When fear, anger, and cynicism feel like the default, a superhero movie that presents its splash-page havoc with guileless warmth and zero irony is a rare and precious thing. Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man swung into theaters in 2002, setting a gold standard for superhero movies while thrilling post-9/11 audiences burdened by imminent war. Now, like a bolt from the blue comes James Gunn’s Superman, a rowdy and vivid film that knocks the doldrums out of the beleaguered superhero genre with the kind of two-fisted brio any self-respecting comic hero deserves—and it arrives not a moment too soon.
After leaving Marvel Studios (as its post-Endgame implosion continues), Gunn has revitalized the DC Universe in the wake of the evaporated prospects of Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom, Shazam! Fury Of The Gods, and Black Adam. Superman, the first installment in this new era, is set in a resonant, lived-in, and inviting world, while still delivering the franchise set-up goods that Warner Bros. is undoubtedly banking on. It sits on the same shelf as Spider-Man (without, perhaps, the dizzying heights of Spider-Man 2), a joyful and consistently exciting adventure of the Saturday morning variety that shares the keenly felt emotions of Gunn’s Guardians Of The Galaxy, a film he made when his freak-flag sensibilities could still fly under the radar of studio expectations.
With Superman, Gunn steps into an untested phase of his career, operating under closer scrutiny and much bigger stakes. And yet, this unlikely apotheosis from the Troma-trained enfant terrible hasn’t blunted Gunn’s directorial edge. If anything, his subject has only steeled his resolve as a provocateur and champion of the oddball. After Christopher Reeve’s lauded tenure, the dour Superman Returns, and Zack Snyder’s bleak revisionism, Superman has been in desperate need of a storyteller who embraces the outsider perspective that has been central to the character for nearly a century. Gunn reasserts DC’s strange visitor from a doomed planet in a front-and-center immigrant narrative that interrogates “the American Way” as it exists today. His hero takes a firm stance on the side of the marginalized in open defiance of those who step over them for personal gain—or, in the case of the film’s billionaire villain, Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult), to satisfy a vendetta against the Other that’s as narrow-minded as it is petty.
In this Other, Superman finds its center: David Corenswet, a Juilliard-trained actor (like Reeve before him) who until now was largely known for boosting supporting roles in films like Pearl and Twisters. With his striking, searching blue eyes and large build, Corenswet contrasts Hoult’s belligerent Luthor with a provincial warmth both quintessentially dopey yet oddly new. (Only this Superman could sell an endearing clunker like “What the hey, dude?”) And Gunn keeps his star busy. If Superman isn’t mitigating Luthor’s 5-D death traps, he’s clumsily grappling with the realpolitik of the fictional warring nations Boravia and Jarhanpur, staying sanguine about his rambunctious foster dog, Krypto, and navigating a tenuous situationship with Lois Lane (a brassy Rachel Brosnahan). Whether Corenswet is locked in a sub-dimensional prison cell with the weepy Metamorpho (Anthony Carrigan) or fielding a tense on-the-record interview with the Daily Planet‘s top investigative reporter, he plants Superman’s feet squarely in the side of right over might.
This righteousness comes at a cost. Compared to the character’s more traditional depictions, Gunn’s Superman is more physically and emotionally vulnerable; more than Kryptonite or even Luthor, Superman’s biggest threat is doubt. He wrestles with what it means to do the right thing in a world increasingly suspicious of do-gooders, and his moral compass, while true, can wobble. Gunn leverages these emotionally tricky moments well by countering Superman’s epiphanies with all sorts of peril. Inevitably, someone flashes a chunk of Kryptonite, which turns his knees to jelly and his skin into Frank Quitely-esque cottage cheese. In his very first moments, he’s plummeting to earth, coughing up blood, and looking like he just caught one hell of a beating. From the jump, Gunn makes one thing clear: This is a Superman we can’t take for granted.
Luckily for him, Superman maintains a strong but largely peripheral supporting bench: Nathan Fillion’s aggressively unpleasant Green Lantern, Guy Gardner; Isabela Merced’s screeching Hawkgirl; and Edi Gathegi’s Mr. Terrific, easily the film’s standout, a smooth “been there, hacked that” techie primed to lead his own ensemble. This influx of characters, few of whom carry meaningful subplots beyond comic relief or a flashy action setpiece—Brosnahan’s Lois rightfully gets the most to do, though Skyler Gisondo’s Jimmy Olsen brings a smarmy energy to the cub reporter—can pull focus from the lead. It’s here where Superman operates less like a solo story and more like a crowded team-up. The film’s narrative threads converge gradually, the film in a constant state of building toward its third act. In these stretches, Superman all but disappears, leaving a vacuum in a would-be franchise still actively establishing its identity.
Yet Gunn eventually finds his footing and Superman returns to the fray, delivering heat vision reprisals and truth and justice platitudes to Luthor’s hostile forces (he leads a sycophantic science outfit that resembles DOGE gone berserk). Superman’s bromides can feel old-fashioned and will certainly be viewed as cornball by the deeper cynics out there. But there’s something resolutely sincere and bracing about this Man Of Steel’s farmboy optimism in a time when earnestness gets the finger and moral clarity is in short supply. Superman delivers a simple, potent message: You don’t need X-ray vision to see people as people.
Director: James Gunn
Writer: James Gunn
Starring: David Corenswet, Rachel Brosnahan, Nicholas Hoult, Edi Gathegi, Anthony Carrigan, Nathan Fillion, Isabela Merced
Release Date: July 11, 2025
