Throughout every onscreen incarnation of the Man of Steel, there’s a rhythm we’ve come to expect. Superman discovers his powers. He hides in plain sight as Clark Kent. He saves lives. A villain finds him—Zod, Luthor, maybe something worse. He’s nearly defeated. Then there’s a twist, or an assist, and he saves the day. James Gunn’s Superman takes this exact trajectory, and it’s fair to ask: Do we really need another adaptation?
Hard answer: Yes. Because beneath the overstuffed plot and clashing tonal shifts, there’s something warm and human in this reboot—something that gets closer than most to what makes Clark Kent special. The Reeve-Kidder spirit lingers here, reimagined with care by David Corenswet and Rachel Brosnahan. Gunn’s film may wobble, but it walks away with its heart intact.
And oh, the dog.
Superman: A Hero in Progress
To Gunn’s credit, the film skips the obligatory crash landing and Smallville farm boy sequences. Instead, a tight opening narration lays out the timeline: 300 years since metahumans were documented, 30 years since a Kryptonian landed on Earth, and just 3 minutes ago, Superman took his first major loss. That loss—courtesy of an engineered menace from LuthorCorp—propels the plot forward. No origin story. No pearls falling in the alleyway. Just Clark Kent, already a fixture in Metropolis, balancing his job at the Daily Planet with his responsibilities as Earth’s most powerful immigrant.
We’re introduced to a seasoned Superman (Corenswet) who’s been publicly active for three years, secretly dating his colleague Lois Lane (Brosnahan), and struggling with the weight of his dual identity. Their relationship, already in full swing when the movie opens, becomes one of the film’s smartest subversions. Gone is the old “Will she figure it out?” routine; instead, we get a real couple with real tension—playful, romantic, and sometimes exasperated with each other. It’s modern without being cynical.
Meanwhile, Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult), a coldly obsessive tech-industrialist, is laying the groundwork for a large-scale geopolitical scheme. Hoult’s Luthor isn’t the theatrical villain of old. He’s a simmering presence, chilling in how ordinarily despotic his ambition feels. He’s turned his obsession with Superman into a full-time enterprise, going so far as to create Ultraman, a genetically engineered nemesis designed to weaken public trust in the Man of Steel. One of his most insidious plots involves manipulating Superman into defending Jarhanpur, a developing nation, against its warmongering neighbor Boravia—thereby painting the hero as a rogue actor interfering in sovereign matters.
These ideas don’t always land, yet they’re bold nonetheless. Gunn shows us a world that’s caught between reverence and suspicion toward its strongest protector. The tension comes not from kryptonite, but from the murkiness of global politics and public trust.
Sight and Sound, Strength and Strain
On a technical level, Superman is often dazzling. Henry Braham’s cinematography brings back color and clarity to the DC Universe—a welcome break from the grayscale murk of past entries. Sunlight filters through windows. The Fortress of Solitude glows with cosmic wonder. And Metropolis finally feels like a real city instead of a digital gray-box. Braham’s visual language is brighter, more optimistic, and pairs well with the emotional tone Gunn tries to strike.
The score, composed by John Murphy and David Fleming, resists the easy temptation of pastiche. There’s no direct lift of the iconic John Williams fanfare, but the spirit lingers in sly orchestral nods—especially a sharp-11 chord progression that will delight those who know music theory. The music evokes heroism without leaning too hard on nostalgia, a fine line that’s expertly walked. And while I still admire Hans Zimmer’s existential bombast in Man of Steel, this score returns a kind of playful nobility to the sound of Superman.
Gunn’s screenplay is where the polish starts to fade. For all his talent in balancing ensemble casts and weaving heart into genre material, he still struggles with overexplaining. Characters talk too much, and not always with purpose. A little exposition goes a long way, but here it pours in buckets. Dialogue too often turns into lore dumps, and the pacing suffers as a result. The runtime barely crosses two hours, yet it feels longer than it should.
Still, there are visual pleasures worth noting. The Superman robots—voiced by a chorus of familiar Gunn collaborators—add wit and warmth. The action sequences are cleanly staged, if sometimes weighed down by heavy CGI. There’s real momentum in how the film moves, even when the narrative itself lurches.
“Who’s a Good Boi?”
Fortunately, Krypto the Superdog is not a throwaway gag. He’s not just in the film to move plush toys at the merch table. Instead, he’s the heart of the film in his own shaggy way. Modeled in part after Gunn’s own dog Ozu, Krypto blends slapstick chaos with quiet affection. His scenes offer comic relief, sure, but also emotional anchoring.
There’s a moment—blink and you might miss it—where Krypto lays his head beside a wounded Superman, refusing to leave. It’s not milked for drama, but it lands. In a film about legacy, loneliness, and the impossibility of being everything to everyone, Krypto is the rare character who asks for nothing. Just presence. Just love. If that’s not super, what is?
But he’s also hilarious. Krypto barrelling through henchmen, proudly holding up Superman’s cape, or zipping past Justice Gang members like an overeager intern hopped up on loyalty—every appearance is a scene-stealer. Gunn gives him just enough personality to matter, without anthropomorphizing him into a talking sidekick. His loyalty isn’t just comic relief; it’s a mirror for what Superman himself offers the world: uncomplicated, tireless love.
