Here is the
short review of this movie. I asked one of my sons and he said it is great. And
the movie was a fun popcorn movie, for sure.
**There
will be spoilers after this point***
It has been a
while since I have touched on popular culture on my blog but I am going to do
so today with a review of the new Superman movie. Superman has been my
favourite superhero character since I was a small boy. I was born in 1984 so I
just grew up with Christopher Reeve being Superman, and he still is the
definitive on-screen Superman. That answers the first question anyone might
have about this movie, it does not surpass Christopher Reeve’s portrayal of the
character. Before we go forward let me also note that there were a couple of
curse words in this movie which I did not think were necessary and kind of took
you out of movie, especially the one at the end. I had never seen such a thing
in a Superman movie and was kind of taken aback by that, especially as at least
once the cursing comes from the mouth of the Man of Steel himself. Other than
that I could not think of anything obviously offensive.
Some people
are saying this movie is not political at all. I am going to correct the record
on that point towards the end. So if you just want to read about the political
bent of this movie skip to that section.
The Superman
Ranking
So, firstly,
where does David Corenswet rank among the onscreen portrayals of Superman? Here
is my ranking in order: 1) Christopher Reeve, 2) Henry Cavill, 3) David
Corenswet, 4) Tom Wellington, 5) Brandon Routh (who did a pretty good
Christopher Reeve impersonation), 6) Dean Cain and after that I can’t speak to
any others. I did not watch the recent portrayal by Tyler Hoechlin in the CW
show and don’t plan to anytime really. I have put a star next to Tom Wellington
because he does not actually portray the full Superman character in the show
Smallville, but he is still Clark Kent with Superman’s power, and he ranks high
in my estimation as one of the best representations of the character ever put
to screen. I don’t understand why we never got a Tom Wellington Superman movie.
But that is how the chips fell.
Obviously,
Christopher Reeve was so outstanding in his portrayal as Superman that it is
hard for anyone to rank alongside of him, let alone surpass him. But I think
Henry Cavil could have done so if he had been given the right movie. Zack
Snyder’s DC movies were great action flicks, but Superman never really got all
that much of a chance to shine as the hero of the little guy. Which is a core part
of Superman’s identity. Snyder focused too much of the mythic demi-godlike aspect
of his superheroes, which is probably why his movies did not land with a lot of
people and were polarizing. Gunn’s Superman goes a long way towards fixing that
oversight, but then creates a whole other issue of its own.
Corenswet’s farm
boy charm and all-round good guy persona are on full display in the new
Superman movie. He goes out of his way to save people in ways that Henry
Cavill’s superman never got the chance to really do in his solo movie.
Superman’s care for the ordinary population is on full display. He does not
just throw his enemies into office buildings and singly focus on his enemy
target like Cavill’s Man of Steel did. He even stops in the middle of one
battle to ask a whole room of people if they are all ok. Which is good. He
feels very much like the everyman Superman, in this sense, like Reeve’s version
did.
But this
Superman is not a leader. He is what some would call a delta. He is a faithful,
hard working and caring guy who wants to do the right thing, but no one seems
interested in following his lead. Corenswet’s Superman is spoken down to by
everyone at some point, including his girlfriend, his co-workers (the justice
gang), and even his cousin, Supergirl, in a random scene which did not need to be in the
movie and probably by itself drops the ranking of this movie a bit. One can’t
imagine Reeves Superman ever being treated like this. But this is a product of
Gunn’s comedy and writing style and less about disrespecting Superman, in my view.
Corenswet’s Superman movie is plagued by the classic James Gunn self-deprecating and
other-deprecating humour. Everyone speaks to each other in very flippant ways,
and Gunn is clearly anti-hierarchy of any kind, which worked in a group comedy
like Guardians of the Galaxy. Gunn writes this kind of dialogue better
than others, but it is still getting old, and I don’t think suited this movie
at times, but other times it worked. Guy Gardner’s haircut deserved that quip
from Lois. Both Snyder and Richard Donner clearly respected the character, as
does Gun to some degree, but Gunn can’t help but make a James Gunn Guardians
of the Galaxy style movie. But if you like that you will probably rate this
movie highly.
