Go see "Superman."

Because it's fun and heroic like it should be.

I’ll avoid major spoilers, but some points of this movie are worth discussing here.

It seems every decade has its Superman. The 70s and 80s got Reeve, the 90s had Cain, the 2000s had Welling, and the 2010s landed Cavill. Each brought a different flavor to the character and left a different impression. In the 2020s, it looks like our guy is David Corenswet, and he really puts his best foot forward here.

It goes without saying that fans have had mixed feelings about this movie from the start. James Gunn had an unenviable task on his plate when he accepted the job to reboot DC in the wake of Snyder, with a popular actor playing the Last Son of Krypton. Nobody wanted another damn reboot and we sure as hell didn’t want another origin story.

If Gunn had a challenge, Corenswet had a huge burden on his shoulders. Cavill was a fantastic Superman and he was horribly mishandled by the studio, leaving fans irate, but none of that was his fault and it doesn’t seem like he ever took it that way. In all of his interviews and pressers and social media posts, he took his work seriously and you could tell he loved nerding out over his favorite things. He was exactly the kind of leading man you’d want on a project like this.

I think that without that building block, Gunn would have botched this thing from the start. You can’t nail a Superman movie if your Superman sucks. Corenswet vindicated himself as a casting choice with his execution here.

With that out of the way, Gunn himself becomes the next obstacle: he showed he could make obscure titles like Guardians of the Galaxy into something mainstream and well-loved, but could he handle a centerpiece character like Superman? What story would he even tell? Would he focus too much on spectacle? Would he force the humor? How many awkward dick jokes would we end up with? He’s a talented director but the reason for concern was definitely there.

Well, I just got home from the theater an hour ago with my son—a boy who was born right before Man of Steel came out—and we had a hell of a time together. I want this movie to succeed because I want good effort and good execution to be rewarded.

Let’s take a look at Superman.

The Story

We get a text scrawl at the beginning that speed-runs the history of superheroes. Superman has been around for three years on Earth, he’s the last Kryptonian, etc. We get it. There are other metahumans operating in the open, it’s a high-tech world, people just accept this stuff.

Superman in particular has just committed a bit of a faux-pas, though: he stopped a foreign country from invading its weaker neighbor, thus saving lives, but this created an international problem and the government wants to punish him for interfering in affairs of state. Lex Luthor rubs shoulders with the government and offers to help them deal with Superman.

Worst of all, it turns out a message from his Kryptonian parents maybe have come with orders for him to conquer Earth, an idea that has been explored before in shows like Smallville. This message leaks to the public, and he has few allies left.

I really liked the introduction here, the setup, and the progression of the story as it unfolded. He’s an optimist in a cynical world, and even has a heartfelt discussion with Lois about how that may be the true meaning of “punk rock” these days. I would not have guessed this was the direction they’d take and I loved how it came together.

From there, the movie is about Superman figuring out the truth about his mission on Earth, how to stop Lex’s evil plans, and how to really be a hero in a world that can so easily hate him.

The Characters

Superman/Clark completely sells it. Although he’s really only “Clark” for like three scenes. Corenswet spends the staggering majority of the time in costume on screen. His chemistry with Rachel Brosnahan (Lois) is also great, and this is the second movie I’ve seen this year with her in it. She was a fantastic choice for the female lead.

The supporting cast—which is abundant—naturally fills out the other roles in the story. The Justice Gang is here, consisting of Guy Gardner (Green Lantern), Michael Holt (Mister Terrific), and Kendra Saunders (Hawkgirl). Gardner is played by Gunn’s friend Nathan Fillion, and he nails the role of a total a-hole superhero. Serious, this is Captain Hammer with CGI and a comic-accurate terrible haircut.

Hawkgirl was fine, she had a bit to play, but the real scene-stealer was Edi Gathegi as Mister Terrific. His role was way bigger than I expected it to be and he brought major charisma to the film.

On the villain side of things, Lex Luthor is at the center, but his supporting cast is abundant. I’ll be honest, I didn’t think Nicholas Hoult was a good choice at first—he’s not a bad actor but he’s never been a draw for me. I kept hearing his name tossed around in the last few years for Batman, Superman, and other heroes, and he’s just…not that appealing. But he wore Lex like a comfortable pair of shoes. His henchmen—Engineer, Ultraman, and the Raptars—were also more than just cannon fodder. They contributed intelligently to the story.

Honestly I think the only casting snag was the actors who played Jonathan and Martha Kent. Call me a Smallville addict, but I needed someone in the vein of Schneider and O’Toole to play these characters. In both appearance and demeanor, Ma and Pa Kent were just…off.

Yet even so, they obviously had the right effect on the story, as you’ll see when it plays out. There’s an earnestness to their performance that comes through, even with the unconventional aesthetic. Sometimes small-town Kansas can look a little too small-town Kansas.

The Spectacle

For the first time ever, we get a full-on Superman story in a full-on DC Comics world. Gunn isn’t trying at all to set this in our world, he’s taking the brakes completely off this train and sending it into gonzo-land. Honestly the movie is better for it. Give me high tech and aliens and all kinds of weird possibilities. We’ve tried a grounded Superman and it didn’t work. (Partly because Snyder sucks, but that’s another story.)

The movie looks fantastic, and more the point, it looks real. I went to Cleveland a couple of years ago and I thought I heard that this movie was shot there—if it wasn’t, it sure looks like it was. For as much crap as that town gets, it’s actually really pretty downtown and has lots of heart. Siegel and Schuster created Superman there so it’s fitting that Metropolis would feel like a cartoon version of The Mistake On The Lake.

I think above all else, the movie felt like it earned its triumphant moments. Superman doesn’t just turn his powers on and go crazy and save the day; he suffers. He gets his bell rung. He loses physical fights and the battle of public opinion, yet he stays true to his real values and learns about himself along the way. When he finally faces off against Luthor at the end, he deserves the victory, and not just because he has super powers.

Humor? Love? Peril? Heart? Adventure? Superman has it in spades. And I feel confident that I’ll have that same opinion when I watch it again in six months. This isn’t just afterglow—they all did a superb job here, from the writing to the directing, the casting, the performances, all of it. I didn’t just have fun, I didn’t just feel good after the credits, I felt great. And I’ve missed that.

Content Warning

There’s some mild PG-13 language, a smattering of S-bombs, and a scene where Guy Gardner conjures a bunch of giant green middle fingers. A man gets shot in the head. No sex, just plenty of affectionate kissing between Clark and Lois. And like I said before: James Gunn didn’t go the Guardians route and fill the script with penis jokes. The movie is better for it. Superman even says Gosh like he means it.

I loved it. And I’m optimistic for another one. DC has made no bones about its lineup of future films under Gunn’s supervision, and while I don’t personally care if they all get made or not, I want more of this.

Go see Superman.