Review of Superman
Superman (2025) Dir. James Gunn
I can remember it vividly, the excitement, the spectacle and the long drive home afterwards. Needless to say, the last son of Krypton’s previous titular outing, Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), with its convoluted exposition and overall drabness isn’t a film I hold in high regard against its peers. This fandom discourse around the legacy of Snyder’s Superman, as anyone unfortunate enough to browse the internet knows, has arguably shaped the public perception for Gunn’s reboot just as much as the actual director’s own style.
With this schism over how the character should be represented the question arises; what makes Superman, well Superman?
That’s arguably the thematic crux of Gunn’s first instalment to the new DC Universe. Refreshingly, Superman (2025) is neither a typical retreading of the hero’s origin story nor another superhero movie requiring audiences to have done extensive homework. Set a few years after Daily Planet journalist Clark Kent has donned the iconic red and blue suit, the film follows Superman’s exploration of his identity and responsibilities after his interference in a foreign conflict attracts the ire of billionaire Lex Luthor.
While Gunn as writer/director makes sense on paper given his co-CEO status at DC studios, for those familiar with Gunn’s filmography a character like Superman seems as far removed from the typical Gunn protagonist you can get. From Super (2010) to the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy (2014 – 2023) and The Suicide Squad (2021), audiences have grown to associate the name James Gunn with ragtag anti-heroes often from Marvel and DC’s C-lists who take glee in violence, hedonism and general wrongdoing but remain humanised oftentimes as characters not beyond redemption.
Their juvenile behaviour and criminal choices stem from tragic backstories and coping mechanisms in worlds that deem them as undesirable. Someone like Rocket Racoon while technically a superhero is about as far from the gold standard of heroism in mainstream superhero movies you can get. Gunn himself in interviews has even acknowledged this major difference, initially declining a directorial offer and calling Superman “his first superhero movie”.
Yet for many including myself, it’s the characterisation of Superman and the questioning of his identity in the modern age that is the film’s greatest strength. Shifting away from the Snyder-Gunn binary plaguing Superman discussion, the character has naturally been reinterpreted and evolved numerous times over his almost eighty years of publication. Some writers interpret the character with a theological twist, positing the Man of Steel as allegories for figures like Moses and Jesus, some treat the character like a power fantasy for audiences while the character has also been subject of parody, pastiche and pop culture nomenclature (for a while there my brain could only link him to Seinfeld).
Chief of all these characterisations in the modern media can be seen directly through video games like the Injustice series and indirectly through non-DC antagonists on the silver screen like Homelander and Omni-Man; the question of what if Superman was evil. Perhaps it is symptomatic of our irony-drenched media landscape, but it has felt like for the last decade no one has been interested in an overtly earnest and heroic Superman and thus the character suffered a crisis of identity.
What is so excellent about Gunn’s vision of the character is this subtext within the screenplay that avoids becoming obnoxiously self-referential while grounding Superman within an emotionally identifiable modern context. Nostalgic nods to past movies and comics are still as present as ever but there are no intellectually insulting winks and cameos like in The Flash (2023), instead Gunn with a fantastic performance from David Corenswet argues Superman is best understood not as some abstract idea of physical power but rather as an innate emotional strength in humans to in the simplest terms treat each other with dignity and uphold virtues of tolerance, kindness and bravery.
Gunn has made many remarks about Superman being an immigrant story, adding a far greater emotional and political gravitas to these themes in a genre criticised for increasingly being devoid of purpose and earnestness. Although the film may not be the deepest exploration of such experiences in the contemporary climate it still highlights the significance of at least addressing ongoing real-world issues and potential solutions in a Hollywood era characterised by a distinct lack of courage.
Beyond an excellent Superman, the entire cast deserve praise with Nicholas Hoult and Rachel Brosnahan bringing considerable improvements to Lex Luthor and Lois Lane from the characters’ 2010s iterations. Compliments must go to Hoult who is able to imbue such sheer hatred and ego into Lex that he is the perfect thematic opposition in a film that champions compassion in dark times, particularly with the social commentary. Beyond the Superman regulars, newcomers to the cinematic space Mister Terrific, Guy Gardner, Hawkgirl and Metamorpho all provide an organic blueprint for future DC Universe projects without hindering Gunn’s messaging. While audiences will all gravitate to a select favourite, I must confess Fillion’s Gardner has me eager for his future.
Yet Superman does suffer in a few departments. Its script while praiseworthy for subtext is a considerable stepdown in the comedic department garnering only occasional smirks for its two- and half-hour runtime, when Gunn has ridden the line between jokes and sincerity so effectively in the past. The films closing action set-pieces also felt far more artificial than the emotional highs the film had built up; the cluttered CG fights feel rather unsatisfactory yielding a singular memorable monologue amidst a climax that feels copy and pasted from any other superhero film in recent memory.
Regardless, Superman has made me optimistic for the DC Universe. With the superhero fatigue debate seemingly having no end in sight, for those hoping for at least some greater creative diversity in such a commercialised subgenre it’ll be worth following DC’s future.
★★★½
3.5 / 5
Will Knowles
X @WillKWriter
