Has Superman just saved the universe?
Well, a cinematic universe, to be more precise. And why are the alt-right trolls so upset about it?
Firstly, it’s a good thing that James Gunn‘s highly anticipated Superman movie is actually (a) pretty good, and (b) being well received.
Not that everyone’s happy: but when it comes to the professional trolls and haters complaining about ‘wokeness’ every time a new thing is released, it’s all become meaningless white noise by now.
And the only people listening to the tedious tantrums are presumably other bitter inhabitants of the clichéd culture war echo chamber.
It’s amusing for example watching Ben Shapiro complain this movie is pro immigration – seemingly not understanding the fundamental point that Superman is an immigrant (and moreover an immigrant character written and created by two first-generation Jewish immigrants to the US almost a century ago).
But any excuse to avoid any further talk about the Epstein list or Israeli war crimes, hey?
You have to wonder if all these professional culture war specialists are going to continue politicising and raging over every item of popular culture for the next two decades: or if it’ll eventually die off.
It was already tedious by about seven years ago. Isn’t it exhausting? I suppose it generates income, so that’s a reason to keep pumping this shit out.
But what are their viewers and fans getting out of it? Is it just a case of misery loves company? Aren’t there more important things in the world to get angry about? I can think of a few.
In short, we’ve become a very weird, warped society.
Meanwhile an official White House social media account posting an image of President Trump as Superman doesn’t just seem predictably tasteless, but also woefully tone-deaf, given last week’s events.
In particular it came days after Trump’s extraordinary outbursts about Jeffrey Epstein.
But sorry – we’re supposed to be talking about Superman.
In the real world (outside of the YouTube algorithms and incel-adjacent ‘influencer’ communities), James Gunn has produced a nice little Superman movie and people seem mostly happy with it.
It’s great for the beleaguered DC brand that Gunn’s reboot – seen as the new start-point for a new DC Cinematic Universe – is both as good as it is and as divorced as it is from the previous decade of relentless terribleness.
I embrace the fact that we never have to see the likes of Gal Gadot, Jason Momoa, Henry Cavill, etc, again – that we can just make a clean break and start over.
Literally the only previous DCEU movies I ever came close to liking were Batman v Superman (which was at least half interesting) and 2016’s Suicide Squad (nearly, but not quite).
The rest of it was just an increasingly irredeemable procession of soulless, bloated product, lacking creative spark.
Wait, actually I’ll give Wonder Woman 1984 a pass too: not that it’s good, but it is at least entertaining in its bizarreness.
But even as someone who was always much more a Marvel comics enthusiast than a DC reader (though I always dipped into DC books too), I’ve genuinely felt bad for years that the cinematic and televisual adaptations of DC properties have been either so poor or so poorly received.
Those are some iconic properties – and they deserved better.
Speaking as someone who’s never really been a huge fan of the Superman comics and who hasn’t really enjoyed Superman in any incarnation since I was a little kid, two things drew me to this project in advance.
First, James Gunn makes fun and endearing films: and has a good record with comic book properties. Those Guardians of the Galaxy films are top-tier.
And second, the DC Cinematic Universe has been in desperate need of a restart for a long time.
This Superman movie didn’t even need to be great: it just needed to be different and fresh and as far away from the previous vision as possible.
Which is kind of a low bar. But, while not any kind of masterpiece, this film does what it needs to do: and it does it with charm and fun.
Yes, fun – remember that?
Behind us is the oppressive bleakness of what the SnyderVerse ended up being. We don’t have to suffer though Henry Cavill’s brooding, tortured and charmless demagogue anymore.
But a more straightforward and likeable (yes, likeable – remember that?) Superman inhabiting a more straightforward and likeable world.
This is probably the best Superman since Christopher Reeve – and, given further development, might even surpass Reeve (let’s face it: only the first two films were good).
And I haven’t liked any Superman version since Reeve – not Cavill, and not any of the various TV incarnations (I gave the current Superman & Lois TV series a try, but couldn’t make it further than three episodes before the boredom kicked in). Dean Cain in the nineties was the worst, by the way.
But they’ve finally found a Superman that works.
Additionally, Nicholas Hoult makes a good Lex Luthor. I actually liked Jesse Eisenberg’s Luthor in 2016’s Batman v Superman, but no one else seemed to. Nicholas Hoult is a very convincing Luthor (though at this point it’s basically an unavoidable hybrid of Bezos, Musk and Zuckerberg).
This movie even manages a very good and comic-book accurate Guy Gardner – which could’ve easily gone wrong. And this might be the best and most likeable Lois Lane we’ve ever seen.
And there’s that word again: likeable.
The likeability factor – largely absent from a decade of DC cinematic projects – is so important.
That likeability factor was in fact key in pre–DCEU projects tied to the DC comics brand. You know who was likeable? Michael Keaton’s Batman in the early nineties. Michelle Pfiefers’s Catwoman. Christopher Reeve’s Superman. And, in a stranger way, Heath Ledger’s Joker.
And they were all from years before that charmless Man of Steel movie initiated a completely misfiring DC movie franchise that ditched likeability for overly preened bodybuilders, brooding Zoolander faces and pretentious iconoclasm.
Thankfully we’re done with all that.
James Gunn and co have managed to rediscover that apparently elusive ingredient of simple likeability.
In truth, 2021’s The Suicide Squad was really the proper start of that. But I’d all but forgotten that movie – and it isn’t as iconic or monumental as a Superman reboot in terms of importance. The Suicide Squad could exist in a vacuum. But this Superman reboot actually had a lot riding on it in terms of a new cinematic continuity under Gunn’s stewardship.
If we take this movie as the new beginning for a new cinematic universe, it’s a good and promising start.
And it feels almost alien to see both critics and broad audiences reacting mostly positively to a DC property. But a welcome novelty.
Of course, the pro trolls and anti-‘woke’ shit-posters hate it. They always would.
It’s mildly amusing to see Piers Morgan wheel some of them out on his programme to discuss the important news story of ‘Is Superman too Woke?’ Aren’t there important news stories to discuss?
But any excuse to avoid any further talk about the Epstein list or war crimes, hey?
He even had Ronnie Corbett lookalike and bitter old man Dean Cain (again, the worst Superman ever) on to attack ‘woke’ James Gunn and this new film. It’s sad.
But the majority of people – as evidenced by general reviews, broad audience reaction, and box office numbers – are evidently happy: and paying no attention to the professional culture war propagators.
Which is nice to see.
And yeah, I like this new movie. And this might be a Superman I can finally get on with again.
Between this and Marvel’s upcoming Fantastic Four release, these are two movies I’ve been rooting for to do well (and of course to be good). Marvel’s cinematic universe is strangely just as much in need these days of a new impetus as DC’s has been: and Fantastic Four is as vital and iconic a property in Marvel terms as Superman is for DC.
Hopefully, the FF movie next week will land as positively as this Superman resurrection appears to have done.
Well done, James Gunn. And welcome back to the Last Son of Krypton.
