I never had any real doubt that James Gunn would make a good movie. After three Guardians of the Galaxy films, plus the holiday special, The Suicide Squad, Peacemaker, and even the little-remembered (but worth watching) film Super with Rainn Wilson, he’s proven he knows how to tell a superhero story. But the question, when it came to SuperMAN, is whether he truly understood the character and what we wanted from him.
James Gunn, I am thrilled to say, understood the assignment.
The launch film for the new DC Universe is everything I could have hoped for – exciting, thrilling, fun to watch, full of humor, full of heart, and – most importantly – carries its overt optimism like a torch leading the rest of the superhero universe in its direction. It’s like a calling card: superheroes can be fun and still mean something. And Superman, more than any other hero, should be the primary example of that.
This new DCU, we are told in the opening seconds of the film, is a world where metahumans have existed for three centuries. Superman has been active as a hero for about three years, and although he has garnered a great deal of goodwill in that time, a recent incursion into a hostile territory in Europe is causing international furor as some people question whether an alien should involve himself in human affairs. Lex Luthor, of course, leaps at the opportunity to use Superman’s actions to foment trouble, and it is the conflict between these two (who, at the beginning of the film, have yet to meet in person) that forms the core of the movie. It’s a solid foundation from which to explore the themes most important to Superman, specifically what it actually means to be human.
The main plot also leaves room for exploration in the relationships that Superman and Clark Kent enjoy – with Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, the three members of the “Justice Gang,” and of course, with Lex Luthor himself. Each of these characters has an important role to play in the movie, nobody feels superfluous and all of them feel like they’ve been served incredibly well by James Gunn’s script.
Krypto, of course, steals the show.
I want to talk in more detail about the characters and the actors who portray them, and I don’t know that I can do that without lapsing into spoiler territory, so consider this your warning. If you haven’t seen the movie yet, stop here, secure in the knowledge that I loved every moment of this movie and I can’t wait to see it again and again. This is the best Lois Lane we’ve ever had on screen. The best Jimmy Olsen. The best Lex Luthor. The best…
…damn, I love Christopher Reeve so much. Can I REALLY declare David Corenswet the best?
He’s definitely in the top two.
Spoilers begin after the graphic.
I’m going to go through this a character at a time, starting, of course, with David Corenswet as Clark Kent and Superman. Prior to this film, the only thing I’ve ever seen him in was Pearl, a violent slasher film in which he played a philandering movie projectionist – not exactly the sort of thing that automatically makes you think of Superman. (Thanks to Rachael Pearce for correcting me — I originally said Corenswet was in X, the film Pearl is a prequel to.) But from the first moment clips of this film started come out, he won me over. As Superman, he carries himself with strength and power, but not at the expense of his inherent humanity. He has moments as Superman where he feels weakened, and it never feels false. He expresses pain after being beaten by the Hammer of Boravia, moaning as his robots use solar rays to knit his broken bones. He crumbles in agony when exposed to Kryptonite. He takes punches during the climactic battle that you believe COULD kill him if they aren’t stopped. But far more importantly, he shows the kind of emotional vulnerability that we need in a role model. When public perception begins to go against him, his face shows the weight that comes with that. When Luthor murders an innocent man for the crime of believing in Superman, we see every ounce of the pain on Superman’s face.
And when he’s not doing that, he has a sweetness and a kindness to him. It’s no mistake that this movie goes out of its way to show us Superman saving lives even in the midst of chaos. When a kaiju is on a rampage, we see him protecting a little girl from a shockwave. He pauses in front of a series of shattered windows to make sure the people inside are okay. We even see him swoop down and rescue a squirrel – a moment that easily could have come across as silly, but in the context of the Superman we’re watching, feels perfectly in keeping with the kind of hero he is. His priority is life – all life – and he’ll not sacrifice a single one if he can help it.
Of the few faults I can find with this movie, most of them are in the category of wanting MORE. When it comes to Corenswet, I wish we had gotten a little more of him as Clark interacting with people who don’t know his dual identity. We get a few short scenes of him at the Planet office, scenes typically full of innuendo-laden conversation that only a fool would fail to pick up on (more on that later), but the rest of the time he’s either Superman or he’s around people who know his secret, such as Lois and his parents. In the few scenes where Corenswet puts on the glasses he’s so good at crafting his second identity that I wish we’d seen more of it.
I’d never watched anything with Rachel Brosnahan until I heard she’d been cast in this movie, at which point I decided to check out her TV series, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. By the end of the first episode, I was sold. Miriam Maisel is a force to be reckoned with in a time and place when women weren’t necessarily welcome, and the grit she showed in that series was exactly what I wanted in a Lois Lane. When this movie started, she carried all of that fire with her.
