SUPERMAN : MOVIE REVIEW 
2.5 STARS / 5  (ABOVE AVERAGE)
DIRECTOR : JAMES GUNN
CAST : DAVID CORENSWET, EDI GATHEGI
RACHEL BROSNAHAN, NICHOLAS HOULT 
ENGLISH, NZ RELEASE 10/7/25
 
 
We have come all the way to 2025 but will any Hollywood studio dare to cast Superman as a non-white person ? 2025's Superman is tone-deaf to race relations, with the done-to-death theme of the brown folk of Jarhanpur cheering wildly for their American savior. The $225 million special effects are both fun and hard-core but the movie's sarcastic sense of humour is failed by the high school-level plot turns.
 
Both the uptodate internet-besotted demi-monde and war-torn international relations join Superman (a superb turn by David Corenswet who is a worthy heir to Christopher Reeve's magnificent cine-personality) in this latest installment. He is by no means the only superhero here - surrounding him are metahumans some of whom are more powerful than him. Billionaire corporate thug Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult in snarling two-dimensional form) draws up his own phalanx of super baddies intent on mowing down Superman. All that obviously means our hero can't just go on the rampage - he'll have to deploy his smarts if he's to trump his formidable enemies, aside from getting ample help. He is ably bailed out by Krypto The Super-Dog, his girlfriend Lois (Rachel Brosnahan) and Mister Terrific (Edi Gathegi) amongst others.  
 
The political angle involves Superman eager to save the helpless people of Jarhanpur from an invasion by the much stronger Boravia and its ditzy leader. Admittedly this is a Superman film and international politics need not necessarily be its forte but the myriad opportunities for nuance and imagination are jettisoned in favour of cardboard cut-out personalities and racial caricatures that is the film's laziest moment - even a $ 225 million budget will not buy you maturity.  
 
What keeps Superman whirring along its 130 minute runtime are the sharp dialogue and the dynamic action choreography. There is ample skewering of our two decade long habit of clicking everything with our smartphones and the selfie solipsism, the latter used here to a secret sly effect. Early on, Superman and Lois' smooching gives way to a blazing row as they yell at each other about the questionable aspect of vigilante interventionism in a war between two other countries (neither seem to have won prizes in college for calm debating). Later on, Superman gives a humbling dose to Luthor about how vulnerably and gloriously human he is, but Luthor, far from feeling cowed, lashes back !
 
The best action sequence stars Mister Terrific - the movie's token gesture in including a powerful black character - where groovy music plays in the background while he coolly dispatches dozens of attackers, catching and tossing them away as if they were butterflies. When Superman meets his match, there is an all-out power punch fest. It's the Wimbledon season now where Alcaraz-Djokovic or an Alcaraz-Sinner slugfest are the order of the day where, of the two mightily matched opponents, just a trick or two from the other tilts the precarious balance. 
 
For a movie which embeds itself in trans-national politics, the politics itself is limp - a great missed opportunity, whereas some bravura ideas would have made the film linger in memory. The movie's filming began in early 2024 so it might not have had enough time to factor in the proceedings of the Israel-Palestine conflict while having plenty of time to think about Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The possibilities for inserting Superman in this are endless but this movie lacks both interest and audacity to explore such angles.
 
 The leader of Boravia - who is looking to attack and terrorize the cave-dweller-level folks of Jarhanpur, is a wispy-haired rambler who is more or less a clown. Contrast this with real-life inspirations from Russia's Putin and Israel's Netanyahu - two alpha scoundrels who continue to mass-slaughter as it suits them - both being ruthless chicaneering personalities who have cornered their home base. Such slick alpha villains are missing here. Lex Luthor is better - a billionaire corporate brute who will suck as much blood as he can, but his virulent blunt villainy lacks the complexity which will make you remember him.
 
When one thinks of Superhero movies one remembers - 2002's Spiderman (a fresh treatment, each chapter lashed with charm and power), Watchmen (truckloads of complexity, moral morass, sex, a sense of doom despite the plethora of heroes), The Dark Knight (its magnificent crazy villain setting fire to a mountain of cash while declaring "This town needs a better class of criminal") you realize the fantasy genre is trickier than what one expects it to be. You can be a hack who makes a Star Wars sleep-walking movie that rakes in $1 billion inside 10 days, and you can also make a superhero story that doesn't do anything new - the endgame is that you'll have trouble remembering it the next day while Wikipedia records it as the n-th highest grossing movie of 2025. 
 
 
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