Superman
Writer/Director: James Gunn
Cast: David Corenswet, Rachel Brosnahan, Nicholas Hoult, Edi Gathegi, Anthony Carrigan, Nathan Fillion, Isabela Merced, Skyler Gisondo, Sara Sampaio, Wendell Pierce, Beck Bennett, Mikaela Hoover, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Neva Howell, Maria Gabriella de Faria, Alan Tudyk
We all know how it started. We're willing to believe a man can fly. Let's cut to the chase.
Beloved as the guardian of Metropolis, Superman operates alongside other established heroes like billionaire Maxwell Lord's fledgling "Justice Gang." The Hall of Justice is partly furnished, drywall still exposed. Far from unheard of, kaiju are a going concern. Superman isn't even the only Kryptonian in the Fortress of Solitude. Krypto is tearing the place to crystalline rubble, the scruffy menace.
The DCU is thrumming with life.
It makes for a bustling, lived-in status quo from the jump. But dispensing with yet another preamble of the origin story comes at a cost. Joining the adventure three years into Superman's mission requires more than a little hand-holding. For those with a working knowledge of DC comics or Bruce Timm's gold standard Justice League animated universe, this is all pleasingly rote. It's fun to see what variations Gunn cherrypicks from decades of oft-churning continuity to stand along the constants. For some newcomers, it's likely to prove overwhelming.
It's a bold gamble with seemingly divisive results. That said, it feels so true to the experience of picking up a random issue of Action Comics at a flea market and joining the adventure mid-stream. That's the fun of an ongoing story like this, nearly a century in the making, touched by so many storytellers each with their own vision. What sticks? What rises?
Personally, I think Gunn — long reluctant to tackle the character — has arrived at a charming amalgamation of the best that came before, while remaining true to his own soulful, irreverent sensibility. He's also surrounded Superman with more cynical heroes like Guy Gardner, Hawkgirl, and Mr. Terrific to contrast with his idealistic nature. This Superman is determined to do good, relatably unsure how best to do so. He wants to protect everyone, but even Superman can't be everywhere at once. He falls down. He gets back up. David Corenswet is the realization of the affable, hunky Brendan Fraser Superman we thought lost to time and circumstance.
The real magic is in the chemistry, though. This might be the best Superman ensemble ever assembled (though the perfectly selected Daily Planet staffers are woefully underutilized here). Corenswet, Brosnahan, and Hoult are all incandescent together. It's a delight to see Lois and Clark in the very early stages of a romance, the frustrations of secret identities long-since dispatched. Their heated debate over the ramifications of Superman's intervention in a horrific foreign invasion (He's right; she's not especially wrong) is exhilarating. These are adult conversations between partners trying to find common ground, and they're among my favorite scenes.
Hoult walks a fine line between unflinching evil and downright petulance, his Lex outwardly embracing an obsession and disdain for Superman. He barely registers his omnipresent girlfriend, Eve Teschmacher, but revels in orgasmic glee at the sight of his broken rival. Naturally, Lex's latest plans involve a convoluted real estate scheme in keeping with his filmic heritage. But he's mainly interested in ruining the Man of Steel at all costs. It's all too real when one of his dutiful sycophants dares to wonder where their airborne command center will actually land when Lex has doomed the world in his scorched earth revenge tour.
Though the inciting geopolitical conflict erupts between the fictional nations of Boravia and Jarhanpur, a plurality of analogs are painfully apparent and ongoing in our own reality. It's also sobering to think that, vile as he is, Lex at least has the shame to hide his political detention center in a sunless pocket dimension, while his real world counterparts just put them in Florida. That doesn't mean Superman and his ideals are outdated or ill-suited to the times — far from it; he's more important now than ever.
It's vital that, as with some of the best Superman stories, it's people like Lois and Jimmy and even Eve Teschmacher, that mutant-toed whistleblower, who ultimately help save the day. And the challenge is ongoing. Lois and Clark will continue to butt heads. Krypto has yet to be house-trained. If anything, the dog is only encouraged to continue his reign of terror. Ma Kent still doesn't know how to operate that durned phone. Pa will continue to make me sob openly into my popcorn.
It's weird. It's cumbersome. Bursting at the seams, quite frankly. It's silly. It's thrilling. It's drenched in the warmth of a new beginning.
Superman is back.
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