Superman (2025)

Year 17, Day 226 - 8/14/25 - Movie #5,110 - WATCHED ON 7/19/25   

BEFORE: Yeah, right in the middle of the Doc Block I went out and watched a fiction movie - a man can only take so many documentaries, after all, even good ones. If there's a superhero movie in wide release, I need to go and see it, I don't want to fall behind again. Plus, you know, there was a little bit of hype for this one. 

There was a free screening at the theater where I work, ideally it was for students and faculty, but most of them are on summer break, so nobody's going to mind if I slip myself into the crowd. Well, I am "staff", I'm just not staff-staff. Same difference. Even if I have to delay the review, and come in to work on my day off, it's so worth it, saving the cost of a movie ticket these days.

If I've done this right, Alan Tudyk carries over from "Moana 2" (or maybe "The Electric State"). 

THE PLOT: Superman must reconcile his alien Kryptonian heritage with his human upbringing as reporter Clark Kent. As the embodiment of truth, justice and the human way, he soon finds himself in a world that views these things as old-fashioned. 

AFTER: Welcome to the NEW DCUniverse, this is the first film in a larger, ongoing series, assuming things go well. All those characters DC introduced over the last 10-12 years are no longer relevant. Umm, sorry, no refunds. I was talking to a co-worker during the "Smurfs" screening last month and he asked me why they needed to re-boot that franchise every few years, and my response was that everything needs to be re-booted every few years, it's not just those Smurfs. (Also, why was he more concerned about THAT franchise, over any others? Priorities, man.). As a lifelong comic book fan, I'm all too familiar with reboots. DC and Marvel (mostly DC though) see the need to completely trash all that came before, story-wise, every few years, because readers are constantly aging out of the program. New ones are being born, thankfully, and that means there's a steady stream of people looking to get into reading comics, but they may not know where to start. So they conveniently start over every few years (usually with Superman's origin story and a giant cross-over story) so that people have a good on-ramp into the system, and who has time to catch up on 50 years or even 10 years of continuity in order to understand a character? 

So yeah, it's unfortunate if you had taken the time to watch every DC Comics-based movie since "Man of Steel" in 2013, you may even feel now like you've wasted your time, but they've cleared the board and scrapped all the OLD stories and they're starting fresh. Again. Maybe. Really, it's. bit unclear right now whether ALL of the old stories have been trashed, or if it's just the ones that James Gunn didn't work on, and I'm betting it's the latter. So maybe "The Suicide Squad" still happened? Please? 

Which is more ridiculous - Superman saving the life of a squirrel, or him saving himself and others from a black hole by, umm, blowing on it? Jesus, it's not an old Nintendo cartidge of "Duck Hunt" - yes, I know Superman has super-strong breath, but it's a G-d d-mn BLACK HOLE, nothing is able to escape from it, not even light. We know this to be true, it's simple (?) physics, and Superman is NOT more powerful than the laws of time and space (despite him rewinding time in the 1976 movie by flying really fast, that was implausible then and remains so).  Here Superman is trying to save a character's baby, and together they're floating down a river of anti-protons or something toward a black hole, and come on, it's gravity, even Superman has to obey the laws of gravity, this is not a Road Runner cartoon!  It even gets to the point where Superman has passed the point of no return, where relativity predicts that matter will be crushed into an infinitely small space and then cease to exist (or be transported somewhere else, honestly nobody is really sure about that, but most likely crushed into oblivion). We even see Superman and the other characters start to get spaghetti-fied which means, END OF STORY, that's it, no escape is possible. Except then Superman uses his super-breath, and everything is fine, that creates enough extra escape velocity so that he can get away from the point of no return. Nope, impossible, we've got a contradiction here, the point of no return is exactly that, one can NOT escape from it, no way, no how. Try something else. 

There was another very cartoony reference, when Superman got crushed by the giant Kaiju creature, and he tunneled away like Bugs Bunny would have. Terrible idea, even though this is based on a comic book, that's not the same as a cartoon. This is not "Space Jam", this is "Superman" and the effects and the physics need to be a little more realistic, even though they are fantastic, they should NOT be cartoon-like. Try something else. 