Comic Book
Faithfulness
I never read Superman comics very much. I
might have read one or two as a kid. By the time I was old enough to read well and was interested in reading I went straight to kid’s paperbacks like the Famous
Five and Hardy Boys and worked my way up from there. But that being
said, I did read some variety of comics and this movie felt like a comic book
come to life. It looked like a comic book come to life. It had the plastic feel of a comic book world, everything being not quite real, or not quite
right, and a little exaggerated or underdone. You’ll understand what I mean
when you see Lois Lane fly a spaceship for the first time after having been in
it once, and there being no mention she can fly anything. Mr Terrific just
tells her the controls are intuitive and then off she goes and flies his
spaceship. This is very comic booky.
Which is
fine.
Most
superhero movies do not need to be dour and serious affairs. A little bit of
light-hearted adventure is good every now and then. However, the tone of this
movie does kind of shift at times. There are scenes which are ridiculous like
Lex Luther being beaten up by Crypto the Superdog, and then there are scenes
where Luther shoots an innocent man in the head right in front of an imprisoned
Superman. This jarring change of tone is all through the movie. Even that
Luther scene is played for laughs, which is disconcerting when you think about
it. But comic books do this sort of thing. Don’t they?
The Cast
The cast is
good. The acting is good. The bad guy was serviceable. But this movie suffers
from the Marvel issue of wanting to tone down the evil of their villains by
mocking them and making them look ridiculous at times. Nicholas Hoult could do
better with a better script. He was definitely evil in this, but not menacing.
Which fits with a family movie vibe, I guess. But when are we going to get a
decent villain in one of these movies? I think the last decent menacing comic book villain
was Tom Hardy’s Bane, and you could not understand a word that guy said. Maybe
you can think of a more recent example.
The rest of
the cast is ok. Rachel Brosnahan was a decent Lois. Nathan Fillion was good as
the Guy Gardner Green Lantern. Edi Gathegi was probably the most interesting
character as Mr Terrific. Isabela Merced’s Hawkgirl was decent, and not an annoying
girl boss trope, which is good. I won’t go through the whole cast, but they all
did a serviceable job, and there is a sublot with Jimmy Olsen which is random
and funny and integral to the plot. Some of the characterization felt like it
was harkening back to Donner’s semi-comedic tone, and so some of these
characters were little more than carboard cut out comic book tropes, which
worked in this movie.
As it was a
Guardians of the Galaxy style ensemble movie no one really got a full story
arc, except maybe Superman. And most of the focus was on action and quips, so
you will find it entertaining while eating your popcorn and no one does such a
bad job that they take you out of the movie. But you will likely forget most
characters not long after the movie is over.
The Story
The story was
pretty basic. What are you going to do now that no one has seen right? It is a
comic book movie. It is now more about execution than riveting story. The story
is simple enough: Lex wants to destroy Superman. He is willing to hurt everyone
on earth if necessary. It is a basic plot.
The Superman change of lore wasn’t really a change of lore if you had watched Smallville. But Smallville did it better.
The plot is also moved along with some artificial feeling contrivances. Like almost everyone immediately believing that Superman is a bad guy because the media says he is. People don’t just believe the media…like that…do they….? Some people
think the plot was a mess maybe because they don’t believe people are that quick to believe the news. But we know they are. Often.
I thought the plot was pretty basic. The movie
established very quickly that Lex has some devious plan to destroy Superman,
and everything he does seems to revolve around that. Superman simply reacts to
what Lex does. I thought the idea of Superman handing himself in to rescue his
dog was a nice touch that did not fully land. This was Gunn seeking to use a cute
animal to help drive the plot, and garner affection from the audience. But I
did not think it had the emotional weight that it could have. John Wick
established the dog/man fellowship much better. In this movie it seems more of just a thing
Superman does. In fact, the story lacked depth over all, though it was solid,
The dog was
cool, though. Don’t listen to the haters on that point. 😊
Politics
Many of you
are wondering if they push the “current narrative” in this movie. The answer is
yes and no. What do I mean?
