Superman review: 'still soars'
Rather than get bogged down in tedious world-building, James Gunn’s new Superman film drops us straight into the action, writes Alistair Harkness
Superman (12A) ★★★★☆
“Faster than a speeding bullet” ran the one of the taglines for Superman in the character’s early days and writer/director/producer James Gunn sticks to that mantra with this fast-moving cinematic reboot. The ninth movie featuring the OG superhero doesn’t bother retelling the origins story or running through the Clark Kent/Lois Lane meet-cute; nor does it try to maintain continuity with the Christopher Reeve films (à la Superman Returns) or reinvent the character for fans of the darker, grittier Batman movies (as Zack Snyder did with the underrated Henry Cavill movies). Instead, like an old school Bond film introducing a new 007, it drops us into the action and assumes we’re on board enough to go with the flow instead of spending the first hour tediously building out the world that this particular iteration is going to exist in.
Indeed, a few lines of amusing explanatory text is all the Guardians of the Galaxy director needs to bring newcomers up-to-speed on Superman’s whole Christlike arrival on Earth before cutting straight to Superman (entertainingly played by David Corenswet) getting his ass kicked by some form of super-powered goon under the control of arch nemesis Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult). Down but not out, Superman soon finds his world falling apart as his nobly intentioned intervention in the imperialistic aggressions of a fictionalised Eastern European nation leads to a backlash in which his own agenda is called into question by a public a little too susceptible to Luthor’s hate-spewing social media empire.
It’s a fun way to start, party because we’re also introduced here to Superman’s scene-steeling dog Krypto, partly because this opening lets Gunn play around with the mythology in intriguing ways. Seeding things for later in the movie, he avoids the usual groaning, fan-service callbacks that franchise kickers always layer in while also interrogating the character’s saviour complex in sly style, boosting the film’s emotional wallop as Superman is forced to confront his own insecurities about who he is and where he came from.
Gunn ― who’s been deconstructing superhero archetypes for much of his career and is overseeing all future DC superhero movies ― does all this in the most action-packed way possible, which can, admittedly, make things feel little over-stuffed. Other superheroes (among them the Green Lantern, played by Nathan Fillion) are dropped in with nary an introduction and there’s a whole sci-fi subplot involving “pocket universes” that’s pretty loopy and closer to the sprawling sci-fi intricacies of the comics than casual blockbuster fans will perhaps appreciate.
But there’s also real joy in the poppy way Gunn reconnects us to the simple pleasures of the character. Whether it’s Superman’s sparky relationship with Lois Lane (the excellent Rachel Brosnahan) or the hair-prickling use of the original John Williams score, Superman still soars.
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