On the opposite (boring) side of the scale, there was like a 10-minute argument (felt longer, though) between Lois and Clark regarding journalistic integrity - Lois believed that Clark interviewing Superman for the Daily Planet was a conflict of interest. SHE'S right of course, since Clark never would write anything negative about his alter-ego, he is hardly acting like an impartial reporter. Even Lois interviewing Clark as Superman when they're dating seems a little sketchy, although better than Clark interviewing himself. They then get into another debate about whether Superman has the right to involve himself in international affairs, and once again, SHE's right. Superman thinks that he serves justice and fairness, but he has appointed himself the sole arbiter of what is just and fair, and who's to say that he's correct? International conflicts can be very complicated, and what seems right today could appear to be incorrect or misinformed in the future. Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan - among others, the U.S. felt it was making the right move, and then in the long term people came to perceive those conflicts as unjust military actions. 

Clark Kent has morals, sure, but a small-town Smallville mentality may not be the correct approach on a global scale, as today's ally might be tomorrow's enemy, and vice versa. Power tends to corrupt, so putting a new government in power has at least the potential for the new ruler to become corrupt. We always elect a new mayor in NYC thinking he'll be above corruption, and well, it never really works out that way, does it? 

Which leads to a larger question, is Superman a U.S. citizen? Is he considered an immigrant, an alien, or what?  There was an opportunity here to hold a mirror up to society, immigration being such a hot-button topic in the news right now. Was he "born" in Kansas, or born on Krypton and then sent in his rocket ship to Earth?  I hate to say it, but Luthor might have a valid point about his legal status, he wouldn't even have birthright if he was born on another world. This would give him no ability to vote, let alone meddle in foreign politics in an enemy country. We should applaud Superman's desire to make things "right", I suppose, but again, the issues may be more complex than he imagines.

Still, this does not give Luthor the right to target Superman, it really calls to mind the way that Trump went after Obama, demanding to see his original birth certificate, but then I suppose that IS the point.  We do see Lex putting people in cells, it's essentially an ICE detention camp, even if it's stored in a pocket universe. It might be like all current policies of Trump, they're popular with the majority of people, until their own friends or family members or employees start getting deported, then people change their tune and wonder why this had to happen. But again, as far as the film was concerned, I think there was maybe a coherent argument to be made here about whether might makes right, or whether that kind of thinking is outdated and wrong. Superman HAS great power, but what's more important is the way that he chooses to use it, or NOT use it, as the case may be. If having his superpowers is a great thing, then he maybe needs to spend a little more time thinking about that, because as I said, power tends to corrupt and he's not immune to that, except this is a fictional world where he's apparently always right, even though he says he makes mistakes and Lois Lane can out-think him. But watching Superman screw up wouldn't be all that entertaining, would it? So it's just easier to portray him as always being right, or at least trying to be. 

But what is "truth" in a world where there is fake news, and social media to spread it? What is "justice" in a world where people can be taken from their homes and imprisoned just for disagreeing with government policy? And don't think I didn't notice that Superman now supports the "human way", and it used to be called the "American way". Wow, don't sugar-coat it, Superman is a socialist, right? Well, sorry, but to be anti-American, first you need to BE an American, not a Kryptonian who looks like an American. And OK, let's talk about that message from Superman's birth parents, which originally Clark could only watch the first half of. The part about helping people and seeking out truth and justice, one assumes, which became his credo. But the SECOND part of the message, unscrambled and deciphered by LuthorTechs (umm, sure, nothing happening there at all) talks about how Jor-El's powers, under Earth's yellow sun, would therefore make him like a god among humans. Naturally his parents assumed that he would be elected ruler and have many harems, this is just part of Kryptonian society, as far as we know. Perhaps it's just that Krypton is a very different place, it's supposed to be more evolved and dignified, but then, umm, how do we explain away General Zod and other evildoers? So maybe it's just not as evolved as we think.  

Anyway, we're missing the ecological message here - Krypton was a doomed planet because (again, we assume) it used up all its resources, or it messed around with nuclear energy or had too many crystals or something. We should probably check this in the new DC universe - what's the deal with destroyed Krypton, or do we even know? Pollution, climate change, nuclear energy, reliance on fossil fuels, they're throwing away a narrative gold mine here, because Superman should be working every day to make sure that whatever happened to his birth planet does NOT happen to his new home planet. Right? So if that means fighting greenhouse gases in addition to metahuman criminals, so be it, that would be the Superman we need right now. Saving the life of one SQUIRREL just isn't going to get us there. 