Brosnahan’s Lois Lane is tough and fearless, never backing down from anything except, perhaps, the potential of a relationship she doesn’t believe she’s capable of having. The full version of the interview scene (the one from the trailer) is perhaps the single best scene of Lois as a reporter in the entire canon of live-action Superman media. Despite the fact that she’s interviewing her (kinda) boyfriend and, even more impressively, Superman, she doesn’t blink for a second. She hammers him with the kind of questions a reporter should use in a situation like this, and when the inevitable conflict between Lois and Clark comes up as a result, it doesn’t feel forced. Clark is upset because to him it is SO OBVIOUS that he’s done the right thing, and it frustrates him that others don’t see it that way. Lois has a reporter’s point of view – more nuanced, less black and white, thus the two of them come to a verbal sparring match that serves their relationship well. When they eventually reconcile, it comes about because he realizes she was doing her job correctly, but at the same time, Lois can appreciate the fact that sometimes right is simply right, and understands why Clark did what he did.
Jimmy Olsen, as a character, has rarely been served well – and I don’t just mean in movies. Nothing against Marc McClure, who did his best in the 70s and 80s, but how many stories actually give Jimmy something to DO? Even when he had his own long-running comic book series in the Silver Age, the stories often involved him needing Superman’s help or doing something ridiculous that happened to work out in the end. Skyler Gisondo’s Jimmy, on the other hand, is funny and capable. He’s a legitimate reporter, and while he may not have the gravitas around the Planet office that Lois and Clark have, he’s good at what he does. There’s also a great running gag about Jimmy being, inexplicably, kind of a ladies’ man. We see several moments of girls checking him out and his desk is ornamented with photographs of him with women who, let’s be honest here, seem way out of his league. (No offense, Skyler Gisondo.) This joke gets a tremendous payoff when we find out that Eve Teschmacher, Lex Luthor’s girlfriend, is actually Jimmy’s EX and she wants him back.
Speaking of doing more with a character, let’s talk about Eve. Sara Sampaio plays Eve Teschmacher as a ditzy, selfie-obsessed product of a social media society. But the story completely redeems her when we learn that the avalanche of selfies she’s taken have been carefully done to capture evidence against Lex in the background – maps and charts that document his scheme and can be used to bring him down. The portrayal we get of the character fits well – she IS kind of ditzy and a little oblivious to the fact that Jimmy isn’t as into her as she is into him, but she is nowhere near as stupid as she pretends to be. That trope, of a character hiding their true intelligence until just the right moment, is one that I always enjoy, and Sampaio sells it hard.
Back to the Daily Planet for a minute – we also don’t get as much Perry White as I’d like, but from what we do see, Wendell Pierce nails the role. He’s got a sort of fatherly air to him, but also a dedication to doing his job. The best bit with him, though, comes right after the final battle, when Lois goes off to “interview” Superman. Perry just looks at Jimmy and asks “How long have they been hooking up?” I love the ambiguity of this scene and how it plays to the intelligence of the characters. Just before this, Perry was on a wild ride in the T-Craft with Lois and Jimmy, who broke the Luthor story. Then he brings along Cat Grant (the gossip columnist), Steve Lombard (the sports guy) and Ron Troupe (who I assume is a reporter but, as far as I can tell, never got an actual line in the movie). But at NO point does he look around and say “Where the hell is KENT?”
The only way this works is if you read that final scene the way I do: Jimmy and Perry not only know that Lois is hooking up with Superman, but they’ve figured out that Superman is Clark Kent. Hypno-glasses or not, they’re too smart not to have pieced it together. Plus, as we see elsewhere, this Clark is perhaps a little too loosey-goosey with guarding his secret – not only does he share it with Guy Gardner, of all people, but as I mentioned before, Lois and Clark keep having conversations that REALLY seem to hint at the fact that they’re hiding something. She may chastise him for not hiding his identity well enough, but if we’re being fair, she isn’t helping matters. If that is, in fact, what James Gunn intended, I love this shade for the characters. I love seeing them played to the height of their intelligence.
Let’s move on to the villain of the piece here: Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor. We’ve seen a lot of Lexes over the years, from Gene Hackman’s long-suffering rogue surrounded by incompetents to Jesse Eisenberg’s thinly-disguised Mark Zuckerberg impression. But this is the first Lex we’ve ever seen that I thought felt truly UNHINGED. He’s obsessed with Superman, as Lex Luthors often are, but Hoult’s interpretation takes it to the next level. Hoult’s Luthor is as petty and bitter as he is brilliant, his entire motivation boiling down to the fact that he cannot stand the fact that the world prefers Superman to him. To his credit, he’s not unaware: he knows perfectly well that he’s obsessed and bitter, but that doesn’t change anything. When his rage actually boils over, as it so often does, he can be legitimately frightening. He is, in fact, the perfect foil for Superman. Where Superman represents all of the goodness and nobility inherent in the human race – and, in fact, has specifically chosen to do so – Luthor is a perfect representative of all of our negative qualities: fear, anger, envy. I can only imagine how hard James Gunn must have been laughing when he wrote the scene in which we find out that the trolls who have been slamming Superman on social media are literally monkeys being mind-controlled by Luthor. It’s such a perfect picture of the people who live only to dispense hate online that you have to wonder if it’s even a fantasy.
