Superman [2025] plus Short Takes on some various other cinematic topics
Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke
I invite you to join me on a regular basis to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I’ll refer to as either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) if they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative. However, due to COVID concerns I’m mostly addressing streaming options with limited visits to theaters, where I don’t think I’ve missed much anyway, but better options are on the horizon. (Note: Anything in bold blue below [some may look near purple] is a link to something more in the review.)
My reviews’ premise: “You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”
(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the song’s name)
However, if you’d like to know more about rationale of my ratings visit this explanatory site.
Here’s the trailer:
(Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge its size;
activate the same button or use “esc” keyboard key to return to normal.)
If you can abide plot spoilers read on, but this blog’s intended for those who’ve seen the film or want to save some $ (as well as recognizing those readers like me who just aren’t that tech-savvy). To help any of you who want to learn more details yet avoid these all-important plot-reveals I’ll identify any give-away sentences/sentence-clusters with colors plus arrows:
⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.
WHAT HAPPENS: (Go to this site if you want considerably more detail beyond what I'm providing.) Opening graphics say Metahumans came to Earth 3 centuries ago, Superman (David Corenswet) came from Krypton 30 years ago, went public 3 years ago, 3 weeks ago saved Jarhanpur from being invaded by Boravia, but 3 minutes ago suffered his first defeat by a Metahuman, Ultraman, leaving him bloody and broken as he calls for his superdog, Krypto, to drag him to his Fortress of Solitude in Antarctica where robots nurse him to health again. Back in Metropolis he's beaten once more by Ultraman, a henchman of archvillain/industrial billionaire Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult). He agrees to be interviewed by semi-girlfriend, Daily Planet reporter Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan), who angers him with questions about his vigilante actions in Boravia (she knows his secret identity of reporter Clark Kent). Luthor unleashes a giant monster on Metropolis, fought to the death by Superman and Justice Gang heroes Green Lantern (Nathan Fillion), Mister Terrific (Edi Gathegli), Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced) while Luthor invades the Fortress, captures Krypto, finds a hologram from Superman’s birth parents telling him to conquer Earth, create many babies to restore the Kryptonian civilization. Release of this video turns people against Superman (he’d never seen it), so he turns himself in to the U.S. government who gives him to Luthor where he’s imprisoned in a strange pocket universe along with other Luthor enemies. Ultimately, Lois and Terrific liberate the prisoners (including Krypto), with Superman returning to his foster parents to recuperate, ⇒after which he’s back to Metropolis when we learn Luthor’s in league with Boravia’s corrupt President, Vasil Ghurkos (Zlatko Burić), who’s launching another attack on Jarhanpur that’s stopped by the Justice Gang even as Superman and Terrific defeat Luthor’s Metahumans, including Ultraman who’s actually a clone of Superman. Lois and Jimmy Olson (Skyler Gisondo) expose Luthor’s schemes so he’s arrested, Superman’s again publicly embraced. At the end Superman returns to his rebuilt Fortress where reconstructed robots show him footage of his childhood with his adoptive parents as he knows his fate is from his chosen actions, not what he was once told to do.⇐
SO WHAT? There are just enough mentions for someone inexperienced with the decades-long saga of baby Kal-El sent away in a rocket from the dying planet of Krypton by his parents, Jor-El (Bradley Cooper) and Lara (Angela Sarafyan), so that he landed in a U.S. Midwest location, raised by Jonathan (Pruitt Taylor Vance) and Martha Kent (Neva Howell), then as an adult relocated to Metropolis where he becomes a star Daily Planet newspaper reporter working with/romantically attracted to Lois Lane to get a sense of the extensive history of this character in comic books, TV, and movies to get a glimpse of most of this within the present plot, so if you didn’t grow up reading the various Superman comics or seeing nearly all of the TV/cinematic depictions of his adventures like I did you could spend a good bit of your life catching up (even as I would need to do as my investments in those comic books fell off to almost nothing after DC blew up what they had evolved as the Multiverse back in the 1980s so they could start anew with somewhat-more-simplified storylines [over the ensuing decades I’m sure it’s all gotten overly-complicated again]), by wandering for days through this extensive site. But, if you’re already well-invested in the saga of Superman or just want to know how well this latest movie depicts him, then I must say this rendition is not up to what I consider to be the best superhero movies of the contemporary era: The Dark Knight (Christopher Nolan, 2008), Avengers: Infinity War (Anthony and Joe Russo, 2018), and Avengers: Endgame (Russos, 2019). For that matter, I can’t say this Superman narrative is all that effective when compared to what I consider to be the premiere versions of this Kryptonian’s story—Superman: The Movie (Richard Donner, 1978) and its sequel, Superman II (Richard Lester, 1980), with Christopher Reeve and Margo Kidder best portraying adult Clark and Lois in any version I’ve yet to see (along with Gene Hackman marvelous as Luthor), despite some reasonable approaches from other solid actors in 21st-century retellings of this legend—which cover in detail Kal-El’s escape from Krypton, after-the-fact holograms from Jor-El (Marlon Brando), Clark’s move to Metropolis, Lois’ discovery of his secret, etc. (Both older movies are easily/cheaply streamed: HBO Max, Amazon.)
