive one, against which all other performances are still judged.

Coming a year after Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and a year before Raiders of the Lost Ark, the Superman theme represents the core of John Williams’ perfect streak, composing some of the most iconic movie themes of all time. 

With inferior effects and issues with pacing, direction and the script, 1980’s Superman II is arguably an inferior movie, though you’re in for an intense argument because, for me, it’s my personal favourite.

We get the return of Gene Hackman as Lex Luthor, plus new villains, most notably Terrance Stamp’s unforgettable performance as the evil General “Kneel Before” Zod.

Christopher Reeve would go on to star in two more Superman movies of lesser quality.

1983’s Superman III, despite some interesting moments with Christopher Reeve, featured a script that was so bad it managed to make Richard Prior unfunny.

1987’s Superman IV: The Quest For Peace, meanwhile, was pure garbage, and the reason is clear. The original producers decided to sell the rights, which were promptly snapped up by Cannon Pictures, who, as expected, made the movie on the cheap.

The result is some of the ropiest green screen work and laziest sets ever seen on film. Even Gene Hackman’s return as Lex Luthor couldn’t save this one, making this my one and only exception to the “there’s no such thing as a bad Gene Hackman movie” rule.

Superman Returns (2006): With more cancellations than Reykjavik airport during volcano season, Superman Returns is directed by Bryan Singer and stars Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor. 😬

Even aside from that, this movie gets a bad rap for lots of other reasons, but I consider it a much worthier successor to the Christopher Reeve originals.

Firstly, it does what we all wish we could do, it wipes Superman III and IV from existence and picks up the story after the events of Superman II.

Secondly, as with the decision to cast Christopher Reeve, they made the wise decision to cast a relative unknown in the role. 

Brandon Routh is unlikely to be on anyone’s best Superman list, but I think he does a good job within the strict parameters given.

He has to first convince us that this is the same Superman we know from previous movies, returning to Metropolis after a long, soul-searching journey in space.

Routh channels the best of Reeve’s performances, as both Superman and Clark Kent, while allowing just enough of his own personality to shine through.

I think it works, to the point where I can believe he’s playing the same character as before, though audience reactions were tepid.

The other issue is that, beyond one fantastic set piece, the stakes of this movie never felt high enough to elicit anything more than a disinterested shrug the first time I watched it.

I’ve since rewatched it a few times more and now consider it one of the best Superman movies to date. You just need to shunt aside the cancelled celebrities and enjoy the movie for what it is.

Superman: The Animated Series (1996-2000):  While the first two Christopher Reeve Superman movies will always have a place in my heart, this, to me, is the definitive on-screen depiction of Superman.

The broad physique, the square jaw and equally square worldview, that’s upstanding, uncompromising and incorruptible.

This Superman has the most alpha swagger, but coupled with compassion and conviction.

Warner Bros. didn’t skimp on the production budget either, and it shows. The animation is modelled on the old Fleischer cartoons and, like its predecessor, Batman: The Animated Series, has a timeless, art-deco aesthetic.

And speaking of Batman: The Animated Series, well before Batman V Superman or the DCEU, we were treated to the original DC crossover event, the season two, three-part episode World’s Finest. (The whole thing clocked in at around an hour, making it feel like a mini movie.)

It featured Kevin Conroy as Batman and the great Mark Hamill voicing The Joker, story goes as follows:

Desperate for money, the Joker approaches Lex Luthor, hand outstretched, with a plan to destroy Superman, but is unaware that Batman is already hot on the trail.

Shortly after arriving in Metropolis, Bruce Wayne starts a relationship with Lois Lane, much to Clark Kent’s annoyance.

Inevitably, Batman and Superman cross paths and become aware of each other’s identities. This sets up tension between the pair but eventually they put their differences aside and team up to stop The Joker, developing a mutual respect in the process.

A Few More Thoughts…

1978’s Superman scared me shitless the first time I watched it.

I didn’t know what an earthquake was until I watched Superman, and I vividly recall watching in horror as the ground shook, boulders tumbled, and dams erupted.

My grandmother wasn’t providing much consolation, “Ah, that’s only cardboard!”

The scene of the kids on the bridge really affected me too, though not as much as watching Lois Lane getting buried alive in her car… Nightmare fuel!

What happened next bamboozled us both, though, “he’s turning back time, I think”, my grandmother explained.

I thought maybe once I’m older, that bit would make sense – but it never did.

Still, it left me with an overwhelming sense that Superman was the most awesome force the world had ever known. And I was glad he was one of the good guys.

A couple of years makes all the difference. And by the time I saw Superman II, I was already rooting for the villains.

I was too busy shitting myself about earthquakes to take note of Gene Hackman the first time around, but I quickly became a fan. I also imagined what I’d do in school if I had powers like Zod.

Superman I and II were filmed back-to-back, which means technically speaking, they’re not much older than I am. In my mind, they’re the childhood friends that I grew up with, who I still take the time to hang with whenever they come on TV.

Aside from my enduring love of those first two movies, I’m just about old enough to have vague, fuzzy memories of the old George Reeves series and more vivid memories of the Fleischer cartoons from the 40s, which were still shown sporadically well into the 1980s because our country was broke and our national broadcaster was cheap.

But aside from the obligatory teenage crush on Teri Hatcher, from my teens on, I’ve always been more of a Batman guy.

I mean, sure, I loved Superman as a kid, but as I grew older and more discerning, my view shifted, and I started thinking he was, well, a bit of a twat.

I mean, come on, “truth, justice and the American way”

/Looks across the Atlantic and winces. 😬

But then, Superman has always been less about what America is, and more about what it represented at a key moment in its history.  

That’s why Superman is the ultimate immigrant story. The brainchild of two Jewish kids,  Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, using what was a much-maligned medium at the time – comic books – to create a cultural colossus.

And with that, an entire genre was born, the very first superhero, an all-American Hercules, arriving at exactly the right time, between the Depression and the outbreak of WW2.

The original incarnation of Superman didn’t fight supervillains and intergalactic threats. He kept his red boots on the ground.

It’s easy to forget now, but initially, Superman was a champion of the little guy, not a symbol of American power but rather a friend of the working man, battling crooks, corrupt officials and dodgy slum barons, while also taking on racism and bigotry.

Y’know, the kind of hero we need today.