Two or Three Things I Know About "Superman" (2025)
Greetings, friends. I’m sorry for the delay in my sending out a new newsletter. I’ve been waiting for the clouds to lift on a couple of book projects, some of which are further along than others. Most of my time has otherwise been taken up with weekly reviews for Roger Ebert dot com and then audio commentary or liner notes essays for companies like Vinegar Syndrome and Kino Lorber Studio Classics. I just got my contributors’ copy of Mac and Me, now available on 4K UHD blu-ray, so there’s that.
Before I talk about the new Superman movie, I wanted to note that this is the first post that I’ve shared with free subscribers in a minute. I have nothing against you freeloaders and am coincidentally uncomfortable asking (most of) you to sign up for a paid subscription. That said, Jene and I just got hit with an unexpected vet bill and are dreading more. We’re talking about doing a Gofundme when the time comes though, so hopefully I won’t feel so weird about sharing that link. In the meantime, there are free perks if you do sign up for a paid subscription to this newsletter, specifically a free (including shipping) blu-ray, DVD, VHS, or movie book from my collection. You could do a lot worse, is all.
For now, here’s some of what you’ve missed since last time:
-Some new reviews at Roger Ebert dot com, including praise for the French action stunt showcase Last Bullet (aka: Lost Bullet 3), on Netflix; Chinese arthouse fave Jia Zhangke’s latest gem, Caught By the Tides; and an exceptionally good Shudder horror drama, The Surrender.
-Some new blu-ray supplements, like the audio commentary that I moderated with I Can See You director Graham Reznick and producer Peter Phok; and the booklet essays I completed for stuff like the lo-fi hypnodrone robot war pic Automatons; the Wesley Snipes skydiving vehicle Drop Zone; and the magical/traumatizing E.T. trend-chaser Mac and Me.
-Some odds and ends, such as a short word on Matthew Rankin’s surreal, Iran-meets-Canada comedy Universal Language; a few updates to my regularly updated Favorite Movies of 2025 list; and a new playlist of favorite new music, too.
I’ll likely do another lightning round catchup soon, since there’s been a few recent movies that I’ve admired and would love to recommend. But beyond that, I think it’s time to talk about Superman.
In an establishing scene, Superman writer/director James Gunn shows us something that I think a lot of people might not have expected: a fight scene where Superman (David Corenswet) loses…badly. This is Superman’s second round with this particular opponent, too, which suggests that Superman’s vulnerable, but also never accepts defeat. That last quality also shows up in dialogue between Corenswet’s Clark Kent and Rachael Brosnahan’s Lois Lane, particularly in a domestic scene that strongly recalls the two Richard Donner-helmed Super-movies. Corenswet’s Clark can be mulishly stubborn because, at heart, he knows he’s right. Gunn gets that shaking Superman’s confidence is the key to a good Superman story. He can also afford to challenge the dumb, but still mostly prevalent received wisdom that says that Superman is less modern than Batman becuase he’s too powerful and also too one-note of a character.
So on the one hand, I am sincerely glad to see a popular and influential superhero filmmaker wave away two core misconceptions about the comics industry’s hood ornament, as Tom Crippen once called Superman in The Comics Journal. On the other hand, boy, does it suck to think about how exceptional this kind of cogent, assured presentation of the character—or any superhero—is today.
I honestly can’t think of a comic book movie or series that’s done anything exciting with Superman since, uh, Superman: The Animated Series, a show that, to this day, remains underrated, especially when contrasted with the formative Batman: The Animated Series (even Bruce Timm used BTAS to criticize his and Alan Burnett’s Super-show, which he talks about in his Modern Masters interview). Gunn’s used his influence to make a Superman movie that’s simultaneously as cluttered as a Brett Ratner extravaganza and as focused and straight-down-the-line compelling as Gunn’s last few super-movies. I wish I liked Gunn’s Superman movie more, even if I still admire it for everything it gets right.
I had some quibbles about Superman and his supporting cast’s actions—Why is a “dimensional imp” in a scene where he’s not fighting Superman? Mxyzptlk exists to torment Superman!—but I also know how I sound. I’m much more relieved that Gunn avoided several of the usual stumbling blocks with Superman, including the urge to make the character more like Batman, not to mention the compulsive need to show us another version of the death of Krypton. Nobody needs another origin story; we know who Superman is, you can start from there. Flamboyant and warm-hearted, this Superman also has a clear sense of who the character is and how to present him without getting tangled up in a lot of hand-holding or throat-clearing. That’s good!
