Superman Movie Review: Makes you believe absolute good is always relevant

Decades of superhero cinema. Every form of superhuman strength imagined, enjoyed, critiqued, deconstructed, and analysed. The genre has been established, subverted, parodied, and even reinvented countless times. In 1978, you could boldly declare, “You'll believe a man can fly,” and people would flock to the theatres. Flying isn’t as dazzling anymore. After cycles of supposed ‘superhero fatigue’, comes the grandfather of all superheroes, Superman. But isn’t he overtly powerful and too good? And isn’t that too boring? Valid points. As real-world cynicism seeps into superhero media, it has become increasingly hard to buy an unabashedly hopeful farm boy who is not corrupted by absolute power. So, a question lingers: is Superman possible?

James Gunn answers that question the way fiction answers everything. The film doesn’t care about the pursuit of whether Superman is realistic or how the world would react to such an omnipotent being. This is also why Gunn ignores the origins of the character. The world isn’t reacting to a God-like being; they have been familiar with metahumans for thousands of years. Instead, the film makes you hope for an unabashedly optimistic character like Superman, who believes in everyone’s goodness, even if it means he gets repeatedly pummeled to the floor. It is not that he is realistic, but you feel a hint of warmth in the ancient part of your brain that yearns for such a character to be realistic; perhaps you believe you are capable of such inner light yourself. And that is what connects you to the film, despite the number of issues that would have pulled you out if it were a story about any other character.

Director: James Gunn

Cast: David Corenswet, Rachel Brosnahan, Nicholas Hoult, Nathan Fillion

Superman (2025) is a confidently simple and straightforward story. And there is a defiant charm in that. It is a unique and very specific brand of charm that might not work for everybody. Also, it might not be enough to mask the issues. The big hero moments, like when Superman eventually powers through the overwhelming traps to gain strength and fight back, do not work as effectively as they should. It is almost surprising how none of the action set pieces in this big-budget visual effects spectacle are memorable. There are Super robots, a nanobot-powered henchwoman who can restructure her hands into rotor blades, a super-powered dog, a kaiju, a metahuman who can synthesise any mineral out of his body, and still, almost every fight ends in a trade of punches. Except perhaps for Lois Lane (played with striking intensity by Rachel Brosnahan), almost all the characters feel like they were pulled out of an old-school cartoon. Ironically, Nicholas Hoult makes the most of this and delivers an emotionally high-pitched Lex Luthor, which somehow works both because of and despite the character’s zany aggression. There is a rapid succession of several ‘and then this happened’, so even the heartfelt moments don’t get the required time to leave a lasting impact. Despite all of this, the film still works; you still walk out of the theatre thinking about Metropolis and its people, hoping to revisit them someday, because the characters are well written. Superman (2025) is proof that maybe relatable, likeable characters do not need to be tortured and morally ambiguous. And the most likeable of them all is David Corenswet's Superman himself.

See, this is a simple and straightforward story, but that does not mean that Superman/Clark Kent is a simple or vague character. Superman takes clear political stances. He never masks his affability with performative neutrality. One of the boldest decisions of the film is when a geopolitical issue mirrors real-world conflict, and Superman makes it exceedingly clear where he stands on the issue. Gunn further underlines this by showing how Superman will not hesitate to take a stance when guns are pointed at children. Another bold writing choice is Gunn’s daring reimagining of Superman’s lore. This change in Kal-El’s (Superman) backstory wonderfully throws light on why the Man of Steel is more than just muscle. Gunn’s Superman choses to be who he is, and chooses to fight for all of humanity, not because of his heritage, not because he is a powerful alien, or the descendent of an extraordinary bloodline, but just because he feels it is the right thing to do, and because his foster parents raised him with those values. And that is the kind of strong foundation that makes you believe that this Superman is here to stay.

Superman (2025), despite all its flaws, is saved by a wonderfully written Superman/Clark Kent. The film does not presume to show the moral, philosophical complexities of a God-like super super-powered alien walking among mortals. Instead, it beckons you to imagine a person with a steadfast belief in the goodness of humanity who gets beaten down again and again, despite otherworldly powers, and still stands up to fight for the good. The film never asks if Superman is possible. Instead, through colourful imagination, you’re reminded how old-fashioned goodness never went out of style, fiction or otherwise.