Superman (2025)
Most recent Superman movie directed by James Gunn, fresh off of the Guardians of the Galaxy series and The Suicide Squad (not to be confused with Suicide Squad) and... I want to say "reboot of DC's cinematic universe" but this has an appearance of a character and actor from The Suicide Squad which in turn features characters from the original Suicide Squad, which in turn has one who was also in Justice League and... listen, it's very decidedly not in the same continuity as the Man of Steel - Batman versus Superman - Justice League trilogy, don't take it too seriously, Gunn certainly didn't.
Listen, I'm gonna keep the complaining about how this is not like my Snyder movies to a minimum because I'm well aware that absolutely no one wants to read that, so I'm going to draw comparisons only where it explicitly invites them. That said, I also can't in good conscience completely ignore them and treat it as a blank slate for reasons will become apparent throughout this write-up.
So, Superman '25 follows it's titular character, played by David Corenswet, at a stage of his career farther along then the previous movies ever got. He has an ice fortress with funny robot servants and a dog and a girlfriend and some rapport with the other superheroes in his world. Evil businessman Lex Luthor, played by Nicholas Hoult, wants to take him down by framing him as a hostile alien invader.
There's something to be said about James Gunn in that he's a considerably more talented and more ambitious director than the likes of Joss Whedon and Jon Favreau and the Russo Brothers and whoever else belongs in the list of usual suspects of franchise film making. His exploitation movie background meaning his origins are much closer to the likes of Sam Raimi and Peter Jackson than that of many of his peers who came straight from television and in terms of attitude, never really left it. Which makes it all the more regrettable that I find it difficult not to think of him as a sellout. And you are very well in your right to ask why I don't think of the aforementioned Peter Jackson and Sam Raimi that way, which is mostly because I think they peaked much higher than he ever did. Like, Raimi's and Jackson's first forays into franchise film making were the 00's Spider-Man trilogy and the fucking Lord of the Rings trilogy, Gunn's were... the live action Scooby Doo movies. Not to be passive aggressive or anything, I don't think he's a poor film maker but he's clearly a guy who, when push comes to shove, plays ball with the studio and usually lets it win. There's something to be said about the fact that after Disney tried to fire him from his position as the Guardians of the Galaxy director for what were clearly political reasons, he went back to work with them again.
But let's talk about the actual movie. Superman '25 is quite weird. Gunn is a comedy director so it should come as no surprise that the movie is, indeed, a comedy. It's portrayal of the larger DC universe is actually quite reminiscent of works like The Venture Brothers or The Tick, kind of a quirky, screwball take on 50's and 60's comic book writing and how intrinsically funny it is whenever you try to apply real world logic to it. Which makes for an interesting contrast to Snyder's trilogy, which went to great lengths to play this setting and these characters as serious urban fantasy and seemlessly integrate them into a world very similar akd yet very different to our own.
And that, you see brings us to why I can't, in good conscience, just ignore Snyder's trilogy when talking about this movie: Despite their radical differences in tone and style, Superman '25 has a lot of the same things on its mind as those movies, particularly Batman v Superman, did. Superman '25 is a decidedly political work. It does go over so many of the same basic themes as that movie did that it has surely got to be intentional. Superman as an illegal immigrant, the ethics of unilateral intervention in international affairs, Lex Luthor reimagined as a tech oligarch with government contracts, the role of the media in determining the perception of public figures, except its modus operandi is maniacal and silly rather than solemn and operatic.
In some ways Superman feels like an adaptation of Batman v Superman by a less mature director for a less mature audience and a prudent metaphor for the old aphorism of "Everything happens twice, first as a tragedy, then as a farce." but, mind, It's not that there's anything wrong with making a farce, necessarily.
My feelings towards Superman '25 are actually pretty mixed. It walks a thin line between, frankly, shitposting its way through a plot that is clearly a very deliberate attempt to include as many campy comic book cliche's as it can and avoiding anything that could possibly be confused for high drama, making us actually care about its main characters and producing something resembling pertinent satire that it occasionally feels almost experimental. It doesn't exactly land most of the time but when it did I was genuinely getting into it.
Let me put it this way: there were moments when Superman '25 felt like an updated version of Southland Tales in the way it juxtaposes topical political commentary, vulgar low brow comedy and casual genre surrealism and these were the moments when I actually kinda fucked with it. There are some bits in this that are so confidently idiotic that I couldn't help but admire them. The movie doesn't exactly keep that up for its entire runtime, of course. It's very much a patchwork of stuff it's throwing against the wall and I don't think as much of it sticks as doesn't. Very close to the beginning there is, honestly, one of the most tedious exposition dumps I've had to listen to in a long time (and I've been playing two different Hideo Kojima games recently) and I was bracing myself for a very painful two hours and while the entire movie thankfully wasn't like that, the dialogue had a tendency to fluctuate between extremely awkward banter and extremely awkward exposition.
While Superman '25 does have a lot of ideas and only some of it really feels like it's paid off well. On account of its decision to jump in at the deep end with its world building it presents a setting where we are expected to just take the presence of superheroes as part of daily life for granted. Superheroes who have corporate sponsorships and government deals with the implication being that Superman is the only one keeping it real, man, which is kind of a fun idea it pursues for all of about five minutes. I know some people consider that sort of thing a spoiler so I'm not gonna give away what characters show up in supporting roles and cameo's but it seems basically tailor made so that fans can have heated discussions about who stole the show and have their own spin-off. I found most of them pretty one note. Not to give away who he's playing or anything but Nathan Fillion shows up, doing his Bruce Campbell corny pompous macho action hero shtick and it was... mildly amusing.
It's hard to talk about Superman '25 as a whole because there are so many weird little quirks to it, some stupid, some fun, some annoying, some just confusing. Some are definitely James Gunn trademarks. There's a Kaiju (even referred to as such). There's a funny animal character. There are women in gratuitously revealing outfits. Some aren't. There's a secondary villain who's literally just an amalgamation of Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu whose payoff felt weirdly reminiscent of Michael Bay's Netflix exclusive 6 Underground. It has a rather odd, retrofuturistic visual style, very slick, very clean, very saturated colours. There's also just how... modular the story feels. It's like there are four separate arcs in there that don't actually feel all that seamless and more than anything made me feel like I'm watching Shin Ultraman all over again. God. Somewhere along the line I've just entered a "Most obscure reference" competition with myself, haven't I?
All things considered, I'm not sure where I land on with this. I want to give it some credit for how weird it's willing to get but then I remember some of the dialogue and I cringe. I didn't have a miserable time watching it or anything, in fact I think overall I had some fun but I'm very hesitant to actually call it good, y'know. It's a better version of what it is than it could have been, I guess. I don't usually pit a lot of thought into my star ratings on here, because they're more of an afterthought, but very rarely have I ever been so back and forth about that half star that makes the difference between "whatever" and "fine". I'm a nice guy so I guess I'm not gonna hold on to it but I don't feel particularly confident about it. Let me be real, when Superman '25 is stupid, it's really stupid and when it's annoying, it's really annoying. If you treat it as a follow-up to what are probably some of the most artistic superhero movies ever made, it's a joke. And I wouldn't even be doing it if it wasn't lifting so many of its themes directly from them. But what can I say? I have a a soft spot for hyperactive messy nonsense.
