'Superman' Review: DC Studios Reboot Is Funny, Rushed, and Deeply Weird
There's a lot to like about Superman. Krypto the Superdog is hilarious. Nathan Fillion's take on the Green Lantern, known as Guy Gardner, is a great recreation of the character from the '80s and '90s comics. Rachel Brosnahan's Lois Lane is dazzling, Edi Gathegi's tech genius, Mister Terrific, steals the show at times, as does Skyler Gisondo's Jimmy Olsen as he navigates a very funny relationship with Lex Luthor's selfie-obsessed girlfriend, Eve Teschmacher (Sara Sampaio).Superman, sadly, though, is not greater than the sum of its parts, even though many of its parts are pretty great. For any rational person, a lot of the choices that director James Gunn makes are not only super annoying, but in some cases, downright bad. (Why are so many eyeballs being attacked in this movie? Did I need to see Superman throwing up weird nanobots?)
Again, if this were the beginning of a fun, new, very high-profile Superman TV series, you could overlook some of many of these flaws, but the truth is, as a movie that is supposedly launching a new film franchise, the new Superman is messy as hell. It's a fun movie. Mostly. But it also feels paradoxically slow and too short simultaneously.
Without revealing any major spoilers, Superman doesn't bother to retell the origin story of the Man of Steel. Instead, we're quickly dropped into a world in which super-human people — called "Metahumans" — have existed for a while, and that's just that. Because this is a James Gunn film, the man who gave us Guardians of the Galaxy, the subtext of Superman is a been-there-done-that jokey vibe that sometimes feels closer to the snarkiness of the more recent Thor movies than any previous Superman film. Gunn's Superman film is full of people who seem to be yelling or freaking out constantly, and when that's not happening, Superman is getting his ass kicked.
For those who were sick of the dour Zack Snyder take on the Man of Steel, the new Superman is certainly a welcome breath of fresh air, at least in terms of tone. In a sense, the new Superman feels like what would have happened if the 2022 film The Batman had decided to act like a remake of the 1960s goofy Batman, rather than a dark and brooding take. The new Superman is certainly the opposite of whatever was going on with the DC movies of the twenty teens, but that doesn't automatically make it better. Instead, it's simply different.The number one thing that is so different about this Superman is that, although the movie claims to be about him, it only achieves that goal by making the single most important thing in the movie be focused on Superman losing faith in his own purpose. Yes, Gunn has altered a major tenet of the mythos of DC comics, and instead of reminding us that Superman's birth parents were kind, misunderstood alien scientists who saved their only son from their planet's destruction, Gunn decides instead to paint those characters as creepy weirdoes who want their son to take over Earth and breed more Kryptonians.
This one narrative decision represents the strange tonal collision of Superman. At times, the movie wants you to think deeply about the nature of the character and how the world would really react if a space alien were randomly stopping wars. It's also trying to make you think about the nature/nurture question; is Superman good because his adoptive parents, Ma and Pa Kent (Neva Howell and Pruitt Taylor Vince), are good people? Or is there just something inherently good about him?
Mostly, the movie comes down hard on the classic morality lesson: your choices define you. Therefore, Superman is super because he wants to be, which is a nice sentiment, if a little on-the-nose, and slightly unearned by what we actually see.
Again, the cast is nearly perfect, and all the performances in the film are on the mark, but the story often feels like it's just getting ready. As many are aware, Superman will be the first of many new DC Studio films, and yes, there's some corporate movie synergy with this film, including the appearance of another very famous DC hero who is getting her own movie next year. But, to call this the greatest superhero film since Iron Man or The Dark Knight would be a lie. It has heart, but it lacks cohesion. And, in making Superman's birth parents evil, the film loses some of the character's mythological weightiness, and instead, is more or less a weird sci-fi action movie.
This Superman reboot will make you believe a man can fly, and also escape a black hole, and also deal with a pocket dimension, and use low-key telepathy to make everyone think he's Clark Kent. What it doesn't make you believe is that it's a serious movie. I can't wait for the next episode of this big-budget TV show. Too bad it's not coming anytime soon.'Superman' Review: DC Studios Reboot Is Funny, Rushed, and Deeply Weird first appeared on Men's Journal on Jul 9, 2025
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