After all the speculation, debate, pretending not to care, drawing of battle lines, and online fights or circle jerks, depending on your mileage, Superman is here, and the next few days are gonna be interesting online.
This thing is causing such a digital kerfuffle we’re likely going to be running more reviews of this, as Outposters and LMO writers alike all traipse off to the theater to make up their own minds. I think I am going tomorrow afternoon.
Outposters have beaten us to it, as we know of at least two who have already seen it. One of those is long, long, long time Outposter Poopy Pants. You remember him? Most recently he didn’t much like Jurassic World: Rebirth. He just spent a couple of hours in the theater again, and this is what he thought…
Superman
I’m a Bumfucker, yes I am. Or was it; I’m a Buttfucker, yes I am? It was one or the other – that’s the song they play over the credits, and now it’s in my bloodstream. I’ve been humming it non-stop for a few hours. I tried to Google it, but what came up was definitely not the song!
Universal logo. Wait, what? If I know anything, DC is Warner Bros. Did I miss a merger? Did Disney pass?
Superman and Superman II were my first movies. I was one of those kids who jumped off the roof with a red towel around my neck. Actually, I was the kid who jumped off a two-story roof with a towel around my neck and my little baby sister under my arm. I remember her crying, and then no noise came out. I was fine. I landed on her.
Me and Superman were tight. I grew up on a farm that looked just like the Kents’ farm, just a couple of hours from the big city. I remember trips to the city, sitting in the back seat scanning for Superman in the sky. I also remember passing the docks and seeing a half-destroyed pier jetty. I was pretty sure Jaws did that. My childhood brain had lore.
Fast-forward through a couple of shitty sequels and we finally got Superman Returns. A reboot-sequel about Superman and Lois having real-world breakup issues, complete with a bastard child. Shit, if I wanted that, I’d go back outside and live my own life. Strangely enough, this film was shot in the town I grew up in and the city I used to visit. Now I’m sitting in a theatre in New York watching this one. I’ve got my own multiverse weirdness going on.
Even weirder, years later, I remember walking out of Man of Steel thinking:
“I’ll wait for the next reboot.”
And holy shit, just a decade later, I’m in the exact same theatre, possibly the same seat, watching that next reboot. It’s all just kind of… wow, isn’t it?
Even as a kid, there was an earnest difference between Superman the movie and Superman the cartoon. The cartoon had giant monsters. The movies didn’t stoop to that patronizing shit. Not today’s Superman, however!
He’s got skyscraper-sized monsters attacking Earth, and it’s just as ambiguous as any late 70’s cartoon. Where are they from? Who cares? The fight’s on. And when Superman head-stomps that thing? That was great. I laughed.
This movie got me thinking about the infinite universe… how there are always going to be versions of everything happening very similarly to everything else, everywhere. That fucks with my head a little, but hey, kudos for not being Jurassic World.
So it turns out this is the same universe as Dude, Where’s My Car?
“There’s a party in the Crab Nebula you can come to.”
Also, did you know AI is just an army of monkeys on computers inside a tear in the universe? I fucking knew it!
The music. You’ve seen the trailer, right? Good, because that’s the theme they play over and over and fucking over! Either play the theme or don’t, because this isn’t the theme, it’s an interruption. Every time Superman shows up, cue trailer music. There’s actually a decent score in here, but it keeps reverting back to that same damn YouTube video “Epic Superman Cover”.
Luthor’s plan? Gold – Fuck with Superman – I LOVE IT. That’s Villainy 101. And it works. The guy playing Luthor? Looks the part but sounds like he’s been huffing helium through a sock puppet. I kept expecting him to go “Yayyy!” like Kermit.
I thought from the trailers he’d be in the Luthor suit, but nope, turns out he’s just remote-controlling it like Kirk on the Enterprise.
“Sulu, punch him this way. Chekov, kick him in the balls. Uhura, take your shirt off.”
He punches Superman so hard, he ricochets away at an impossible speed and crashes into the Fortress of Solitude. Total fluke. Now they’re racing to get there before he takes off, hoping to finally discover his hideout. But then, he leaves. And someone says:
“Follow the direction he came from!”
Which, somehow, means heading the same way they were already going. That’s about as dumb as dinosaurs migrating to the equator, only to end up on a secret island making mutant dinosaurs—also located in the equator. The correlations just aren’t correlating.
Destroy the fortress and all the robots in it? Don’t worry, they’ll all be ok. If I smoke a pipe and a little nug of bud gets sucked into my lungs, I’ll hammer-cough it out like a man. It’s not pleasant, but it happens. Superman doesn’t have that ability. Anything gets in those lungs, he’s toast. Which is surprising, because this is the same guy who then uses his breath to blast himself out of a BLACK HOLE.
Superman’s biggest fight though, is with the woke liberals, and he is in way over his head. Social media ain’t kind, and he’s forced to delete over a thousand texts mentioning CP. He denies even being on social media, but people remember this stuff, you creep.
Lois truly loves him, berating the hell out of him for stopping a war. Clearly, he sides with the enemy and is anti-something. The country looks like a quarry and it’s definitely not based on any real-world location. One country sounded like Bolivia or Bolvaria, and the other one? I couldn’t even read it on the subtitle. Jululhulu? You’re just making noises now. It was Ju-something.
Clark is always interviewing Superman, so it’s only a matter of time before people put the two together. So Lois suggests she interview him, because both of them doing it will totally throw off suspiscion. Lois knows Clark is Superman here, by the way. Honestly, at one point, I thought everyone at the Daily Planet knew. Later, there’s a whole thing about his “special” glasses and how they don’t work.
It’s weird, but whatever. Honestly, half the exposition in this movie sounds like it would have made a better movie.
Superman whines a LOT. This is clearly how his Earth parents remember him. It’s John Hughes’ Superman.
Here’s a moral dilemma. You’re the only one of your kind on another planet. Might be a good idea to spread your seed and rebuild the population, right? Sure, it sounds fine when your Kryptonian parents leave it in their will as a dying wish, but it sounds way worse in English when you say it out loud.
So instead of flying somewhere quiet to have a sulk, Superman walks through an angry mob and pouts in the lobby of a building. Everyone outside is looking in, calling him a pervert in a pervert costume. None of it looks comfortable, especially the costume.
Then Green Lantern shows up for a word. Apparently, one of the Green Lanterns’ jobs is to stop Metas from repopulating human worlds. How the hell do you even police that?
As for the rest of the film, it was fine. Not exactly profound, but I didn’t hate it. I’m not sure this is the version of the DC universe I want to keep watching, but they’ve clearly set it up for more. So I guess this is the road we’re on.
I stayed for the post-credits stinger… spoiler: it’s the Warner Bros. logo.
2.5 super fists out of 5
