'Superman' Review: The Last Son Could Save Superhero Cinema
As time has gone on and the genre has flooded itself with endless new content, the art of making a faithful superhero movie with DNA derived from the source material has been almost completely lost. In every release nowadays, it seems, something has to be changed, added, removed or altered for reasons increasingly beyond the audience these things are supposed to be tailored to and made for.
When Superman was first announced, and since subsequently teased and advertised, a lot of folks wondered what James Gunn was going to do to break the genre’s ongoing funk. Not only that, but many people asked what it was about Superman — a character that has routinely failed to garner an audience on the big screen in recent years — that would successfully bear the beginning of a new cinematic universe, directly off the heels of one in the same name that had failed. Turns out, the answer lies in the aforementioned: simply making a faithful adaptation that appeals to the same cardinal sensibilities that popularized the character in the first place. Superman is a superhero movie as pure as the driven snow, and a rousing triumph for the genre.
Any worries that Gunn wouldn’t understand or properly adapt this property are squashed within the opening moments, under a title sequence that humanizes the character to a greater extent than he has been in decades. And when David Corenswet breaks the film’s initial silence, crashing into the arctic landscape with a bone-crushing thud, you’ll be left with no doubt that Superman has officially returned, perhaps for the first time in such a fashion since 1978.
From there, Gunn whisks audiences away on an adventure unlike any other in recent memory. Truly, this is one of his most stylistically singular efforts, harkening back to a time when directors were given free rein to take the lead on a project and take it down whatever road they’d like. Superman is a zany, blisteringly colorful, eccentric introduction to a superhero universe that exists in stark contrast to the popular one next door.
Though, simultaneously, he allows this preexisting character and world to speak for themselves, first and foremost. The Guardians films felt driven by and structured for Gunn’s personality as a storyteller and a filmmaker; whereas, with Superman, it feels as if he allowed the film and characters to dictate those decisions instead. What we end up with is a Superman movie first, a James Gunn movie second, and, overall, one of the most compelling blockbuster visions in a long while. Gunn and longtime collaborator Henry Braham’s use of wide, sweeping lenses, full frames, and unconventional framing lend themselves to something that looks entirely different than the norm. In the same way that audiences were shocked to see a man fly in 1978, they’ll likely share a similar reaction now to the same character on the forefront of a relatively new form in the cinematic language.
To that point, it’s only right that Gunn reinstate this character — that character that arguably started the superhero movie craze in the first place - at a time when the genre is at its lowest point. Corenswet feels almost like an immediate icon in that way, going a basic good performance and truly bringing Superman to life. His dual effort as Clark Kent and Kal-El is downright flawless, especially when compared to the comics, and is on par with castings like Tobey Maguire as Spider-Man, Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man, and so on. Upon release, he is undoubtedly the face of this character moving forward.
The rest of the cast rocks too, with a particularly moving performance from Rachel Brosnahan at the forefront, across from Corenswet. The two exhibit chemistry that comic book movies haven’t seen since Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone in the Amazing Spider-Man movies. Their relationship serves as the beating heart of a film that is all about love, beauty, and caring about life to an absolute fault. It’s the perfect emotional core for the narrative, and it works especially well when it maintains itself in spite of Nicholas Hoult’s Lex Luthor hammering away at it with every given opportunity.
On that topic, Hoult is an astoundingly evil presence. There are moments with his character, without spoiling anything, that cement his character as one of the most malicious in a comic book movie ever to this point, at least in the mainstream. That may sound extreme, but if you’ve read the comics, you know that it’s an accurate representation of the character; Lex Luthor is to bad as Superman is to good, and this version of him is probably, just like Corenswet’s, the most accurate ever put to screen.
Really, this may be the first comic book movie ever made to achieve that standard in every facet. From the visuals, to the castings, to the characters and story beats, it feels like the infamous All-Star Superman put to screen. Gunn’s diehard dedication to the source material proves that what made Superman the character he is now has always been alive, and ever-effective; it had only been lost in translation over the past few decades, now rediscovered by a director who has made a living in the superhero space by obviously caring more than most others do in the aspect of adaptation.
It also helps that this is, narratively, Gunn’s most proficient effort to date. His script is just unbelievably tight and well-rounded, whilst also managing a level of complexity that most of these movies don’t even try to achieve anymore. It’s full, and perhaps a little overstuffed, but in managing to be both fixated within the fictional world it posits and wholly relevant to the real world in which we live, Gunn has created something that can, and likely will, always be seen as a reflection of the society it condemns. It’s a portrait of what it would look like if Superman were thrown into our world.
How does he respond to foreign conflict? To frothing, uninformed and misled online hatred? The same way that any of us should. With a deep breath and the single-minded, well-intentioned goal of preserving life and happiness to the greatest possible degree. Not for a moment does Superman consider himself in any given scenario, nor his appearance or reputation — he’s in the business of saving lives, like all the best superheroes should be, and he saves more in this film alone than he does in all the other movies bearing the same name combined. You cay say a lot about this one, but in the end, that says it all.
Superman is a must-see for anyone remotely interested in the character or the genre. Not only could it change the tide of the cinematic universe battle for the first time in, well, ever, but it may also help reclaim the batch of tired superhero fans who have long waited for the genre to return to form. Gunn has come up with an absolute, head over heels victory for superheroes here. If you weren’t already convinced, with Superman, he’s made it clear who’s currently in control of the genre.
And if this movie is any indication, it’s only the beginning of a long and successful road for the DCU. Superman is back and he’s here to stay, ushering in what may effectively be a new age of superhero cinema.