BOTTOM LINE FINAL COMMENTS: If you read all of that lengthy plot-detail link I noted far above in this posting you’ll see that various portions of this Superman have been in development for many years; nevertheless, several aspects play in distressingly-familiar recognition for current audiences, such as: (1) The invasion of Jarhanpur by Boravia, based on the goal of taking territory, feeling all too similar to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (along with Boravia’s dictator a close match to Vladimir Putin); (2) The similarities between Luthor (in appearance and attitude) and Trump henchman Stephen Miller who hates Superman both because he’s an alien and he's well-loved by the general populace (he also has a putrid monomaniacal streak like Trump, but I won’t pursue that any further as I watch Jimmy Kimmel’s return to his late-night ABC TV talk show). Another aspect of this movie I haven’t mentioned yet is the brief appearance of Kal-El’s cousin, Kara Zor-El/Supergirl (Milly Alcock), with her own movie scheduled for next year; however, in this scene she’d drunk with him saying she must have been on a red-sun planet because Kryptonians can’t get drunk on a yellow-sun one like Earth. OK, but if she was under a red sun she wouldn’t have her superpowers so how did she exit some other interplanetary place? For that matter, how did Luthor get some of Superman’s DNA to create Ultraman? Still, this is just a superhero story, so let’s not get too rational.
This Superman opened in domestic (U.S.-Canada) theaters on July 11, 2025, still in 187 of them with $354.1 million grossed so far ($615.3 million worldwide), but the easy way to see it now is streaming, free to HBO Max subscribers ($9.99 monthly), sometimes on HBO too, or rentable from Apple TV+ for $14.99. The CCAL’s largely in support with Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews at 83%, yet the Metacritic average score's just 68%. Alissa Wilkinson of The New York Times is a supporter: “ ‘Superman’ is less about patriotism than humanism, about Superman’s deep belief that his job is to protect all the people of Earth. I don’t need to tell you that’s not always a popular position.” On the other hand, Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post, despite what she likes in this movie, says: “Still, it’s impossible to ignore that, somehow, it all feels rote and regurgitated. […] The question is whether there are any new stories left under that yellow sun to tell.” I find it enjoyable for this type of content with effective special effects, but it’s just not all that comparable to the best episodes of Marvel superhero movies. I’ll leave you with my usual Musical Metaphor, this time Nina Simone’s version of “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” (1964 Broadway-Blues-Ballads album) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JS8LWRCS6do&list=RDJS8LWRCS6do&start_radio=1, a video with colorful animation, but if you want to see her, go here (grainy video, good audio). Like Superman when he was being publicly rejected, she, as a Black woman in the Civil Rights era was saying: “Baby, you understand me now / If sometimes you see that I’m mad / Don’t you know, no one alive can always be an angel? / When everything goes wrong, you see some bad.” Fortunately, both of them became much better understood over time as what they’d done so well was celebrated.
SHORT TAKES
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