Review : Superman

Today, a quick snap review of James Gunn's venture into the normally angst-ridden world that is the DC comic universe.

First some background. I have a soft spot for comic book movies. I've grown into them over the years but also just got sick of them : not everything needs to be a franchise, not everything needs a sequel, and certainly not everything needs to be shoehorned into a pointless crossover. I love crossovers, but for god's sake do something interesting and unexpected like, say, Wolverine meets the Antiques Roadshow. Truly weird mismatches are under-exploited.

Of late I've stopped caring about Marvel, not so much because they're bad but because there's just too much. I don't want to have to invest that much time in watching a whole TV series as a precursor or essential filler to some other movie, or have to watch the sixteen prequels to get to the actual film. Marvel's Apple-style saturation bombing approach to a monopoly – we'll give you so much content you won't have time for anything else – is more than a tad irritating.

But I do like the Marvel style of humour very much. When they're good, I enjoy them quite a lot as solid light entertainment that's been sorely lacking of late. DC, on the other hand, too often feel like they're going almost for grimdark (though I did rather enjoy Aquaman and the Wonder Woman movies). Yes, Batman needs to be angsty. But the rest of them don't.

The last one I tried watching was the notorious Snyder cut of Justice League. I got an hour or so in, and yes, it was much, much better than the dire theatrical release. But GOOD GOD it was long. Well-constructed but ultimately totally pointless and uninteresting with nowhere near enough substance to justify a four hour epic, or six months or however bloody long the thing actually was. I couldn't be bothered to find out. It was all... just a bunch of stuff that happened. This is a peculiar syndrome that one day I might define properly, but "just a bunch of stuff that happened" isn't something I could ever say about Star Wars or the Lord of the Rings.

At last, Superman ! Superman is not angsty. And it's not just a bunch of stuff that happened either. It's solid light entertainment in which Nicholas Hoult (fine, scene-stealing actor though he is) is upstaged by a CGI dog.

The only thing I can really compare it to is Barbie. It would be perilously easy to make it incredibly, unbelievably, brain-molestingly bad (or at least only suitable for children or the terminally stupid), but a movie about an ostensibly vacuous bimbo turned out to be an outstandingly hilarious bit of social commentary that was a glorious fun-filled mashup of pop culture somehow laced with subversive anti-capitalist undertones.

So too Superman. When you've got a hero of near-godlike abilities, it could so easily be as dull as dishwater, a big-screen blitz of CGI purely for the sake of saturating the viewer to the point of sensory overload.

Not so in this reincarnation. No time is wasted with an origin story (everyone knows this already) except in passing, so it easily gets away with dropping us in the middle of the plot – something that's normally incredibly bad practise. There's plenty of spectacle, but the pace of development is at all times appropriate. There's also plenty of self-awareness* and reflective social commentary; the first longer dialogue with Lois Lane's conflicting attitudes to accountability is particularly well done. There's emotional struggle, people suffer and die to the degree that's needed – Superman is not omnipotent or omniscient – but ultimately, it doesn't take itself too seriously.

* See innumerable SMBC comics in which Superman is described as being a hero only because he resists the urge to murder everyone. Gunn is clearly acutely aware of this.

The result is pure delight. I don't want to give any spoilers, but I LOVE KRYPTO THE DOG SO DAMN MUCH. For a superhero movie this is near perfect : Superman makes questionable moral choices but learns the right lessons; the comic relief and moments of glorious insanity blend smoothly with the more serious stuff; the effects are first rate and not overdone and always serve a purpose; moral messages are present but not overwhelming.

The acting, too, is spot on. Nicolas Hoult lends Lex Luther a good deal of subtlety. Conversely, another major villain is such an obvious combination of Trump and Putin such that it's no wonder the MAGA types are offended because the symbolism is justifiably blunt. Which is part of why it works so well : Superman wants to help war victims because it's the right thing to do, because all of the dystopian sci-fi needs to step back for a while, because what we all need right now is a vision that we can do things in a different way instead of letting the most wretched elements of humanity control our destiny.

Bravo, Gunn. This injection of Marvel-style humour in spades into the DC universe, in a standalone movie is exactly what's needed right now. Not just for rescuing superhero movies as a failing genre, but to give us all a damn fine way to avoid doomscrolling. More like this, please !