7.15.25 - Superman Movie Review
//I wrote almost all of this on July 13 but I uploaded on August 5th//
I haven't written on here in a while because life got crazy with my summer gig and quite difficult for some personal reasons. But I genuinely have a vault of things I'm going to write about, or have written about, that I expect will flood out in a couple of weeks when this program ends and I have some time to think. Relative to last summer, this summer has not been that fun, and I have a lot of thoughts on Big Law and what life is all about. Maybe I'll write about that.
But anyways, I escaped New York to see some boys back in D.C. and see the Superman movie this weekend. Much needed reprieve from the yuppie Death Star which is Manhattan. I still love New York more than anything. But being back in D.C. was a breath of fresh air and I realized how I failed to appreciate it when I was there. So clean, so open, so quaint, so comfortable. I went to the AMC in Georgetown and saw the waterfront where you can stare out at the Potomac. Heart achingly beautiful. D.C. still feels like a city that still is built on top of the natural world around it. Lots of greenery, a whole lot of trees, big expanses of grass. Almost a suburban quality. New York feels like we had to carve out little spaces to preserve the natural world. Both have their charm.
But I digress. This post is about Superman. Which I will begin below.
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This movie was great. It's a movie that I would love when I was 7. And I feel that a seven year old will look back on this movie fondly when he's 27, and will draw more lessons from it, and will see a time capsule of the world and its conflicts as they existed during their childhood. Which is my metric for a good superhero movie, in many ways.
The World of Superman
I don't know where to start, but let's start here: the world in this movie is CHAOTIC. Very much like the world of the Godzilla movies I grew up on. Giant monster/hero battles seem to be relatively banal occurences. The fights are epic in scale but also quite pedestrian--as evidenced by the residents of this fictional world. The citizens of Metropolis hang around big fights, don't get away in time, hold their smartphones out, gawk and jeer. The effect is an undeniable camp quality which is a bit silly and also gives the movie its charm. Nothing is taken too seriously.
But the chaos goes further than that. The whole world set up is just insane. Mega corporations sponsor superhero groups who give them shoutouts in front of the press. Luthorcorp is in bed with foreign governments, the U.S. intelligence community, runs an extra-dimensional prison, conducts mass surveillance. Big countries take over small countries--Superman intervenes these foreign wars. The U.S. government is depicted as pretty happless. Social media is filled with disinformation campaigns and the news cycle and its effect on the population is a constant plot driver in the film--big screens in the city and mass smartphone notifications spark huge, violent swings in public opinion regarding the leading characters a few times in the film.
In short, the movie feels realllly 2020s. Just chaotic, disorderd, unpredictable, fast. All of that and its all not taken too seriously and you don't really have a moment to asorn any of the individual crazy elements. Lex Luthor will randomly say oh yeah I have an army of monkeys that disseminates bullshit on social media and you just say "oh yeah sure" and then you learn that the supervillain is a clone of superman that's working with the villainous seeming standin for Israel President and you're like "sure alright." All through it we have influencers taking selfies.
Even banal points like Jimmy Olson--whose actor is great but rather ordinary looking--being a huge ladies man just has to be accepted for the audience to move on. Like how we just accept that Pete Davidson is like a sex icon.
Again, its all very funny, its all a LOT, its borderline schizophrenic. But its EFFECTIVE. Its effective because its sort of a hyperreal representation of our world. Yeah, its campy, it has a fantasy quality--but in a way its emotionally very grounded in how it represents our world.
In this way its like the Sam Raimi Spider-Man movies. Those movies are extraordinarily campy in a lot of ways, but something about its naivety, romance, and rhythms definitely feels like the world I grew up in as a child. I do think Superman is like that. It unmistakeably captures a national mood. I think this is how someone who is 7 right now would remember the world feeling like. WHen their parents turned on the news they just saw chaos, felt this pervasive feeling of chaos, but also people were joking around and making Tik Toks and having a good time.
So that's a lot to say that on atmosphere and world-building, I think Superman is incredibly effective.
The People of Superman
On a separate, but related point, the people who inhabit the world in Superman are sympathetic, funny, and enjoyable to watch. The background characters have this quality that I can describe as like, the background characters of Spongebob, in that they're kind of this dumb mass, usually presented in the form of a mob, and they all have this sort of mouth-breather quality to them. Superman's kryptonian parents (more on that later) were right to dub them "simple." They just respond to things, they just stand around. They're not like the background New Yorkers of Sam Raimi's Spider-Man, which felt a lot more earnest, textured, and real--those extras had this feeling of agency. But to be fair, I don't think "the masses" deserve a very forgiving depiction in this day and age. Again, it feels grounded in how the world is today. Because what are people like, really, today? Buncha morons.
Basically everyone is depicted like this except Lois, Superman, Lex, and Mr. Terrific, who are all the competent core of the film.
Speaking of the core cast, I think they were very strong. Exceptionally strong. Rachel Brosnahan was a likeable and credible heroine, and she didn't enter that category of a tedious girlboss character, even though the writing of her character could have easily led her in that direction. She had great chemistry not only with Corenswet, but with basically every member of the cast. In a lot of ways she's the glue in this movie, and she has more extended and meaningful interactions with the supporting cast. On equal footing with Corenswet, she's the breakout star of this movie.