In the chaos of warring ideologies and expanding cinematic universes, Krypto grounds the film. And somehow, he earns the final image of the movie—not Superman soaring above Earth, but a dog, tail wagging, eyes alert, waiting for the next call to action.
Corenswet and Brosnahan: Old-School Magic
Through it all, the film’s emotional engine runs on the chemistry between Corenswet and Brosnahan, and they deliver something that feels lived-in and earned. Watching them on screen took me back to a weekday afternoon, post-kindergarten, where I sat cross-legged in front of a boxy TV watching on VHS Christopher Reeve taking Margot Kidder on that now-iconic flying date. That moment was pure movie magic. I didn’t expect to feel anything like that again.
But Corenswet and Brosnahan come close. Their Clark and Lois spark, not just as lovers but as co-workers, rivals, and ideological foils. Their relationship has friction, wit, and most importantly, respect. Brosnahan plays Lois with both steely resolve and warmth. She’s sharp but never cruel; she admires Clark’s optimism but challenges his worldview. She’s not written as a token “strong female character” but as a woman with her own arc, her own doubts, her own ambitions.
Corenswet, for his part, is the surprise of the film. He doesn’t try to do a Reeve impersonation, but he borrows the posture. The grace. The quiet command. His Superman is not always serene—he yells, he loses his temper, he doubts. But that messiness makes him more endearing. The best Superman stories have always reminded us that his greatest strength is empathy. Corenswet makes you believe it.
Pacing Woes and the Cost of Expansion
Even so, Superman is riddled with flaws. Tonal shifts swing like a pendulum. One moment we’re watching a charged political thriller, and the next we’re in screwball territory with the Justice Gang bickering like they’re at Thanksgiving dinner. The shifts aren’t seamless, and in a movie with this many characters, seams matter.
Gunn is a maximalist by nature, and here that instinct gets in his own way. There’s just too much going on. Some characters—like Wendell Pierce’s Perry White and Anthony Carrigan’s Metamorpho—are given the outline of an arc but never the full sketch. While Hoult’s Luthor feels like a fascinating concept, it doesn’t feel like a completed character. We glimpse his trauma, his ego, his eerie calm, but we don’t live with him long enough to feel the dread he could inspire.
James Gunn’s kickoff to the DC Universe is a mixed bag in depicting the hero. But capturing the man? That part’s SUPER.
Meanwhile, the Justice Gang is a mixed bag. Nathan Fillion’s Guy Gardner is delightfully obnoxious, and Edi Gathegi’s Mister Terrific emerges as a potential fan favorite—cool, composed, and ethically driven. But Isabela Merced’s Hawkgirl is disappointingly sidelined, reduced to shrieks, grunts, and exposition.
World-building gets in the way of the human story. Gunn clearly wants to lay tracks for future DCU entries, introducing characters like Angela Spica/The Engineer and teasing Supergirl. However, these scenes often feel parachuted in, interrupting the flow instead of enhancing it.
The Alien as Everyman: Immigration and Hope in 2025
There’s a scene in Superman that’s easy to write off as corny: a group of children rallying around a crudely drawn Superman symbol on a makeshift flag. They plant it into the dirt, and the crowd—ordinary people, bystanders—begin chanting his name. It’s on-the-nose, almost embarrassingly earnest. And yet, it might be the clearest thesis statement of the film.
Gunn leans into the symbolism of Superman as an immigrant—not as a footnote, but as a narrative core. Here’s a character who doesn’t just arrive from another planet; he’s constantly reminded that he doesn’t belong. And still, he chooses kindness. In a time when xenophobia is once again cresting, when immigration policy is on the front page of every newspaper, Gunn’s film makes the quiet but potent argument that it’s the outsider—the alien—who best understands what it means to belong.
This metaphor has always been part of Superman’s story, but here it resonates with renewed urgency. The idea that someone not born on Earth could become its greatest protector, its most revered citizen, is a powerful one. Especially in 2025, amid another wave of nationalist rhetoric and border fearmongering, this iteration of Superman doesn’t retreat into neutrality. He defends the displaced. He listens to the powerless. And when asked who he fights for, he doesn’t flinch.
Yes, the flag scene is blunt. But so are the times we live in. And sometimes, especially in superhero stories, earnestness is a virtue.
‘Superman’: Rebuilding the Myth
There’s no clean way to reboot a character this mythologized. Every creative decision will be measured against what came before. For me, the 1978 film still reigns supreme in its simplicity and earnestness. But this new take improves on some longstanding issues. It gives Lois and Clark actual romantic tension. It shows a Superman who can be angry without being monstrous. And it dares to suggest that kindness doesn’t have to be boring.
Gunn doesn’t reinvent the wheel. In a way that’s weirdly refreshing, he lets it wobble. In the process, he also lets it roll toward something heartfelt. This isn’t the most consistent Superman film, nor the most tightly scripted. But with Corenswet and Brosnahan leading the way, it may be the most emotionally honest one in decades. Superman, here, isn’t a god among men. He’s a man learning what kind of god the world needs him to be.
And yes—the dog is still the best part.
A self-described cinephile who can’t stop talking—and writing—about films. Paul also moonlights as ghostwriter and editor for a few memoirs. He currently resides in the Philippines.
