I'm a punk rocker yes I am

Superman - Film review - 2025

What else can I say but I loved this one. Historically I am not a James Gunn fan. I think Guardians 1 is kinda low hanging fruit, his Suicide Squad is a great Sunday hangover movie, and I liked Peacemaker more than I thought I would. Yet, I’ve never enjoyed Gunn’s needle drops of catalogue music, and I can’t say his juvenile humor has ever really been my thing - however MF understands comic books, lore and the continuity better than probably any director ever. How else do you take a character like Yondu in Guardians of the Galaxy and make people love him or in this film’s case Mr Terrific, who really only took flight in Geoff John’s Justice Society of America (JSA) of the early 00’s, and fold him into the debut movie for THE superhero in a way that works, is fun and gives an actor a room to breathe life into a fringe superhero? Holy fuck the amount of characters that are on display in this flick is wild. The Green Lantern, Guy Gardner, is the exact egotistical smug dickhead he is in the comics, Mr. Terrific is exactly that, Hawkgirl seems primed to Cameo in everything and Metamorpho is primed as this hanging plot thread. Jimmy Olsen, Superman’s best friend, has a Jimmy Olsen Arc - In the 60’s and 70’s Jimmy even had his own series where he and his detective Newsboys would uncover all sorts of plots before eventually being bailed out by Superman. Lois Lane not only does the Lois Lane thing; she leads the Daily Planet staff through a silver age wacky adventure side quest on a spaceship? Metamorpho is introduced with a sliver of backstory that creates an action set piece maguffin? This movie is a dense fruitcake of delights and somehow, Superman being as much maligned as fruitcake, it all just fucking works. It feels like a combination of Max Fleischer's Superman, the Bruce Timm Era animated series, the New 52 Superman crossed with Gunn’s cinematic ability to make a universe feel shared without being trite or even too cute.

******Spoilery******

The pacing and rate of the movie is so impressive. To start in media res. To not waste the audience’s time and money by using the footage you showed in the trailer in the opening minutes of the movie. How the fuck did it managed to sneak in the perfect parallel to the USA’s ongoing war crimes across the globe is staggering - Gunn clearly felt all this long before it was the news we’re living and it’s so damn prescient right now - and Superman is the best character possible to align how we can all be within this - just be good. I don’t feel like there’s any point in getting into the performances, everyone nails it. I normally fucking hate it when the “big bad” or heavy of the film is the exact same as the main character, a clone or their equal or something, but somehow this does that without it sucking. Still would never ever ever ever ever ever do that if someone gave me a superhero movie to make. Jesus fucking christ Logan was a perfect movie except for that. I digress.

Superman rules. Gunn did it in the best way possible for opening up a new cinematic universe type experience. The cameos helped. The supporting cast killed it. But somehow, despite all the glut and requirements to make a mass media property that appealed to everyone James Gunn did it. He did what I wrote about a while back and made a Superman that’s for everyone. Sure there’s some cursing, and I don’t know if you can top Superman II, but the whole ethos and perspective of this Superman made me feel good in a way that few things have these days. It made me feel like I believed a man could could not only fly, but be the best guy possible.

The whole movie is an anthesis to Snyder’s Superman that was like yo you gotta kill this guy there’s no other choice - and in Gunn’s Superman it’s more No one dies if I can help it…even the bad guys. And that’s Superman.

Lois: "You think everything and everyone is beautiful"

Superman: "Maybe that’s the real punk rock."