The other superheroes are also very likeable and fun to watch. The thing they do best is act as a foil to Superman, and really highlight what a boyscout Superman feels like in contrast. Nathan Fillion as Green Lantern was a treat to watch, and he's endlessly funny and charming. Hawkgirl is also cool but not much is done with her. Sorry. Not really great for the only female metahuman, but it is what is is. I think the actress did good with her few moments, but not really memorable aside from that. But really the surprise of this movie was Gathegi as Mister Terrific. For a good chunk of the movie he lowkey becomes the main action hero and it's a little bit of a strange segway. But you can tell that the filmmakers had fun with his powerset and design -- which is in many ways more visually interesting than Superman's, but less random than Green Lantern (he makes green energy shapes??) so it makes sense that he got a lot of time. I'm glad the filmmakers just went with it--if you have a cool toy than play with it!
Finally, we can talk about Corenswet. Wow. What perfect casting. I think he leans into an element of Superman that Gunn and the writers here really wanted to underscore--I guess you could call it his earnestness or even naivete--perfectly. And I think this was the right creative call. The problem with Superman as a character has been, in my estimation, what's the point? What are we trying to say? What are we trying to DO with him? It's a problem that storytellers don't have with like Spider-Man or Batman, which comparatively offer just endless thematic material to work with. Superman, whose whole thing is that he's "good" and very powerful, can be a tougher nut to crack especially on film. Snyder answered this by leaning into Superman's godliness/alienness--which I actually think made a lot of sense and was a rich well to draw from (just poorly executed outside of Man of Steel). But I guess what they're trying to do in the latest Superman is show how I guess there's still value in the simplistic idealism of Superman, especially in a world as chaotic as the one they've built (see above). Against the backdrop of insane conspiracy and dishonesty and corruption, Corenswet's Superman is depicted as cartoonishly good--saving squirrels and refusing to kill giant monsters and all that. It would be a bit much if the world didn't feel so starved for that kind of spirit. And the movie leans into that contrast a great deal, with Lois's character explicilty lamenting how trusting and naive Clark is, and him ultimately responding in a very memorable line that maybe that's the "new punk rock."'
I won't spoil the whole context of the scene, but basically the movie advances the argument that what's really subversive today is old-fashioned simplicity and optimism. And it does it succesfully. It reminds me of an interview with I think Stephen Hillenburg, talking about Spongebob, where he basically says that what they were trying to do in making Spongebob's character was create an anti-Bart Simpson, and that's what worked about the character. I think that's essentiallly what they've done here.
Anyways, I haven't talked about Corenswet's acting that much. Corenswet isn't given really intense moments to work with, at least as far as I can recall, and there was no scene where I was like "whoah he's a great actor." This movie really stays in the saturday morning cartoon range of emotions for the most part. But he's just like, a likeable guy to look at. He felt like Superman. But in a new way. He didn't feel like a Christopher Reeves knockoff, or like he was trying to come off stoic. It was a much more boyish and more emotionally flashy Superman--one that shouts, cries, bleeds, and gets visibly frustrated. On the one hand, Corenswet's "cuter" Superman follows the trend of neotinization I find a bit annoying (I wrote about this in my Diary of Wimpy Kid movie review), he does to Superman something similar to what Tom Holland does to Spider-Man, but I think it actually works here. Mainly because Supermans depictions leaned so...stoic before this. So it was refreshing. Now, I really really enjoyed his depiction as Clark Kent, which is equally as goofy as Christopher Reeves but in a completely different way. He plays more of an autistic awkward Zoomer than a bumbling nerd, but there are overlaps in the portrayal. I actually think the movie would have been much stronger if we had more of reporter Clark Kent; we don't get to spend a lot of time with his Alter Ego. It follows the recent Superhero movie trend where he's sort of "on" and in costume for most of the runtime. Not a lot of civilian life.
However, I will say that this movie had a refreshing amount of lengthy dialogue scenes and quiet moments--not as much as I would like, but a good return to form. It was almost weird to see them in a superhero flick. Some scenes were allowed to breathe. Like the interview scene between Clark and Lois. When Clark is back in Smallville. All very good.
The Politics of Superman
Yes, the movie is "woke." Quite woke actually. But in an old-fashioned, idealistic, American way. Not in a, we have to have a bisexual woman of color crammed in here who lectures and sasses people kind of way (for what its worth the movie is diverse in a very organic way, you don't really think about it, which is how it should be). No, it's woke in that it has an unapologetic view of social justice, right and wrong, good and evil, and it doesn't really try and give these categories a lot of gradation or nuance. It's woke in its self-righteousness. It's woke in a way that Superman really SHOULD be. So I like it. I'm fine with this brand of woke and I think that we could use a bit more of it in today's climate.
Anyways, great movie. Still a superhero popcorn flick. But about as good as they come these days.
knxnts