There is none
of the girl boss nonsense you may have seen in recent Marvel movies. I say you
may have seen, because I stopped watching Marvel movies after End Game, except
for one Spiderman movie. Superman does not find himself second fiddle to Lois.
Even the way she speaks down to him at the start of the movie is more neutral
and tied to a fight they are having over his intervening in world affairs more
than anything else, and…here is the kicker…she apologises for this later in the
movie. A man and his girl will fight, right, from time to time, and this movie
presents the conflict in this light. Lois is just a good reporter and the
conversation comes in the context of doing what she does best. So, you don’t
have to worry about your sons being berated for being men while they watch this
movie, there is none of that. In fact, the relationship fight they had actually
was the most realistic thing in the movie.
There are no
rainbow flags, that I saw. Though I will put a link to a
reviewer I watched who saw one.[1] But it must have been
brief, because I did not even catch it. Though his review is worth watching anyway.
The men in this
movie were all capable of something, they were competent. And while Superman was not presented as a
leader or anything like that, he was still a capable man, with a heart of gold, who just wanted to help people. All the other male characters contribute
something useful too, as do the women. So there is no Chris Hemsworth from lady
Ghostbusters nonsense in this movie.
But the movie
was hardcore political. In fact, it was definitionally political. Whoever is saying
the movie is not political is either lying or does not know what that word
means. The whole plot centres around Superman getting in trouble for having
interfered in a war between definitely not Israel and definitely not Gaza. I
mean it is so clear others
have seen this too[2] and it is causing a
reaction in some quarters. The names of the countries are fictional, and they
are exaggerated. But Superman stops a highly advanced country that gets its
weapons from US manufacturers, including Luther, and is a long term ally of
America, from crushing in a battle a group of men, women and children armed
with farming equipment. It is exaggerated, for sure, but that is the way of
comic book stories.
Very early in
the movie a government military cabinet of some kind is talking about how they
are going to handle Superman, and Luther is on this cabinet seeking to influence
them. One of them even calls out Luther for trying to protect his weapons
business contracts. The movies shows an awareness of what is happening in Gaza,
the connection to weapons contractors, the influence they have on the US government,
and the unfairness of the whole situation. And Superman flies in and stops the
whole thing. Which we never see, but are told that he did by Clark Kent himself. This is by definition
political.
And the movie takes the sure bet too, it sides with the right side. Superman and the Justice Gang
take the side of the little guy, which is what almost every audience member
themselves will do. But even though this is the case, these events are so
exaggerated and so well woven within the story they don’t beat you over the
head like some movies would. And if you are not really aware of these events going
on in the world, you will probably not even realize what the movie is
addressing. Which is what I would call clever political messaging. However, I suspect
in some circles this storyline will be polarizing and cause some people to
boycott this movie.
There is also
the subtle and very common pro-immigration messaging in the movie. But it is
really dialled down, unless you are really looking for it. And what modern population
in a modern city does not look like the population in this movie? Therefore, it really
wasn’t over the top.
So, the movie
is most definitely political, but not in an obnoxious way. And for those who
think that Superman should not be political, I think you should study up on
your Superman history. He has always been political. You can read the Dark
Herald’s Superman series at the Arkhaven blog on Substack.[3] Or you can watch the
terribly corny Superman IV: The Quest for Peace where Superman seeks to achieve
world peace by getting rid of every nuclear weapon on the planet. Having an
anti-war message in a Superman film is very much in Superman’s legacy, and it
works in this movie.
Conclusion
I liked the
movie. It was not perfect. Superman could have been shown to be more of a
powerhouse than he was. But it was better than Routh’s 2006 Superman Returns,
and Corenswet has the potential to outshine Henry Cavill given the right script.
Parts of the movie are forgettable, but that is probably because we have too
many comic book movies right now and have since about 2001. I give it a 3.5 out
of 5 stars. It was better than I expected, and Corenswet was good enough as
Superman I hope he gets his chance for his own movie where he can be the hero
in his own right.
