Superman (2025 Film Review)

2025 Warner Bros. Pictures
Written and Directed by: James Gunn
Starring: David Corenswet, Rachel Brosnahan, Nicholas Hoult, Edi Gathegi, Anthony Carrigan, Nathan Fillion, and Isabela Merced
MPAA Rating: PG-13; Running Time: 129 Minutes
The Nicsperiment Score: 4/10

A three-obsessed title card announces that Superman, a superhuman alien raised by human parents in rural Kansas under the name Clark Kent, came to Earth 30 years ago, revealed himself to humanity three years ago, and just lost a fight for the first time three minutes ago. A badly beaten Superman then plummets to the icy Earth. For the next 129 minutes, Superman will spend most of his time in this condition,. Metropolis, the city inhabited by Superman and his either alter-ego or true identity(depending on what stance you follow), Clark Kent, is also shared by a super genius billionaire named Lex Luthor. The envious Lex hates that Superman has taken all of the attention from him. That means Lex will do anything to drag Superman's name in the mud and humiliate him, before, hopefully, eliminating Superman altogether. And thus, Superman, constantly reacting, constantly on defense, constantly either being beaten, disrespected, or hated, must try to prove that he's just as human as the next man...
Love or hate Zack Snyder's take on Superman, but the prevailing notion is that his work tends to focus on the nature of the character as a god among men, and is more lackluster when it comes to presenting him as a man. James Gunn's Superman is a massive overcorrection of this notion, by a filmmaker who seems ill-equipped to present the character's superhuman side.
The best comparison I can give is a strange one:
In Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ, the storied director seems eager to explore Christ's human nature, but there is little of the divine to be found. The disciples even push Christ around and yell at him. That's how James Gunn's Superman is. He is very human and he can fly, and he's pretty strong, but he's not really Superman.
Gunn, writing and directing, can't really seem to fathom a Superman. So he character assassinates Superman's biological parents (as if Superman is Peter Quill and not Kal-El), so that he can further play up Superman's human side. Granted, Ma and Pa Kent are generally saints in the comics and every adaptation, and they should be, but the entire point of Superman is that on one hand, he was raised on a farm in Kansas and has the morals of an aw shucks boy scout who always wants to do the right thing, but on the other, he is an inhuman god with nearly limitless power, who could easily squash humanity in an instant if he so chose. You get a sense of the former in James Gunn's Superman, but you never EVER get a sense of the latter, which completely devalues the former, as the fact that Superman is nearly all powerful, but acts as the paramount of human goodness elevates both sides of his nature. His insane power, handled correctly, should only further highlight his goodness.
But instead, in James Gunn's Superman, there's just a floppy haired guy in a cape who can fly and has super strength, but does not seem more remarkable than the heroes around him or even his dog, and who gets outshined by characters like Mr. Terrific (Edi Gathegi, stealing this film as a reward for suffering through his goofy role in Twilight). But the film isn't called Mr. Terrific, James.
It's called Superman.
That's not to say there are no positives here. The casting is quite good. David Corenswet makes for a natural Superman--his pronouncements of such phrases as "What the hey, dude!" sound like a 2025 Superman in a natural and not irritating way. I wish that he actually got to be a real Superman for more than about 90 seconds of this film. Rachel Brosnahan is also quite good as his spunky love interest, Lois Lane. Gunn tries to do something I actually like between the two of them, where the grimy punk rock background of this Lois makes her think the boy scout Superman might not be the best match for her. Superman's goodness slowly wins Lois over, but Gunn undercuts their few moments together with goofy humor, as if he is too self-conscious of his material to let it breathe. Superman and Lois' keystone scene, which deserves all the film's focus, pits their conversation against a background fight featuring the Justice Gang and a skyscraper sized imp. The fight colorfully and loudly continues throughout their entire conversation, the one real moment where they should be connecting, in an overstuffed film, already struggling to breathe. Nearly every minute of 2025's Superman feels rushed, as if Gunn is scared that at any moment, someone will boot him off the film. The movie is begging for cinematic Ritalin, beginning in media res, and never stopping to give anything its proper focus. There are many  ideas and questions that can't be breached--for instance, why doesn't Superman use X-Ray vision to look through Ultraman's mask...or why isn't there a quick moment where he tries?--because the film just can't be bothered to stop to deal with them. This especially becomes a detriment when moments like the late-film reveal of the aforementioned Ultraman's identity become a plot hole because of the film's lack of patience earlier...a lack of patience that remains to the end credits.
I love the character of Superman, and I really, really, really wanted to like this film. It's almost hurting me that I don't. I generally like Gunn's work, especially his Guardians films, but can see that his application of those tools does not work here. I'm shocked at the multitude of positive reviews (which point out many of the flaws that bother me, yet somehow don't seem bothered by them at all) and worried that Gunn will learn nothing from his mistakes here. Here's hoping the next film features an actual Superman and gives him and his co-stars a little more room to breathe.