Thankfully, they don't go back and re-hash Superman's origin AGAIN, because they kind of assume that we all just know it, we've read it in the comic books like a hundred times and in movies, almost as many, or perhaps it just feels like it. So this Superman's story starts somewhere in the middle, where he's already made it to Smallville and got that reporter job, he's already in a relationship with Lois Lane, and she KNOWS, so that's good, and Luthor is rich and powerful and already hates Superman and has taken many steps toward getting rid of him, and the Fortress of Solitude already exists, it just retreats under the ice when it's not in use, so other people don't discover it. (Plus, come on, it's cold in the Arctic, you've got to expect some shrinkage.) So wow, we're really saving a lot of exposition here, so there will be plenty of time later to throw more nonsense logs on the story fire. 

More people and things that we need to update everyone on - Clark's parents are still alive, though they're played by shorter, fatter actors - this is a downgrade from Kevin Costner and Diane Lane, unfortunately. Ma and Pa Kent can't seem to figure out how to use a cell phone, so this means everyone in Kansas is fat and stupid, right? I've got to consider Corenswet and Brosnahan a downgrade too, as I was fine with Henry Cavill and Amy Adams. Just me? I think one day we're going to look back on "Man of Steel" and "Batman v. Superman" and they're really going to shine in comparison to adjectiveless "Superman". BUT OK, James Gunn, you can try to prove me wrong, it won't be easy.  Perry White, Jimmy Olsen, Cat Grant, well, whatever, but I thought Laurence Fishburne was just fine, there's really no reason to throw the metahuman baby out with the bath water, so to speak. 

We know that Peacemaker exists in the New DCU - what a coincidence, another James Gunn character didn't get retconned away. Can I assume that THE Suicide Squad carries over, too, at least the second movie if not the first?  It's the James Gunn-iverse, so really anything that he had his hands on is probably still relevant, and the rest (Aquaman, Wonder Woman, Shazam) will all need to be replaced as time goes on. Yes, even Blue Beetle. Again, I ask, but with a different person in mind, power tends to corrupt, so putting a new government in power has at least the potential for the new ruler to become corrupt. Someone has appointed himself the sole arbiter of what is just and fair, what exists and what does not, and who's to say that he's correct?

For example, the de facto ruler of this new universe has decided that Krypto needs to be a "bad dog" - why? What purpose does this serve, it's not exactly funny, maybe it's more slice-of-life relatable, but the Krypto I know from the comic books was extremely intelligent and well-behaved, so again, what is UP with this plot point? It only makes Superman look weak because it suggests that he doesn't have the discipline necessary to train a DOG. He can lift a falling skyscraper, but getting a dog to not shred things is somehow beyond his range? It doesn't make sense, yeah I know it's tied to Krypto being Supergirl's dog, but still, it doesn't feel right. He clearly CARES about the dog, because he passes up on battling some imp from another dimension to keep looking for the dog - this is also BAD storytelling, though, because Superman should never turn away from an emergency happening right before his eyes, it should not be part of his character, ideally. 

Other random thoughts - somebody clearly wanted to pair up Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga again as Superman's parents, I guess she wasn't available, but they cast an actress who looked enough like her that I see what they were trying to do. I also thought the actress who played The Engineer looked very similar, I don't know why anyone would cast two actresses who look so much alike in different parts in the same film, unless they're trying to suggest a connection between them. I read the Superman comics religiously, and I had no idea who "The Engineer" was, maybe I forgot?  Also, regarding "Ultraman", that name means something specific to the comic book readers, it's Clark Kent from a world where the Justice League heroes are villains. So if Lex had a portal to another universe, why not just enlist the Superman from that universe, rather than do what he did? 

I also don't know why they revived the characters of Otis Berg and Eve Teschmacher, these were characters invented for the 1978 movie, and neither one is from the comics. They're terrible stereotypes, Ned Beatty played Otis as the stupid, bumbling sidekick (Lex Luthor can't afford to hire smart henchmen?) and Valerie Perrine was really just eye candy (not that I'm complaining).  Their appearances here aren't much of an improvement, just saying, Teschmacher is still just here because she's sleeping with Luthor, she's essentially Melania Trump. I guess they're both not as dumb as they were before, so umm, yay? But we all need to move forward here, not backwards, and stick to the sacred texts - er, comic books, please. 