Then there are the other heroes in this film. Edi Gathegi’s Mr. Terrific gets the most screen time, joining Lois in the rescue mission once Superman is caught in Luthor’s pocket dimension and fighting with Superman in Metropolis at the finale. He also comes across as the smartest (which is kind of his whole thing), most mature, and most responsible of the “Justice Gang.” He’s a leader and a man of conviction, although he does have a wry sense of humor and little patience for fools, which makes you wonder how he survives being on a team with Guy Gardner. Of all the gang, he’s the one I feel could most handily star in a movie of his own.
Speaking of Gardner, Nathan Fillion just KILLS it as our resident Green Lantern – funny, arrogant, and self-centered, but at the same time, absolutely fearless (which is one of the job requirements) and dedicated to doing what he thinks is right. It may not always be pretty, but Guy Gardner gets the job done. Isabela Merced’s Hawkgirl has the least to do out of the three of them, but even she manages to make a name for herself, showing just how tough she is and getting some really good moments, especially at the end.
Although not technically a member of the “Justice Gang” until the very end, I effusively loved Anthony Carrigan’s Metamorpho. Introduced in a sort of antagonistic role, with Lex having him make Kryptonite to torture Superman in his pocket dimension prison, it quickly becomes clear that he’s doing it against his will. Luthor has his son, and if bombarding the world’s greatest superhero with toxic radiation was the only way to keep MY kid safe from a psychopathic billionaire, I have to admit I’d probably do the same thing. But when Superman convinces him that there’s a way out, he turns very quickly and becomes a valuable ally. In the final fight on the Boravian front, he quickly proves his value and his worth, and becomes a character that you root for wholeheartedly.
Krypto?
Krypto is a very good boy.
The last thing I want to talk about is the world that Gunn is building. He is quite adamant that each DCU project be able to stand on its own, and this movie absolutely does that, but at the same time he’s laid enough seeds to have fans farming for months. For example, the opening narration tells us that in this universe, metahumans have been known to exist for 300 years. That’s a REALLY specific number. In most iterations of DC Comics, there have been larger-than-life figures throughout history: the Viking Prince, the Shining Knight, western heroes like Jonah Hex and so forth. But the modern metahuman usually doesn’t become a thing until roughly the World War II era. So why 300 years ago? Did something specific happen at that point that kicked off metahumans on the DCU Earth? Is it when the Starheart fell to Earth, does it have something to do with Nabu or the wizard Shazam? There isn’t nearly enough information to come up with an informed theory, but that’s not about to stop us from guessing.
We also get enough Easter Eggs to make me itch for the Blu-Ray release of this movie so I can pause it and peruse certain moments. The scene in the Hall of Justice, for example, has a mural of what appears to be the Justice Society of America in the background. I noticed Wildcat specifically, but I need to go back and see who else made the cut. I also feel like a careful examination of the people in the cells of Lex Luthor’s pocket prison will reveal certain things about who (or what) exists in this world.
The final scene has two wonderful moments – one is a quick cameo by Supergirl (Milly Alcock) which is a BLATANT set-up for her own movie, especially if you’ve read Woman of Tomorrow. The second part is a lovely character moment for Clark. Early in the movie, when his robots healed him, they showed him the recorded message from Jor-El and Lara to “soothe” him. In the end, having learned that his Kryptonian parents weren’t quite who he thought they were and understanding that he has chosen to be human, he instead is soothed by the memories of his life with Jonathan and Martha Kent.
The scene that made me most emotional in the entire film is the one where Pruitt Taylor Vance as Jonathan tells Clark that it’s his choices that make a person who he is, and then breaks down telling his son how proud he is of him. This hit me right in the Dad Place (that’d be the heart), and the fact that my own seven-year-old boy was sitting in the chair next to me no doubt was a contributing factor to how I had to scramble to see if there were any napkins left from the popcorn. People will want to pick apart this movie and apply their own messages and agenda to it, which is a stupid, tiresome pastime I never have any patience for. Here’s the message I took from it, and I don’t think this one requires any mental gymnastics to make it fit:
You are who you choose to be.
Superman is the best of us, not because of his powers and not because of what he CAN do. He’s the best because he chooses to do good. He’s a hero because he wants to help people. And this movie shows time and again how he inspires others to do the same, from the children raising flags on the battlefield to the way Guy and Hawkgirl change their minds and join in the final fight – and perhaps most importantly, in the form of a food truck vendor who spends his life trying to protect his hero. Superman raises up ordinary people, and if Lex could get out of his own damned head, he could do the same.
It’s a message we all could stand to remember.
You know, I’m worried I might have missed something. I think I need to see this movie again.
Blake M. Petit is a writer, teacher, and dad from Ama, Louisiana. His most recent writing project is the superhero adventure series Other People’s Heroes: Little Stars, volume one of which is now available on Amazon. You can subscribe to his newsletter by clicking right here. You can join in the Kryptonian Konversation every day in the Year of Superman Facebook Group!
Blake M. Petit 
