Superman
How is it that DC seems to have to go through a cinematic reboot every decade or two, and Marvel has managed a degree of consistency in storytelling for almost two decades? The obvious answer is, well, Marvel wasn’t always that way, and they have an overarching long game they’re building to every few years, but I think it’s not quite that simple. When DC has had concerted efforts to make its characters screen icons, the personalities involved have made them events hard to build into a cohesive universe. Mario Puzo, Marlon Brando and Gene Hackman. Tim Burton and Joel Schumacher. Bryan Singer. Christopher Nolan and Zack Snyder. And that’s just the ones whose films got made. Now, James Gunn- after the three “Guardians of the Galaxy” movies and his DC introduction with 2021’s “The Suicide Squad”- is looking to create a cohesive DC universe.
One of the things I immediately appreciate about Gunn’s approach to DC is that it is rooted firmly in comic book aesthetics. While yes, individual themes and stories might have weightier arcs, these characters should be fun and exciting to watch. Also, we know Superman and Batman’s origins by now, so let’s not, ok? (I’m glad that Gunn agrees with that.) “Superman” begins with text setting the stage for how Kal El and his kind arrived on Earth, and gives us an immediate update. Three minutes before the scene we’re watching now, Superman (David Corenswet) has lost his first fight since revealing himself to Earth three years ago. Next thing we know, he’s hitting the snow, and having Krypto take him to the Fortress of Solitude. How could a metahuman lose? Things do not look as they seem.
I’m going to be completely honest- it’s impossible for me to watch any megalomaniacal billionaire villain character nowadays and not think of Elon Musk. Starting with “Glass Onion” and continuing through Nicholas Hoult’s performance as Lex Luthor here, the South African billionaire feels like a fairly obvious template for this type of character. As with Clark Kent, Lex has been pulled in several different ways over the years, and Hoult’s is one of a grandiose, egotistical narcissist who also happens to be a bold technical genius. The narcissism is what we gravitate towards first, especially in his earliest “interaction” with Superman involving the loss mentioned earlier. Here, his scheme is not real estate- well, not completely- but petty jealousy of the Son of Krypton. When you see how far that jealousy goes, it’s obvious that Gunn is acutely aware of his targets both big- and small- here, and he gets how to get under their skin.
There are plenty of things with which to ding Snyder’s approach to Superman, but I did not dislike the way he looked at Superman as a dangerous threat that humanity had to game out whether they were good or evil; it had a very “Day the Earth Stood Still” vibe I liked. But on the big screen, the hope and optimism for bringing out the best of humanity Superman represents has been missing since Christopher Reeve- even in the awful third and fourth films of his run as the character- and Gunn has leaned into that hard. It’s not just with the addition of Krypto the dog, but Superman’s whole ethos of just wanting to save everyone he can. Take, for example, the interview scene between Superman/Clark with Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan) from the trailers. It happens early in the movie, and by the time it happens, we have plenty of context for the nature of Clark and Lois’s relationship. Even in the trailer, we feel the sincerity of Superman’s desire to help however it looks in the politics of the movie. Corenswet brings a down-to-Earth approach to both Clark and Superman we haven’t seen on the big screen since Reeve (all due respect to Brandon Routh, who was good but let down by a derivative screenplay). At the heart of his Kal El is a message his parents sent him to Earth with; he’s only ever seen half of it (the rest was destroyed when he landed on Earth), but it pointed the way forward. There comes a point where we see what might be the entirety of the message, and it changes his outlook on his purpose, but- as Pa Kent (Pruitt Taylor Vince) tells him- he’s the one who defines the type of person he is, not his parents. Emotional beats like this work in Gunn’s screenplay because he knows how to get his actors to sell them.
There is so much more to say about this film. All of the casting choices and performances work. I love the trio of Guy Gardne (Nathan Fillion), Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced) and Mr. Terrific (Edi Gathegi), and what they bring to this first chapter of the new DCU. The plot is very comic book-esque, but also grounded in real-world geopolitical issues that we’ll recognize. The trio of Clark, Lois (who feels like a real character we can believe as a great reporter and love interest for the first time since Margot Kidder) and Jimmy Olsen (Skyler Gisondo) feels like a cohesive set of characters. This film has a beautiful visual style that can get dark but also feels bright. And the choice of Gunn and composer John Murphy to bring back John Williams’s iconic theme works, and Murphy also brings his own spin to it. And Krypto just steals the show, straight up. When all is said and done, I think audience’s will connect to Gunn’s “Superman” the same way they did to “Star Wars” and Sam Raimi’s “Spider-Man,” not just because it’s a terrific piece of escapism, but because its values of characters trying to bring hope and good to their world feels like what our world needs right now.
Great analysis!