SUPERMAN

Alan Tudyk is a robot again yay

(no spoilers, don’t worry)

There’s a common theme in criticism of the superhero genre which emerges every time a new movie is on the horizon, which is that there are too many characters. Too many villains, too many heroes. The trailers for SUPERMAN certainly gave that impression, and I couldn’t quite fathom how it was going to squeeze everything into its pleasantly disciplined two hour run time.

Turns out, the way you do this is to hire great filmmakers. James Gunn in particular knows what he’s doing, because he’s done it before. The Guardians of the Galaxy films are packed with characters and ensembles, but everyone gets their own little character arc. So it is with SUPERMAN, in which no character is extraneous. Except for a fun cameo near the end, nobody is showing up here solely to market future DC Studios ‘content’ — every character is woven into the story and serves to give the film extra layers.

Gunn again proves himself to be a remarkably versatile writer and director. I’d never have predicted that the creator of PG Porn and Slither would end up making a Superman film Even after Super, I wouldn’t have drawn a throughline. His earlier work was shot through with such grim cynicism, which would seem to be wholly incompatible with Superman. The Guardians films lean heavily on a weary sarcasm as a way in to their weirdness.

SUPERMAN is different again, fully embracing the warmth and cosy optimism of the character (Clark says things like ‘gosh’ and ‘golly’). Gunn’s edgier humour is dialled down. Unlike Snyder, who had to bend the Man of Steel to his own palette of grimdark, it is Gunn who adapts himself to the material.

Which isn’t to say it isn’t still super weird. There are visuals and characters in here that are deeply peculiar. The film doesn’t hold back and drops us right in at the deep end. Anyone who is more used to semi-realistic Batman films or the Christopher Reeve, Brandon Routh and Henry Cavill Superman films are going to have something of a shock at discovering how mad the DC universe can be.

Here’s the thing: Gunn gets that you have to remember the Normal Stuff when making something on this scale. He excelled at finding space for normality within the otherwise crazy Guardians films, and does so again here. We get Lois and Clark hanging out in her apartment, making dinner and having a chat. We have scenes in the Daily Bugle’s offices. A lot takes place at ‘street level’, showing Superman’s interactions with ordinary people. That grounds the film, anchors it with normalcy, and gives us something to cling to when caught in the storm of metahuman excess later.

David Corenswet is more-or-less note-perfect as Clark Kent/Superman. I’m not sure what else to say: it’s an iconic role that is really hard to nail, especially in the shadow of Christopher Reeve, but Corenswet and Gunn find a way to do it, feeling both classic and modern.

What’s really got everyone a-chatter is the film’s apparent prescience and its references to the real world. Here is a film that is about metahumans and monsters and aliens, yet engages with themes that are pertinent to 2025 and seem to be tackling real world issues. There’s an international border war, with an aggressor state attacking a smaller one, a conflict made more complex by the USA’s complicity and Lex Luthor’s corporate entanglements. The film addresses online trolling, rage bait and content farming (obviously a subject relevant to Gunn’s almost-derailed career).

And then there’s Lux Luthor. Nicholas Hoult is superb, perfectly capturing the genius of the comics, working in some exaggerated hysterics but refraining from tipping over into the theatricality of previous screen incarnations. It’s hard to tell how much is deliberate and how much we’re all projecting, but the inspiration seems to be Elon Musk, and tech bros of his ilk. The ‘move fast and break things’ arseholes who think they own the world (and, in some cases, do) and have a gaping moral black hole at their core.

There’s a detail in the film that feels bizarrely prescient: Luthor has surrounded himself with very young people. Sycophants and believers, geniuses and tech-heads who worship at Luthor’s throne. It’s such a perfect encapsulation of DOGE and everything wrong with the corporate-political mess in the US, yet this film was written and produced long before the current Trump administration.

None of this is overtly stated. The film doesn’t feel the need to make grand political points. It tells its own story, and the relevance emerges naturally. I found Luthor to be the most compelling character in the film: driven by abject jealousy and fear, but clearly a genius, alternating between extreme rationality and intense emotion. I’ve seen it noted elsewhere that the film resonates because we now live in an era of actual supervillains.

SUPERMAN shouldn’t really work. It certainly is stuffed with characters and wacky ideas, and it cares not for easing audiences into its world. Gunn’s key skill seems to be in balancing huge casts and complex worlds while connecting the plot to themes that matter. He makes it look easy.