The minor staff members who work for the Daily Planet are just as bad, they're simple stereotypes - the dumb jock sports guy, the sexy vapid gossip columnist, the black guy. Sure, there may not be much time to get to know them, what with the world ending and everything, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to know them as something more than one-dimensional. 

I'm more motivated now to watch that four-hour cut of "Justice League", even though I know the earlier version backwards and forwards. Quite possibly it's so rich and full of more story that the new film will look like a children's comic book, all silly and stupid and such. Lex Luthor has a thousand monkeys in his pocket universe, and they're all composing hate-posts about Superman on social media? Man, that doesn't even make any sense - why would he use monkeys when he can use A.I. bots? That's even stupider than saving the life of one little squirrel. 

(UPDATE: I started watching the 4 hour cut of "Zack Snyder's Justice League" last night - I made it through almost two and a half hours, then I had to call it a night. Well, I had a free night because I watched "Superman" last month, but still, I'll have to break up the Snyder Cut into two parts, maybe I can finish it this afternoon after some job-hunting. The general feeling is that I'm not learning too much MORE about what Snyder had in mind, though there is certainly MORE of everything. Because why tell a story in two hours when you can tell it in four? Seriously, though, I see why cuts were made, and when Joss Whedon was brought in to replace Snyder, the changes were more about having a brighter, funner tone rather than making changes to the story. Which is how we got Aquaman talking like a "bro" rather than a lost king of a secret underwater species. The Snyder Cut is more serious, which may be more appropriate for a bunch of heroes trying to save the world, but really it's just way too long, so I get why it had to be trimmed down. I'm not counting this in my tally as a NEW movie, because it's really just a different cut of a movie I've seen before.)

Bottom line - this is the new DC Universe, or at least the start of it, and if it does well we're in for a long run, but if it doesn't sit right with me, it's going to feel even longer. I guess I'll go back and watch "Batman v. Superman" and "Justice League" again, because I'm still Team Cavill for now. I'll just have to wait to see what the future holds, as we all do. 

Directed by James Gunn (director of "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3")

Also starring David Corenswet (last seen in "Pearl"), Rachel Brosnahan (last seen in "Beautiful Creatures"), Nicholas Hoult (last heard in "The Garfield Movie"), Edi Gathegi (last seen in "Crank"), Anthony Carrigan (last seen in "Fatherhood"), Nathan Fillion (last heard in "Deadpool & Wolverine"), Isabela Merced (last seen in "Madame Web"), Skyler Gisondo (last seen in "Licorice Pizza"), Sara Sampaio (last seen in "The Clapper"), Wendell Pierce (last seen in "Thunderbolts"), Beck Bennett (last seen in "Unfrosted"), Mikaela Hoover (last seen in "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3"), Terence Rosemore (ditto), Stephen Blackehart (ditto), Christopher McDonald, Bonnie Discepolo (ditto), Darla Delgado (ditto), Pruitt Taylor Vince (last seen in "Gotti"), Neva Howell (last seen in "Logan Lucky"), Maria Gabriela de Faira, Zlatko Buric (last seen in "Triangle of Sadness"), Trevor Newlin, Frank Grillo (last seen in "The Purge: Election Year"), Tinashe Kajese-Bolden (last heard in "Strays"), Michael Ian Black (last seen in "Take Me Home Tonight"), Bradley Cooper (last heard in "IF"), Angela Sarafyan (last seen in "The Promise"), Louisa Krause (last seen in "Dark Waters"), Dinesh Thyagarajan, Tatiana Piper, Giovannie Cruz (last seen in "Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F"), Natasha Halevi, Paul Kim, Jonah Lees (last seen in "Tale of Tales"), Christian Lees (ditto), Rudy Quintanilla, James Hiroyuki Liao (last heard in "Frankenweenie"), Luis R. Hernandez, Mary Chatmon, Xingu Del Rosario, Lawrence Gilligan, Suzanne Hobbs, Kimmy Suzuki (last seen in "Great Expectations"), Paige Mobley, 

with the voices of Grace Chan, Michael Rooker (last seen in "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3"), Jennifer Holland (ditto), Pom Klementieff (last seen in "Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One"), 

and cameos from Milly Alcock, John Cena (last seen in "Jackpot!"), Sean Gunn (last seen in "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3"), Michael Rosenbaum (ditto), Will Reeve (last seen in "Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story"), Jake Tapper (last seen in "Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary")

RATING: 7 out of 10 curse words (superheroes can swear now? not an improvement)