Posted in: Kaitlyn Booth, Movies, Review, Supergirl, Warner Bros | Tagged: superman

Superman Review: A Lot to Take in But the Performances Make it Work

Superman is one of the big pieces of the new foundation for this version of the DC Universe, and while it's not a perfect film, it's sturdy enough.

Superman is trying to do way too much in terms of story and worldbuilding, but the performances and the characters themselves can keep everything steady and enjoyable.

Director: James Gunn
Summary: 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 as old-fashioned.

Superman Skips The Origin Story, But Makes Up For It Everywhere Else

Some stories have been told so many times that you know them even if you've never seen a single frame of a movie or read a page in a comic book. This version of shared cultural osmosis is almost impossible to escape if you engage with pop culture on any level. Superman is one of those characters, and whether you've seen a movie, a show, or read a comic book, you know who Superman is, and you probably know his origin story.

This new version of the character appearing on screen, in a film simply titled Superman, is the next major piece of the new foundation that this new DC Universe is building on. Everyone involved was presented with an interesting angle; we don't really need to see Superman's origin story, but we do need to establish this new DC Universe. What we got out of it is a movie trying to do so much to the detriment of character arcs, interpersonal relationships, and narrative cohesion.

This is about as close to beginning in medias res as Superman could possibly start, and it doesn't waste too much time setting anything up. There is a small amount of text detailing some major events leading up to what is happening right now, and that is as much backstory as we're getting. This is a film focused very much on the now and the future, not the past, because we've seen the past so many times before.

However, it means that a lot is going on, and for so many things we just need to accept at face value and hope that the film will take the time to explain them. Lex already hates Superman, there is a version of the Justice League Gang running around, the dynamic between everyone at the Daily Planet is there, and we're dropped right into it. It's a lot to take in, and when you don't have the build-up that comes from seeing the foundation of relationships, you have to work twice as hard to make it all believable.

The cast does a lot of the heavy lifting to fill in all of the cracks and nuances that make these characters feel like real people with lives we are invested in. The little moments between Lois and Clark when he is having a crisis, hearing and seeing all of the interactions between the Daily Planet crew, how the Justice League Gang plays off of each other in different situations, and even how Lex interacts with his subordinates are the things that make good movies great.

The problem is that there is so much Plot and everything else going on that there are so few of these moments. You need these little interactions and emotional beats to tie together the big set pieces of the story. The cast is doing the absolute best they can with the .05 seconds they are given to fill in all of that nuance, it makes the breakneck speed of the film feel even faster as we have little time to feel invested in anything because we're in a big rush to move on to the next thing. The movie tries to use the first act to do those moments, but there are so many moving pieces to set up that nothing is given any room to breathe, save for the interview scene with Lois and Clark. It makes for a rough beginning as Superman tries to meander its way back to being a Superman movie and not a very pretty teaser reel for what's coming.

An Excellent Cast Can Save A Mediocre Movie

Cast-wise, there really isn't a weak link among them, and everyone absolutely nailed it. David Corenswet perfectly captures that optimism and faith in human goodness that the previous big-screen version of this character decided to ignore. Superman is an optimist at the end of the day, and that's why his dynamic with Lois works so well; she's a realist and more pessimistic. She tries to rein in his expectations of people while he reminds her that good people are out there. Rachel Brosnahan and Corenswet play off of each other really well, with the "interview" between them being one of those quiet, character moments the film could use more of. The rest of the Justice League Gang are all fun, and while we don't see a ton of them, Edi Gathegi is the standout performance by far.

On the villain side, Nicholas Hoult crashes into this movie with all the force of a hurricane and doesn't let up for a single second. Hoult has been on fire with every single film he's in recently, but he's fantastic as Lex, and we really see what obsession can lead to when you have limitless money and very few morals. When he starts ranting in a full-blown villain monologue, you're not rolling your eyes, you're captivated, and you can't look away. María Gabriela de Faría as The Engineer is neat to watch, and she is very fun in the action scenes. The character is pretty one-note at this point in the universe, but it's clear she will be a lot of fun to explore later on.

We already knew that James Gunn knows how to direct some excellent-looking action scenes, even more so when he gets to lean into some comic book weirdness, and that's the case again here. It can be hard to do action scenes with characters that can fly because it becomes that much harder to keep track of where everyone is. Much like the story, a lot is going on in these action scenes, but Gunn does a pretty good job of making sure we know where Superman and whatever he is fighting are at any given time relative (more or less) to the buildings surrounding him. Some scenes work better than others. At the beginning(ish) of the third act, there is one specifically that is so busy it's hard to keep track of anyone or anything. However, considering the visuals, that seems more like a deliberate choice rather than user error.

Superman is one of the big pieces of the new foundation for this version of the DC Universe, and while it's not a perfect film, it's sturdy enough. When one of your main criticisms is that "there is too much movie in this movie," that's not really a terrible thing. It lays every single card and then some on the table so we know what to expect going forward from this corner of this world. It's not trying to be anything other than an adaptation of iconic source material that has always had something to say.

When Man of Steel was released in 2013, it was very clear by the time the credits rolled that if this was the foundation of the new DC Universe, they were building on a fundamentally broken foundation, and it was inevitable that everything would fall apart eventually. Superman has some cracks and needs some work, but it's a solid enough foundation to build on, even if it doesn't always come together cohesively.

Superman

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Review by Kaitlyn Booth

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7/10

Superman is trying to do way too much in terms of story and worldbuilding, but the performances and the characters themselves can keep everything steady and enjoyable.

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