Then again, I kept thinking, after I saw the movie this past Friday: That’s probably as good as it’s going to get these days, right? The industrial conditions needed to make more daring American superhero movies don’t exist and likely won’t exist without some unforeseeable quirks of fate. None of this should be surprising either since it’s been established that Disney/Marvel movies don’t often rise above a certain industrial standard of quality or homogenized style since most of them are directed by creative committees. I’m also convinced that the main reason why James Gunn replaced Zack Snyder as DC’s figurehead filmmaker is because of good timing, since James Gunn didn’t exactly plan to leave Marvel when he did. He’s exactly their kind of brand-friendly nerd, too, a creative who takes notes and can still somehow tell a story on a blockbuster scale with more personality than most. They’re happy and we’re happy enough.
Gunn’s following up Snyder is also a perfect example of how, lucky timing aside, every new super-trend feels like a reaction to the last one. Superman feels like a gentle but firm rebuke to Snyder’s Man of Steel since Gunn and the gang mostly refused to use the sort of grimdark melodramatic shorthand that has come to define the Batman-led DC Universe.
Lots of little choices, from the casting of plain-looking folks as Ma and Pa Kent (Neva Howell and Pruitt Taylor Vince) to the keener focus on the Daily PLanet’s bullpen, suggest that Gunn’s bunch set out to establish what is and isn’t out of bounds for this character. That’s a task that a lot of talented comics writers have sturggled with over the decades. Only in this case it feels like Superman was made to reclaim the character after years and years of corrosively cynical descendents of the character.
The Garth Ennis- and Mark Millar-hastened trend of reimagining Superman as a power-mad psychopath had already been a dark fantasy of many a frustrated comic book writer. Some of you just rewatched Kill Bill after Tarantino showed his full “The Whole Bloody Affair” cut this weekend in LA. I can’t stand that movie’s Superman speech, though David Carradine’s delivery is terrific. I also can’t claim that that scene’s snarky take exemplifies a recent trend. Anyway, of course Superman makes a lot more sense to adolescent minds when you re-cast him as an aloof fascist. That’s why they’re adolescents, because they’re stupid!
Snyder’s Man of Steel founds its tone by using the destruction of Krypton and then the death of Pa Kent (Kevin Costner) to hastily contrive steps for, uh, a big brawl in Metropolis which ultimately leads to a dopey recasting of Superman as another misunderstood, brooding Christ figure. Fun. They already tried that in Superman Returns, only in a better movie that also kept the plot and characters more in tune with a post-Donner lightness. Snyder clearly had Frank Miller on his mind. Snyder also seems to think that Superman must be tortured, much like how Batman must be anguished, to be sensible or even great. What a dumb false start. Testing Superman’s humanity isn’t a new or a bad premise for a good Superman story, but you also have to acknowledge what everybody seems to know about Superman: his lightness is his most salient feature. He wears red underwear and boots on top of a blue leotard—Superman’s not exactly black tee-shirt material, you know?
I think Gunn’s Superman pulls off as much as it does because he’s a more talented and empowered studio guy than Snyder likely could have been. He has a formula-friendly and instantly recognizable style and a knack for realizing it on a big budget. Superman also feels like a typical Gunn super-movie in that he’s clearly better than most at letting the cart lead the horse. His movie advertises his joy at being able to make a toy commercial featuring a range of fun misfit side characters, including Metamorpho (Anthony Carrigan), Krypto (Ozu the dog), Guy Gardner (Nathan Fillion), and even Mr. Terrific (Edi Gathegi).
Gunn’s pleasure at raiding the DC toy chest may be infectious, but I still wonder if any of these characters’ creators (or developers!) can afford healthcare with whatever discretionary funds they get for their brand-building contributions. I mean, yes, it’s great that Jimmy (Skyler Gisando) and Lois and Perry (Wendell Pierce) all seem true to the spirit of more traditional versions of their characters. But that Metamorpho looked a lot like Matthew Clark’s version of the character, and that Guy Gardner’s makeup and hair combo are a distracting Kevin Maguire trace job, and man, nothing in the Jimmy Olsen sub-plot is half as fun as the Nick Spencer-penned backstories that they’re clearly inspired by.
I guess I’m not that invested in superhero movies that were clearly made by a guy who learned the ropes by making Troma movies, but then only has a split second for a Lloyd Kaufman cameo. I love the dog and I like a lot of the character-driven dialogue exchanges, but I still don’t think Gunn’s got much of a vision, let alone enough style to overcome the parameters of his assignment. His superhero movies are thoughtful and appreciably quirky, but I rarely think hard about them after I’ve seen them. Superman’s fine, but is that good enough?