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Go behind the scenes of Superman with stars Rachel Brosnahan, David Corenswet and more
Featurette: Warner Bros.

Superman (2025)
Directed by James Gunn
Rated PG-13
Arrived 11 July 2025
#Superman

The new Superman is okay. That’s it. It’s not "super." It’s simply "okay."

Metallurgy

The biggest problem with James Gunn’s Superman has nothing to do with an immigration storyline or a woke mindset. All that noise has been wildly overblown in the wake of comments made by Gunn in various promotional interviews.

No. The biggest problem with James Gunn’s Superman is James Gunn.

Warner Bros. and DC have swapped out the somber, bleak approach of Zack Snyder — a counterprogramming strategy to Marvel’s more "chipper" outlook — and replaced it with James Gunn’s own singular vision. That means lots of irreverent humor and quirky character interpretations that don’t quite fit. And, as a result, this Superman doesn’t feel fresh, but simply more of the same Gunn.

Snyder’s fan base drove a certain level of success, but not enough to sustain the overwhelming, depressing dirge.

Gunn has a fan base from his Guardians of the Galaxy movies under the Marvel shingle (and Superman serves as a mini-reunion with many cast members making cameos of one sort or another), but they didn’t show up for The Suicide Squad. That’s problematic. Gunn’s sensibilities fit well with Guardians and his version of Suicide Squad was superb, a perfect vehicle for all things Gunn.

But, not so much with Superman.

There are still others, in the mainstream, who are turned off by both Snyder and Gunn. At this point, unfortunately, it’s more about the filmmakers, their styles and their interpretations than the characters that have endured for nearly 90 years.

Genealogy

It’s thoroughly misleading to describe the story in Gunn’s Superman as an "immigrant" story. It is, to a limited extent, obviously. Kal-El (more popularly known as Clark Kent and even more so as Superman) is an immigrant, from a totally different planet, not just a different country.

But, as previously told, Ma and Pa Kent found him in a cornfield and adopted him as their own. In theory, they filed all the requisite paperwork to get Clark Kent a Social Security number and all the rest.

Let’s be clear. Immigration isn’t bad. It’s a necessity for many reasons.

The problem is when open borders allow in "foreign-born" bad actors (think General Zod, for a context-relevant example) without question until the consequences go south and New York’s Times Square is left in ruins.

In the early days of Superman lore and further popularized by the classic George Reeves TV series from the 1950s, Superman stood for "Truth, Justice and the American Way." The woke movement got its hands on Superman years ago. He’s no longer a representative of the "American way." But this is where Gunn works that shift into a positive light: Superman doesn’t actually represent anybody other than himself and what he thinks is "good" and is the right thing to do.

And that’s where the entirety of this version’s complexity exists. There’s an interesting plotline involving Lex Luthor breaking into the Fortress of Solitude down in Antarctica. As seen in the 1978 movie, Kal-El’s journey to Earth was accompanied by a message from his father, Jor-El (Marlon Brando in 1978; Bradley Cooper in 2025). In Gunn’s version, that recorded message is damaged during Kal-El’s interstellar journey. Luthor — a tech bro of the next order — manages to fix the recording and the second half of the message, the part that’s been restored, is oddly ominous and out of step with popular Superman history.

In this shift, Jor-El and Lara, the mother, express their love for their son in the first half of the message. It’s been a source of comfort for Kal-El/Clark/Superman through the years. The second half, though, has his parents wishing him success as he lords over the inferior and weak humans of Earth. It’s a twist that loudly begs for protests of "deep fake" or "cheap fake." But no. Gunn sticks to his guns on this one.

Of course, Lex exploits that in his quest to rid the world of meta-humans. That whole storyline of meta-humans, where they belong in society and their strange ways goes back ages. It’s in The Incredibles, Watchmen and, of course, Marvel’s mythos. Trying to make a simile of meta-humans and "classic" immigrants would be inappropriate in this context.

Reality

Aside from that jarring parental message thread, the story’s pretty good, at least to a point.

Opening title cards go back a few centuries, when meta-humans first arrived on Earth. Then three decades ago Kal-El crash landed on Earth. Three years ago, Kal-El revealed himself as Superman to the world. Three weeks ago, Superman intervened in an international dispute, averting war. Three minutes ago, Superman got his butt kicked. His first defeat in a fight.

That’s where the movie begins, with Superman’s foster dog, Krypto, coming to his rescue and taking him back to the Fortress of Solitude.

Interestingly, several visual elements from the Richard Donner 1978 classic are carried over here, including the icicle structure of the fortress, the stylized opening credits (moved to the end credits this time) and, of course, John Williams’ magnificent Superman march (more on that in a bit).

To pick up on this summer’s theme of "verisimilitude," Gunn’s Superman has some of it, this time coming in the form of an incursion by the army of Boravia into the country of Jarhanpur. Fictional countries, loosely tied to current events.

But that’s about it.

The rest is fanciful Gunn. Some of it’s good. Some of it’s grating.

Gunn’s taste for the quirky works well in a wild scene involving a collective of monkeys banging away at computer keyboards, clacking out a barrage of venomous crap to fill social media channels and the worldwide web with viral nonsense and misinformation. That’s also part of Lex Luthor’s nefarious machinations in what’s called a "pocket universe." This Lex (Nicholas Hoult, Warm Bodies) is a warlord, a tech magnate and a multi-billionaire dabbling in dangerous science experiments that could rip open a black hole.

He's bad to the bone. But he’s not much fun.

Comic book bad should be fun.

Sociology

This Superman isn’t quite as smart as it wants to be. Actually, this isn’t even what the future of DC’s cinematic adventures should be. It is, ultimately, more of the same big-budget, mega-pixeled mayhem that has filled screens consistently since Iron Man hit it big in 2008 and formally ushered in the era of the MCU. That’s probably the most distressing aspect of 2025’s Superman. It... well... it simply doesn’t do Superman justice.

