You might know, but there is a new Superman movie out. If you don’t know, I’m guessing you live in a cave, eat moss and have a neighbour who’s a goat. The marketing machine for Superman has been in overdrive for the past few months.
I wasn’t all that bothered about seeing it at the cinema; I have superhero fatigue. I wasn’t that interested in a new Superman, especially since Henry Cavill was so good in the role.
We know that James Gunn had to reboot the DCU, and he didn’t trust anyone to write and direct. This was a big problem with the movie, but I will come back to that.
This streaming review will go into spoilers, but then, like me, you probably know the story already. In fact, I’m not going to go too much into the story, but there will be mentions.
The Cast
First of all, let’s talk about the cast. David Corenswet takes over as the Man of Steel, and he is very good. He’s very likeable, well-meaning, and you believe in him as Superman. He’s very good at Clark as well, until he spends time with Lois.
Lois is played by Rachel Brosnahan, and she again is very good. However, it’s the script that lets Brosnahan and Corenswet down. We learn that Clark and Lois are in a relationship. She has the idea of interviewing Superman, which Clark does all the time.
This turns into a political discussion that was at the same level as The Phantom Menace. I want to be entertained, not listen to the politics of two made-up countries. The initial conversation makes Superman look weak and makes Lois look annoying. In fact, I got the impression Lois seems to hate Superman.
I also have to mention Jimmy Olson, played by Skyler Gisondo. Mild spoilers, but Jimmy has an ‘inside man’ about Lex’s plans. It turns out it’s Lex’s hot girlfriend, Miss Teschmacher, played by Sara Sampaio.
She says she has all the info Jimmy will need to bring down Lex. She says that if she sends it to Jimmy, he has to spend the weekend with her. Jimmy isn’t sure about this. REALLY?
The Bad Guy
I was looking forward to seeing Nicholas Holt in this, and his Lex Luthor is good. He’s got motivation and hates Superman. Again, Holt is great, but the script sends him all over the place.
In the movie, Lex has access to a ‘multiverse’, I forget what it was called, but he has portals to other places. Instead of just: lure Superman into a portal, destroy the portal, end of Supes. The portals are there to help the plot along and drag the movie out.
I also couldn’t help but laugh at the infinite number of monkeys posting crap about Superman online. Yes, that’s a thing in this movie. Lex is so rich, he’s able to have, what looks like thousands of mind-controlled monkeys typing crap on social media.
But then, is Lex the bad guy?
I don’t know much about the lore of Superman, but I know the original movie. I know that Brando was a bit of an arse about being in the movie; he phoned it in, got paid and left. However, Brando’s Jor-El was great. He was a man trying to save his race and save his son.
He sent his son to Earth to be a shining example, to help them, to save them from themselves. I don’t want to say a god, but Jor-El knew that his son could be used for good on Earth.
Not here he isn’t. Jor-El and Lara seemed to send their son to ‘sow his royal oats’ on Earth and repopulate Earth with Kryptonians. This was what General Zod wanted in Man of Steel, and in that movie, he was the bad guy.
Why Gunn thought that he had to make Jor-El the bad guy in this is an odd choice; was he trying to ‘subvert our expectations’? I get how it played the story out, but it just felt a little insulting to Superman’s entire being on Earth. Personally, this didn’t sit well with me.
While we’re talking about Jor-El, how does a digital message get damaged? There wasn’t a backup hard drive? Was this like the ‘missing map’ in The Force Awakens?
OK, I’m nitpicking.
Nitpicking
OK, we all know I’m a picky sod when it comes to movies. However, here are some niggles that niggled me.
- The Superman Robots say they have no emotion, then one of them is excited when Supes looked at her.
- Why does Supes call the robots ‘Superman Robots’? He doesn’t have any imagination, and I don’t mean just by numbers, he calls them ‘Superman robotos’.
- The Engineer has to find Supes in the Arctic, so just walks around and hopes to spot him.
- Why is there only one Engineer? If Lex can afford thousands of mind-controlled monkeys, but only one Engineer.
- Supes gets his ass kicked by The Hammer, twice. On the second time, he just lets him fly off? He’s a big threat; best try.
- Hammer just then disappears, forever. Who was he played by, Sean Bean?
- Superman has a panic attack over social media posts.
- Lex keeps an ex-girlfriend in an interdimensional prison.
- The Justice Gang didn’t care about Supes until Lois talked them into it.
- That shot, where he saves the little girl, he definitely snapped her neck.
- The Raptors turn up and are all destroyed, along with half the city, in about 30 seconds.
