Superman

Superman has a long history. His first appearance was in Action Comics #1, 87 years ago. He's arguably the first superhero, though it's easy to get into complicated origins between things like Campbellian Monomyth, works like Philip Wylie's Gladiator, and costumed heroes like The Shadow and The Phantom.

That's even before we have arguments about popularisation and pop-cultural impact, figures like Hercules and Achilles are still making it to screens millennia later but they've not got a John Williams' theme that still stirs. Though if one does the arithmetic, Richard Donner's iteration has been around for more than half of the character's span. Thanks to accessibility, Christopher Reeve is probably still the actor most associated with the role, though Kirk Alyn was in the suit 30 years before him.

In what we'll label as James Gunn's Superman the last son of Krypton, Kal-El, Jimmy Olsen's pal, Louis Lane's Lover, Daily Planet Reporter Clark Kent is (or are?) played by David Corenswet. He's not new to the industry but like any number of daredevil debutantes there's a risk of being a flash in the pan or otherwise stuck.

That label of James Gunn's isn't just a critical shorthand, this is presented as 'a James Gunn film', ties into Gunn's other DC media, including TV shows Peacemaker and the adult animated series Creature Commandos. Those both tie back into The Suicide Squad and there's dozens of references to this and other continuities scattered throughout the film. Those verge from the subtle like a sign for Waid Street to the plot elements cloned wholesale from previous Superman films.

It's not an easy challenge to give folk something new that's the same, different but familiar, and in its acts of replication what Superman most resembles is Gunn's other output. If you enjoyed Guardians Of The Galaxy there's a strong chance that you'll enjoy this.

Which is sort of why I didn't.

The bits for me where I felt this film really soared were some of the more sedate. A conversation between Clark and Rachel Brosnahan's Lois Lane. It was a small two-hander about power and relationships and power within relationships and relationships with power. It grabbed me for the same reason as the bit in Hulk where two men have a father-son fight before a punch-up in a thunderstorm. It felt like something fresh and earnest and honest.

It didn't last. We've had variants with different starting points before, there are characters who've had their origin stories told so often that they can become a joke in later outings but there are changes made here that I won't spoil but left me feeling there was something rotten in whatever state Metropolis is in. It might be near Delaware, though I spent too long trying to determine if the license plate that suggested that was a reference to anything other than accidentally. A hexadecimal colour somewhere between yellow and green might mean something to folk who know their Alan Scott from their Oa. The number in it might be a reference to a Superman comic from the 1990s which features drunk driving (but not Red Kryptonite).

It might also be nothing. The geography might be suspect, it's not helped by a system of magic doors that allow folk to talk a shortcut through Minecraft. There's a geopolitical struggle that appears to be taking place at the border between the Carpathians and the Sahyadri. There's some iffy gender politics that intersects with unkindnesses about those who post online and folk who don't live on the moment because everything they do is mediated by a screen.

That comes from Gunn, who writes, directs. Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster might have originated the character but Superman has at least four parents and those who've influenced him from either side of the drawing board number in the hundreds. This isn't as dour as Snyder's Man Of Steel and it's definitely remembered that Superman is a four-colour hero not one to be rendered in hues of desaturated grey. There's still some measure of grittiness, but rather than reject the silliness of the genre we instead get attempts to bring us in on the joke. That winking cynicism is something Reeve's Superman didn't have, but that might be part of my problem.

This is not my first Superman. I don't think it's my tenth, my twentieth. I've read that Philip Wylie novel, I can point to the window on Glasgow's Hope Street where Frank Quitely had his studio, I can like Doctor Manhattan reel off the times that I have watched history repeat itself with another darker, more adult take on a medium that's been "not just for kids" since at least 1976. This is not my first James Gunn either, and I'm not sure auteur theory is resilient enough to deal with this many oars. Like another figure of myth, the Ship of Theseus, I'm not sure how many parts of Superman you can replace and still have him be the same.

The demands of continuity are such that we've not just got Superman but a whole Justice gang, super-friends like Edi Gathegi's Mr Terrific and Isabela Merced's Hawkgirl and Nathan Fillion's Guy Gardner. As one of several super-foes Nicholas Hoult chews scenery admirably as Lex Luthor, but I'm not sure anyone could make hay from scenes that amount to shouting bus routes at technicians. His villainy is almost pointedly stereotypical, and if I'm really generous there's maybe something in his motivations being reducible to blood and soil.

It does entertain, it's got moments of humour and habits of Gunn's and at some point there will be long lists of any reference and cross-connection that will be as captivating as any bibliography. Brosnahan and Corenswet have chemistry but there's so much going on around them that it's often damped out. There's a slew of familiar faces and even more familiar voices. The sense of having seen so much of this before makes it really hard to judge as an independent entity and try as I might a Superman who can lift tall buildings and leap speeding locomotives struggles with the weight of my expectations. Others will bring different burdens though and in as much as films of this type can disbelief is suspended with copious special effects and the odd bit of lampshading. That includes the significant presence of Krypto (the Wonder Dog)

Although it's got Gunn's name it does have a bit of a feel of the committee, a succession of key performance indicators to establish or strengthen other parts of the DCU. From throwaway noises about The Mighty Crabjoys to casting Alan Tudyk against type as a wise-cracking lanky robot there's so much that borrows from other places that Superman doesn't feel indebted as much as hollowed out.

Except when it doesn't, which is why I'm still in two minds. I'd argue that the actors who play Batman are better suited to be either the millionaire playboy or the caped vigilante. I'm not sure anyone other than Adam West has been able to embody them simultaneously, though several have done so with some success sequentially. I'm similarly not sure that anyone who plays Superman has managed that divide, except perhaps Christopher Reeve. In that character comparison feel slightly strange considering Dean Cain and Val Kilmer at the same time. Corenswet's is the face on the poster, the chest carrying that symbol, but James Gunn is only not alone in pulling the strings because of John Wiliams' cadre of violinists. That, I think, perhaps more than character or cast, is going to be what determines one's reaction. Which is perhaps a shame, because Superman should be for everyone, not framed by one perspective. Which is, admittedly, my view.

Reviewed on: 10 Jul 2025