Superman (2025)

I’m finally at the end of my journey through Superman films, and this one has some highs and lows. I have a hard time giving it a rating, because other than the excellent production value there isn’t anything great about it, and a lot of things that bother me. However, James Gunn is good at making even a mess of a film fairly entertaining.

Right off the bat, they ruin the one great part of the original Superman series – the Superman theme song. It’s a classic John Williams score, and the new version comes nowhere close. This bothers me more than it should, given that I don’t actually like the Superman franchise.

Given that this is the fourth version of all of these characters, I’ll start there. Corenswet continues the trend of adequate actors for Superman, and Lois Lane is a contrast instead of a complement to his character. They create a few of the more interesting scenes in the movie, but their relationship takes a back seat to spectacle. Wendell Pierce as Perry White is underused, while Beck Bennett gets a bunch of screen time to be unfunny. Jimmy Olsen gets a role again, but instead of being a photographer he’s part of a running gag of him being super attractive that isn’t well executed or funny. Nicholas Hoult brings back Lex Luthor, and for the love of god can’t DC just let this role die? Hoult has been excellent in a lot of movies, but he is bland here. This is a huge upgrade over Jesse Eisenberg, but for this awful character to work there needs to be someone excellent like Hackman or Spacey behind the wheel. This time around, Luthor once again is willing to destroy everything just because, but now he has a huge staff that is working with him for this goal. It’s super dumb.

Most of the James Gunn gag reel still just doesn’t land here. Krypto the super dog is not funny, most of the Justice Gang bit is pretty lame, and I’m kind of surprised that I still ended up kind of enjoying this movie. The production is excellent and the plot moves quickly, with mostly enjoyable scenes if you just ignore the characters and turn your brain off. I am honestly unsure if part of my rating is based on how many bad DC films I’ve watched recently, but I’m giving it a 6 and calling it a solid movie.