superman was just ok, but that's all it needed to be

are we so back?

film: superman (2025)

director: james gunn

letterboxd grade: ★★★½

This review contains spoilers about Avengers: Endgame and Superman (2025)

INTRODUCTION

Superhero Fatigue and The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU)

For me, the superhero fatigue set in for good sometime after Avengers: Endgame.

I remember being drunk as hell, front row with 3D glasses on. I felt like I was in the movie for real — heroes were dying, crumbling to dust all around me, and the remaining ones were doing a heist through time.

Eighty different IPs were all running at each other — Iron Man, Black Panther, Ant-Man, Thor — flashes of neon-blue space beams were blinding me, hundreds of portals were opening up. It was absolute bedlam and madness. Fun, but ultimately overwhelming.

I never knew if it was the seating, the beer, or the CGI nightmare unfolding on screen that made it such a hypnotic experience — but the common denominator was being in a movie theater.

Marvel films really peaked during that era. Then COVID hit, and it kind of burst the bubble that the whole movie-going culture was built around. As I just said, the last Marvel movie I found entertaining was literally called Endgame. It’s over.

What came after could never be more exciting than that moment where every single hero ever clashed. That’s where I personally checked out.

Some people say WandaVision was good. Others are really into that new Thunderbolts movie, which I guess is like a Suicide Squad competitor or something.

Idk — I literally could not care less about anything in that realm anymore, to be honest.

The Failure of the DC Cinematic Universe (DCU)

For a while, Marvel was kind of the only viable option when it came to consistent, quality superhero films.

You see, DC had been struggling the entire time Marvel was going back-to-back-to-back with absolute hits. All the Avengers films, Black Panther, Guardians of the Galaxy, Spider-Man — even their B and C plots like Deadpool and Doctor Strange were crushing it. Meanwhile, DC tried and failed to airfry the MCU’s nachos with the DCU.

It wasn’t a complete commercial failure, all things considered, but god — were all of those movies dog shit. I mean, we all fondly remember when we saw Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, don’t we? Or Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom? Oh, you didn’t see those ones? Well, neither did anyone.

Except me — for 45 minutes each, behind different people on two different JetBlue flights.

I did see both Wonder Woman films. They were two of the most boring and predictable embarrassments I’ve ever had the displeasure of watching. Everyone hyped the shit out of the first one like a crypto coin, only for it to be rug-pulled by its sequel — which, to me, is equally as bad, but at least it was funny.

However, something slowly began to change with DC. The broey, God-allegory porn of the Zack Snyder-led films like Justice League started to get phased out. Then The Flash dropped and caused one of the biggest PR shitstorms of all time, thanks to its lead — Ezra Miller — being in headlines for publicly assaulting women at Hawaiian karaoke nights and allegedly endangering mothers and children.

DC became almost a complete laughing stock... until The Batman by Matt Reeves really started to shift the public conversation.

It was gritty and dark, leaning back into the austere tone of The Dark Knight trilogy. Yet it humanized even more than those films — showing the toll of staying up all night fighting crime. He wasn’t the spry, suave businessman Bruce Wayne from the old movies. He was this incredibly antisocial and exhausted heir to a crumbling legacy. It was cool to see them actually try something new.

Then James Gunn’s Suicide Squad remake dropped — a little awkward and fumbly, sure, but still fun and thrilling. For the first time in a long time, I was watching superhero movies that felt more like noirs or gritty action films.

Even Joker 2, for how much of a misfire it was, was at least trying — like it wanted to be judged as something more than just “Generic Marvel Slop #2314234.”

So when I saw that the new Superman was getting rave reviews, I put on my first pair of 3D glasses in over seven years and gave it a watch.

THE REVIEW

James Gunn’s Superman was — hmm. I have a lot of thoughts.

Like his take on Suicide Squad, it was incredibly soy at certain points. I have to get that out of the way first. There’s still that stink of Joss Whedon’s colorful, soy-ified overcorrection to Justice League that lingers in the air over there. There are way too many scenes in this movie that are just colorful for no goddamn reason. And some of that “he’s right behind me… isn’t he?” ass humor from Whedon’s style is definitely still around — characters always need to be doing quippy soy banter. They are terrified of going back to the seriousness of the Snyderverse.

