A new Superman for our troubled times
"Superman has no time for selfies.”
And with that line, we know we’re in a whole new era for the caped superhero.
What’s Superman like in the time of cancel culture?
The line comes up when Clark Kent/Superman (new face David Corenswet) is interviewed by current GF Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan), who asks why he’s not worried about his controversial media image. She’s a sharp reporter, so she also asks what gives him the right to play the world’s policeman—torturing a murderous dictator, for instance, by sticking him onto a cactus.
Oh, Superman. He’s been with us onscreen for nearly 50 years. But his endless reboots were becoming a broken record: sent to Earth by his Krypton parents from a dying planet, adopted by the Kent family, hangs out with Lois Lane at the Daily Planet, fights aliens and Lex Luthor, yada, yada.
So, with director James Gunn’s version, he tries something different—in the process, maybe rescuing a half-century-old franchise from terminal fatigue. He does this with zippy energy, a witty script, real stakes, and the decision to place us in medias res, rather than replaying the old Superman origin story once again.
Instead, we open with our hero on the ropes, in a vulnerable spot: having his super-butt kicked by Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) and his killer robots in Metropolis. Plopping down outside his hidden Fortress of Solitude, Superman summons Krypto with a whistle. Introducing a flying super-dog may seem like the kind of jokey element that Gunn deployed ad nauseum in Guardians of the Galaxy, making us chuckle at Bradley Cooper’s salty alien raccoon.
But here, it works. The humor in Superman is not merely snarky or meta; it barrels the movie forward through fantastic set pieces and introduces characters (The Justice Gang; more about them in a bit) that seem like welcome new friends. If there’s one thing Gunn is really good at, it’s assembling a lovable motley crew onscreen.
So the jokes fly by in a smarter, livelier script than we usually get from the moody, broody DC team. (The film could have stretched way longer than 2:09, and we thank Gunn for those quick edits.)
Adding to the humor factor is the fledgling Justice Gang, made up of Green Lantern (Nathan Fillion with a ridiculous, though accurate, haircut), Metamorpho (Anthony Carrigan), Hawkgirl (Isabella Merced, recently in The Last of Us) and Edi Gathegi as Mister Terrific, who threatens to steal the movie with effortless cool, much the way Quicksilver did in X-Men: Days of Future Past.
Helpfully, there’s chemistry between Corenswet and Brosnahan, who are more into their relationship than is usually depicted. (But of course, all very much GP-rated.) Still, she’s not so sure whether Superman can fully open up or come out from behind the cape. She starts to have some doubts. It doesn’t help that Luthor exhibits all the elements of evil billionaires we’ve come to know from those currently running our social-media sites and debating our AI future. He’s using his tech to enlist metahumans—alien descendants from eons ago—in moves to frame Superman and make him look like the overreaching bad guy. (The recent HBO film Mountainhead also posits how alarmingly removed tech bros have become from humanity, always trying to find a workaround to something better than us.)
As Clark, Corenswet is charmingly goofy, naïve, old-fashioned, but in a good way. When Lois chides Superman for liking fake punk rock bands and for basically being “too nice,” he responds, “Maybe being nice is the real punk rock.”
But there’s more under the hood here. As we know, DC’s Superman is an immigrant, sent from Krypton to a country that was built by immigrants. Gunn draws from All-Star Superman, a 2005-08 comic series by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely, to establish the film’s more ruminative tones, often reflecting on where we come from, what we’re here for, and mortality itself. He borrows from the nervy inventiveness of Max Fleisher—creator of the Rotoscope, pioneered in early Betty Boop and Popeye cartoons—and injects pocket universes, Kaijus, sorcery, and a Pop aesthetic into the visual mix.
At its heart, Superman’s story is a debate over nature vs. nurture. This is framed well by Kal-El’s adoptive Midwestern dad (Pruitt Taylor Vance) who points out it’s the choices we make that make us human, not the dysfunction passed onto us.
Now that Gunn is co-CEO of new DC Studios (along with producer Peter Safran), he appears to have ample latitude to shape the DC Universe to his own specs. With his satisfying reboot, he plugs right into what makes Superman a hero for the ages, in the process, making him more human than ever. Great set pieces, welcome humor, expert use of side characters and a lively script make this a summer winner. Let’s hope Superman opens a new chapter for DC’s oldest heroes.