Bigger Issues
All the way through the movie, Superman seems very concerned about the lives of humans. His interference with the war we don’t see before the start. The fact that he tries to save everyone is good.
However, I got the impression he wants to save everyone in the world. The war, that was nothing to do with the US, seems to be his concern. If this were the ‘real world’, he would be over in Gaza, making sure everyone was calming down and stopping the killing.
I also got the impression that the ‘saving everyone’ was for everyone. I imagine, around the world, people are killed in bad ways; muggings gone wrong, traffic accidents, and other small conflicts around the world.
Superman would have to be everyone, all at once, to stop people dying of anything but unnatural causes.
The scene where Supes is 1. looking for his dog and 2. ignoring an interdimensional imp, aka, the opening scene of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2. Early, Lois and Supes argued and seemed not to get on at all. Now, they are all cool, while there is a huge threat to human life.
Beathe
This was another fairly big annoyance. To defeat Supes, the Engineer is told to infect his lungs and suffocate him. She does this, but he manages to escape. Later in the movie, we see Supes and Krypto sitting on a meteor in outer space, where there is no air.
If you’re going to use a major plotline about him not breathing, don’t have him sitting in outer space later, you know, just to finish the movie off and have it look cool.
The Dog
No, not Lois, be nice. From the first trailer, I wasn’t impressed with Krypto the dog. Again, I don’t know the lore, but I know the dog was in the comics. I have issues with Krypto.
Firstly, the dog is annoying as hell. I had a Bull Terrier for a while, and I loved that dog, but she would never listen to a word I said; Krypto is the same. Actually, now that I said that, I understand Supes’ love for his dog. Yes, it’s annoying as hell, but he loves it.
The whole ‘I need to save my dog’ was a little over the top, though. The scene with the interdimensional imp in the background, Supes is worried about his dog. I do get it, but at the same time, it was too much. Fine, save the dog, but maybe stop all the space imp killing humans first.
Secondly, though, Krypto is there just to help the story. Pretty much every scene with the dog was the dog saving the day. Supes’ is in trouble, whistle and the dog will turn up.
The CG dog was nothing more than a toy commercial.
The Direction
My other main issue with Superman was the direction; everything is always trying too hard. I understand that Gunn has a huge weight on his shoulders. This Superman needed to not just be good, but be amazing. He couldn’t entrust it to anyone else; he had to do it.
I feel like Gunn is suffering from the same condition that Zack Snyder suffers from: ego. Don’t get me wrong, both have made good movies in the past, but as time has gone on, they’ve slipped. However, their fanbase has been telling them how much better they are.
Superman’s direction is all too much. I’ve said before, I’m not a fan of the overly CG’ed camera shots that fly around; this movie is full of this. I just reviewed Weapons. Now, I know these two movies are very different, but Weapons was beautifully directed. It’s all simple, basic, and let’s the story do the work.
Superman has a story, but it’s not a great story. For me, it means that the movie has to do the ‘action’ over the top, to give it something. ‘Wow, that scene was awesome!’ is all Gunn needs to hear.
Then there was a complete change when it came to the ‘war’ at the end of the movie. The scene was incredibly lacklustre, there were a couple of hundred extras, in a pit, about to all fight. It wasn’t a war; it was a mild skirmish.
Some of the direction is completely over the top, and the rest of it was just bland. Pick a lane.
Overall
I haven’t been over the movie all that much; the story was good enough to follow, although I thought it was overly complex. When you think of the original Superman, the story was simple: Supes landed on Earth, Lex was the bad guy, Supes saves the day. OK, that’s overly simple, but you get it.
Here, Superman is here on Earth, and there’s a subplot of him being here to have as much sex as possible. Lex causes a war to make Supes look like the bad guy, so he can get the government to kill him. The Justice Gang just seem to be there, mostly as DVD extras.
I think the main word I can use for Superman is Supermess. There is a solid story in there, but it just can’t come out. I imagine this was the first draft of the script, with people probably telling Gunn to have a few rewrites, but he didn’t.
Superman is a movie that now exists, and I have seen it. Will I visit it again? I might, if nothing else is on. Is it the launchpad for the DCU? No.
I’m honestly torn. I think I did like the movie, but it’s missing something. It all feels rushed, not finished, and Gunn is trying too hard. His Guardians of the Galaxy was great fun. He was chilled with it, and it showed in the movie. The pressure of Superman has shown some cracks, and it shows he’s not great with pressure.
You can see Superman on streaming.
