Superman (2025)

I heard a lot of good word of mouth about the latest Superman movie, directed and cowritten by James Gunn, who in 2022 was put in charge of a reboot of the DC Comics film franchise (his “cowriters” here are the original Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, who died last century but, as with Bob Kane and the Batman movies, must have finally won an ironclad lawsuit). The word of mouth is warranted—the movie is well worth seeing for any fan of Superman and maybe even for those, like me, now good and sick and tired of superhero movies. Gunn has an intriguing resume. He is also responsible for Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy movies and, back in 2010, Super, with Rainn Wilson and then-Ellen Page, which might be the greatest superhero comic book parody ever made. Gunn’s tongue is not as firmly in his cheek with Superman, but the picture is so lighthearted as to be perfectly refreshing, notably with its use of the super-dog Krypto, who is playful here like a dog but has those good old Kryptonian superpowers too. If this dog ever catches a car, woe to the car. Speaking of catching, this boy-scout Superman (David Corenswet) is also caught saving a squirrel in one throwaway scene. That’s how tender his heart is. Superheroes are referred to in this universe as “metahumans” and they are not always trusted, lifting a page from the mutants thing. Superman is set up by enemies as an alien invader and people start grumbling about him. Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) has a lot to do with it, appearing as a transparently Stephen Miller type, raving about alien immigrants. Pretty obvious, but OK, I will take it in this day and age. We also get a handful of extra superheroes, associated with a quasi-core to the Justice League calling themselves the ”Justice Gang”—the Green Lantern with a blond haircut like Moe’s from the Three Stooges (Nathan Fillion), a version of Hawk Girl (Isabela Merced), Mr. Terrific, new to me (Edi Gathegi), and Metamorpho (Anthony Carrigan). At the very least it’s an odd but deeply informed view of the DC universe, such as it is. Another key twist on the usual is finding out early that Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan) knows Clark Kent is Superman and they are basically boyfriend / girlfriend. There’s also a pretty good joke about Superman thinking he is authentically punk-rock. I dread whatever comes next because that usually means weighing down all the best stuff with unlikely explanations and doing the continuity dance for the sake of carping fans. Like the 1978 Superman, this one can be thoroughly enjoyed on its own terms and all sequels approached with caution. Better to look at this one more than once—it’s that good.

Super (2010)

USA, 96 minutes
Director/writer: James Gunn
Photography: Steve Gainer
Music: Tyler Bates
Editor: Cara Silverman
Cast: Rainn Wilson, Ellen Page, Liv Tyler, Kevin Bacon, Gregg Henry, Michael Rooker, Andre Royo, Nathan Fillion, Rob Zombie, James Gunn

If superhero movies have turned into something of a cliché—or perhaps more accurately into a thriving industry with a full spectrum of manifold overbred clichés—the psychologically realistic treatments of them are not far behind. Indeed, they probably belong on that spectrum of clichés themselves now. Alan Moore and Frank Miller impressed when they worked out the approach 30 years ago in Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns (respectively). Batman is the natural here, as the basic idea is always that these figures don't have superpowers but they do have perverse personal motivations to "fight crime." They often work at night, and well outside the law. They aren't exactly role models with utility belt gimmicks the way they were in the '50s and '60s.

Super starts from this point, with another foot planted firmly in a certain quirky indie comedy ethos, signaled by casting Rainn Wilson, Ellen Page, Liv Tyler, and Kevin Bacon in the principal roles, by the use of a kind of low-budget naturalism in the action scenes, and by Tyler Bates's wincingly twee score, which is at once cloyingly sweet and archly i - r - o - n - i - c (sample here, I dare you to listen to more than 20 seconds). Director and writer James Gunn has, of course, gone on to be captain of his own Marvel franchise, Guardians of the Galaxy, and it's not really hard to see how he got from here to there. Equally telling credits for Gunn include screenplays for the 2002 remake of Scooby-Doo and the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead. Yet somehow Super is greater than the sum of its puny parts, offering that rarest of things, a transcendent superhero movie.