After more than a decade of disappointment in the now defunct DCEU, the timeless superheroes of DC Comics are in dire need of an upgrade. With Marvel dominating the big screen superhero market, many wondered if anyone could stand up to the global giant. Now, with Marvel mainstay filmmaker James Gunn taking the reins of DC Studios, we have Superman, kicking off a whole new cinematic universe hoping to wash out the bad taste left by the DCEU. Does it succeed?
Right off the bat, Superman eschews the errors that plagued 2013’s divisive Man of Steel. For starters, the film jumps right into the middle of the action in the new DC Universe- there’s no origin story, Superman (David Corenswet) has been out in the public eye for three years and even other superheroes are well established in the world, namely Green Lantern (James Gunn regular Nathan Fillion, sly as ever), Hawkgirl (Isabella Merced) and Mister Terrific (Edi Gathegi).
It actually works to the film’s advantage, as the world building isn’t crammed down your throat and Gunn isn’t wasting precious screen time building up relationships and superpowers and simply letting these characters be themselves and doing heroic things without anyone questioning them. It’s much like picking up any Superman comic book off the shelf and jumping in; you don’t need to know pages and pages of DC lore and it doesn’t matter to the story the film is telling. You catch on quick and for the first film in a cinematic universe, that’s an impressive feat.
Beyond that, there’s a major asset to this film that DC films of the past have sorely lacked: It has tons and tons of personality. An early scene has Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan) interviewing Clark Kent as his alter ego and not only does their chemistry leap off the screen, but everything you need to know about these two characters and their relationship is communicated in entertaining fashion.
It doesn’t stop there, either: Lex Luthor’s (Nicholas Hoult) hatred for Superman is clear from minute one without any explanation and even minor characters such as Jimmy Olsen (Skyler Gisondo), Jonathan and Martha Kent (Pruitt Taylor Vince and Neva Howell) make a huge impression. Even minor villains get a chance to shine, namely Maria Gabriela de Faria as the uniquely threatening Engineer and even a Gen Z version of Eve Tessmacher (Sara Sampaio), who delights in taking selfies while the world is ending.
That being said, this is a superhero movie and there is plentiful thrilling action set pieces to tide over hardcore superhero junkies, which are somehow presented cleanly despite how chaotic they get. The film is also surprisingly weird in a good way, with Gunn delighting in introducing strange characters to the fray and even getting to dive into some of the comics’ oddest moments. If any film deserves the idiom of “It feels like a comic book come to life,” it’s this one.
Most importantly, this movie learns all the right lessons from the errors of the past. Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel went so overboard with trying to ground Superman in the modern world that it dragged the movie into a black hole. Which makes Gunn’s colorful, energetic and inspiring vision all the more refreshing. After a decade plus of uninspired DC films that try to make superheroes work in the real world, seeing an unapologetically outlandish and hyper stylized version of the superhero blockbuster feels revolutionary.
Superman is a blast and a promising start to the DC Studios lineup. It builds off the wins and losses of what came before to make a truly unique vision of the Man of Steel that should inspire a whole new generation of fans. If you, like me, have been burnt out on the DC brand, this might just change your mind and get you back in the theater for a fun ride.
Superman is now playing in theaters.
