Superman flies by. I mean that in a pacing sense, as the two-hour runtime soars. But yes, Superman also flies a lot. Writer/Director James Gunn is able to bring his own quirky style of filmmaking to this reimagining of the classic hero and propel the film forward at a breakneck pace. Superman is overstuffed with characters, plots, and action sequences. It lacks a clear emotional core or overall theme and often feels slapped together and inconsequential. Yet somehow, it kind of works.
Gunn is able to breathe a little bit of life into the dying superhero genre by skipping the origin story and throwing us right into the action. Clark Kent (David Corenswet) has been Superman for three years. He works at the Daily Planet with Louis Lane (Rachel Brosnahan) and Jimmy Olsen (Skyler Gisondo). Lex Luthor (a great Nicholas Hoult) is already deep into his villainous schemes and hates Superman. It feels like turning on an episode of a Saturday morning cartoon. You don’t need much backstory; you get the idea of what is going on pretty quickly.
The film wavers between being sweet and silly, but never serious. This is a far cry from Zak Snyder’s dour and self-serious take on the character. This tone of the new Superman is both the film’s greatest strength and its biggest weakness. It’s hard to take a film seriously that has comments on xenophobia, the human condition, and modern world politics while also featuring pocket universes, kaijus, and a flying dog. It is very much a James Gunn film. Both fun and emotional. But this is Gunn’s weakest superhero outing yet.
Where the Guardians of the Galaxy and even The Suicide Squad had a lot of heart and focus on character, Superman feels only skin deep. There is a lot that Gunn wants to say with this film, but he can’t fit it all in. He takes moments to contemplate an idea and then moves on to the next thing at a brisk pace. There isn’t time to ponder the deeper questions when you get distracted by Superman fighting a giant monster in the heart of the city. It’s a director’s sleight of hand. Look at the shiny object and don’t notice how unfocused this film really is. But it is fun.
Superman owes more to the Sam Raimi Spider-Man trilogy than it does to any more contemporary superhero films. The color palette is bright and makes the red and blue of Superman’s suit pop on the screen. Superman himself carries Peter Parker’s gee-golly sense of naive optimism, and both Superman and Spider-Man are defined by their acts or superpowers, but by their flawed humanity. Gunn’s version of Superman is the most human version of the character. His Christ-like status from Superman Returns or the Snyder films has been removed and replaced with a character who gets angry, who makes mistakes, and learns that he is human. Right there is a perfect set-up for a Superman film, but this theme gets muddled in all of Gunn’s noise.
His directing style certainly adds some much-needed personality to the generic corporate blockbusters that have plagued cinemas as of late. When Superman fights, the camera whips back and forth with perfect timing, and I even dug the goofy-looking flying sequences. Gunn’s signature irreverent humor is also littered throughout the film with mixed results. Some gags are chuckle-worthy, but others feel recycled and out of place. He brings his comic book sensibilities here too, with Superman robots, a fully formed “justice gang” including a Green Lantern and Hawkgirl, and pocket dimensions. It could be a little bit too much for the casual moviegoer. But maybe we have moved beyond that in superhero cinema. Maybe audiences are ready to embrace the weird.
Superman is a mess; it feels cobbled together in the edit, with a mish-mash of ideas that are constantly in conflict with each other. Under a different director, this would have been a complete disaster, but under Gunn, he is able to take the messiest of ideas and turn them into a breezy, fun, and completely watchable summer blockbuster.
3.5/5