A dramatic shift from the Snyderverse would’ve been to go simpler, but it’s unlikely that route will ever be taken. At least not until the MCU bottoms out completely, the DCU falters and everybody scrambles for something "fresh" by revisiting old-school sensibilities.

Instead, Gunn turns Jimmy Olsen (Skyler Gisondo, The Righteous Gemstones) into a thoroughly non-descript journalist. What’s more baffling is this nobody of a character is the object of desire of none other than Eve Teschmacher. The bombshell fleshed out by Valerie Perrine in 1978 is now merely an attractive — but highly annoying — twit as portrayed by Sara Sampaio (At Midnight). This whole situation is awkward on so many levels. Again, it’s Gunn being Gunn because nobody’s going to say "no" to him, the new head of DC’s movie realm.

And then there’s a running joke about the Justice Gang. That’s what the highly grating Guy Gardner (Nathan Fillion, Firefly) wants to call the small clique of good-doing meta-humans he deems himself to be the leader. Guy Gardner? Maybe he’s better known as Green Lantern. He sports a ridiculously stupid haircut, which at least gets called out as a joke. But he’s not a very appealing character in this incarnation. (Fillion at one point was allegedly in the running to play Green Lantern in what would become one of many different comic book movie roles for Ryan Reynolds.)

One of Guy’s cohorts in good is Mr. Terrific (Edi Gathegi, For All Mankind), an obscure and modestly entertaining hero with a bit of an attitude. But there’s also Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced, The Last of Us). She’s actually pretty cool, especially as she swoops through action sequences while squawking like a hawk. Much more of her and much, much less of Jimmy Olsen would’ve been a good move.

Throughout, Gunn can’t seem to resist himself. Of course, it’s commonplace now to see real-world news anchors and reporters reacting to superhero antics. Wolf Blitzer’s a master of this type of cameo. But. Come on. Jake Tapper? The guy is a disgrace as it is, but to portray a crud journalist named Jack Tapir? Really?

And what about what’s next for the DCU? That’d be Supergirl, a movie directed by Craig Gillespie (Cruella) that’s already in the can and set for release next year. This version of Kara Zor-El (Milly Alcock, House of the Dragon) makes a cameo in Superman to tee things up. She’s a party girl. She’s a sloppy drunk.

Great.

Something to look forward to. Or not.

Chemistry

One big plus for this Superman is that it has a working relationship between Clark Kent (David Corenswet, Twisters) and Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel). The pair have chemistry and they’re already in a romantic relationship when the movie starts. Of course, Clark’s no longer a major klutz. Of course the eyeglasses and hairdo as a masterful disguise are brushed off.

But the important thing is this pair is much, much more appealing than the appallingly frigid pairing of Henry Cavill and Amy Adams.

Brosnahan channels some of the energy of Margot Kidder. She’s spunky.

Corenswet? Well, let’s just say this role will offer him some growth opportunity. He’s good, with room for improvement.

And it’d be great to see somebody somewhere at some time do something more with the Daily Planet and the journalism of Lois and Clark. (And, please, leave Tapper out of it.)

Superman ultimately settles in as merely an "okay" movie. It punches, it pushes, it pulls, it screams out a desire to be something fresh and different, and when all seems to be creaking, it pulls out John Williams’ majestic Superman theme. But Gunn and composers David Fleming and John Murphy don’t exactly knock the cover off the ball. Every time there should be a moment of super heroic awesomeness, there’s something stunted. The human reactions are bland. Maybe all of humanity is already non-plussed by the antics (good and evil) of the meta-humans. Or maybe they don’t know how to respond to green screens.

Regardless, there’s never a sense of wonder. There’s never a sense of innocence which could capture more of the essence of classic Superman.

No. That’s too plain for 2025.

So. Jaded humans it is.

And callbacks to John Williams’ theme are strangely muted instead of triumphant.

Psychology

A nice touch Gunn throws in is to shift Clark/Kal-El’s focus from his natural parents and the comfort their message initially brought to him to the memories he’s making with his adopted parents. As annoyingly overly simplistic and hick (borderline insultingly so) Gunn makes them out to be, he at least gives Pa Kent (Pruitt Taylor Vince, Constantine) a meaningful conversation with Clark that teeters close to being almost as good as Glen Ford’s.

Then the movie ends with Kal-El surrounding himself in those new memories, with screens filled with videos and photos documenting Clark’s childhood on Earth.

But it’s accompanied not by that triumphant Superman theme (which would’ve been a nice anthem with which to march out the theatre door) but instead by a wholly annoying rock song by Clark’s favorite band, a Gorillaz-like fictional act called Mighty Crabjoys.

Sigh. Different sensibilities appealing to different audiences.

Will it work once the freshness (such as it is) wears off? Not likely. The MCU’s looking at its 37th episode (The Fantastic Four: First Steps) in only a couple weeks, but it’s at what is hopefully the tail end of a rough patch of shoddy filmmaking and lost plots. Right now, it’s hard to imagine this iteration of the DCU holding it together for 17 years, whether it launches the Justice Gang, the Justice League or its multiverse of madness gets sucked into one of Lex’s black holes.

Gunn has said he’s taking an approach where no DC movie will begin production until the script is ready. That sounds great. He’s not working under an onerous mandated quota that effectively led to the MCU’s implosion. That’s good.

So, what that means is Gunn should be able to pivot to something more appealing and geared toward long-term success based on how audiences react to each episode released in the James Gunn-branded take on the DC brand.

That is, as long as Gunn has the super strength to tell himself, "no."

• Originally published at MovieHabit.com.

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