BUT… it’s way less obnoxious than in Justice League or even Suicide Squad. It’s starting to become tasteful and uniquely stylized in its own way, which I love.

Some of the monsters — and even the stuff people text to each other in the film — have this weird uncanny quality about them. One of the monsters looked like a round-headed version of the chicken jockey from the nightmare fuel that was The Minecraft Movie. Things just aren’t completely right aesthetically. Or practically. In one scene, Superman is saving everyone from children to squirrels from a monster as big as a skyscraper in a densely populated city. That thing would kill so many people just as collateral damage. Again, they are so afraid of having a moment like in Man of Steel, where Superman “saves the city” and so many people die as a result. They’re still calibrating a few things. It’s an awkward movie on the fringes.

BUT… other than that, it’s pretty fire.
David Corenswet is believable as a young, naive Superman. Henry Cavill obviously looked the part way more, but this dude just feels better — more hungry for it, in my opinion.

Even better is Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor. Holy shit, man — this dude played the hater of all haters to a T. He cloned Superman and created a negative version of him that learned every single one of his moves to fight against him. He executed the halal cart guy that Superman was casual friends with — right in front of him. He screamed at the top of his lungs like Dan Hentschel.

He calmly and manipulatively gaslit him one inch away from his face. This guy was a fucking hater. It was awesome to watch — they’re great foils for each other. It’s like if Plankton and SpongeBob were the ones competing for power and relevance.

The plot was crazy and different, taking some notes from The Boys to plug these heroes and villains into our current geopolitical conflicts and see how they’d handle them. The one country invading the other in the film is a 1:1 comparison to Israel-Palestine — it doesn’t even try to hide it.

Of course, Based Superman is able to stop Israel from invading Palestine without anyone dying. He refuses to be used as a weapon by any country. And of course, hating-ass clout-shark Lex Luthor goes full Cartman mode, teaming with Israel to turn Palestine into “Luthor Land” or whatever bro was going to call it. Eventually, because of his perceived insolence, Superman is literally black-bagged by ICE and taken to an unknown location. Like, I cannot believe they decided to go in this direction — it’s not even subtle. That shit was cool to me. I respected them for taking that risk.

Superman was also way more vulnerable than in other films I’ve seen. He would break bones and collapse different organs, having to be healed. He got his ass beat one too many times — I wanted bro to stand up for himself. It definitely reminded me of The Batman, except it felt like he was even less confident. Even on an interpersonal level, he was getting fucked up. He got canceled by like r/SupermanSnark, which was head-moderated by Lex Luthor. Bro literally had humanist and misogynistic rhetoric from his parents leaked by his arch-enemy and it fucked him up. Superman got canceled. I can’t believe that. It was just a really fresh and interesting direction.

The most important thing to me was that this movie appealed to all ages. I could imagine being eight years old, knowing nothing about Israel-Palestine or Nicholas Hoult, and still having fun with this. I could see my younger self buying action figures of the characters after seeing it because I want the excitement to continue at home and with my friends. I saw it in 3D — blades were flying at me, his dog Krypto was super cute and unruly right next to me. I could imagine being hyped on a field trip and going to see this. Shrek was like that. The original Spider-Man was like that.

While I think I need The Dark Knight and The Batman to be serious and dark, Superman and the rest of them should be kind of silly. I don’t need Industrial-Techno Green Lantern or Bushwick Greyscale Aquaman. It was great that this movie was a bit clunky, cheesy, and that it was just okay. All it needed to do was set the new tone — that this era of DC is going to take itself seriously, but ultimately be a glorified theme park ride. It had to be watchable, well-structured, and show us a glimpse of this new world. And even though I think it had a lot of flaws, I ultimately came away really having a lot of fun with it.

Let’s hope the next few DC movies do as okay of a job as this one. Hell, maybe they’ll be even better.