Superman (2025) is punk goshdarn rock
Gonna go ahead and tell you this is gonna be a full spoiler for Superman (2025). I just wanna talk about the movie full without having to hold back because y'all should have already seen this if you take the time to read about it this late in the proceedings. And you should see this movie if you have any interest in Superman as a character or have a good time with a friend who really likes Superman. Unless they really like that mopey shit of the last few movies featuring the character. Or think kindness is stupid.
Of course, I say all that but about halfway through I'm gonna tell you to go visit the patreon for the full review. Thanks to those that do.
To put my feelings about this movie down quickly: it's a fun mess that gets the characters and the world right. This is as comic book a movie as you will ever see, barring Gunn deciding to go Ang Lee and put that panel vision up. It's a movie about a kind man trying to do the right thing. I really enjoyed it for all its flaws.
I'm not gonna say "immigrant" a lot here, but this is totally a movie about how immigrants are the lifeblood of the United States no matter what social media tells you. That's the text.
Anyway, small rant about AMC Theaters. I pay for the three movies a week thing. I see a lot of movies. And that means I show up really late because if they give me an assigned seat I will try to skip the commercials that take up the first 20 minutes of the run time. AMC Theaters: We make movies better… eventually. There's no reason for me to see an All-State commercial between trailers for The Odyssey (hell yeah, looks good) and Cat in the Hat (the hell is this shit?).
So right away we get our first clue that this comic book movie is different. We get a series of text in a timeline detailing the history of Superman and the world we are about to see. At the time, I thought "well shit, couldn't we have seen this?" Of course, I never said this at any of the Star Wars movies. It clicked later. This beginning harkens to Star Wars and comics in general: it's a summary page. The history mimics the first page of a comic that catches you up on a serial story that started a few issues ago. Stuff we don't need like Krypton blowing up or the Kents finding baby Clark. Stuff like his first adventure or meeting the metahumans that have been around for a few hundred years. All that world building stuff that happened before this story starts so we can get into it. At the time it was tedious, but thinking on it I see the genius. This really is one of the most comic book movies ever made following the practice of picking up an issue and jumping right into the weird ass proceedings.
Superman lost a fight that happened last issue and has crashed down in Antarctica. Here we find the man beaten but not alone. He has a dog and some robots. What more could the most powerful creature on the planet need? Maybe some solar therapy and hearing a note from his birth parents saying what a special boy he is. We should have known some shit was to follow when Bradley Cooper is your dad (and Angela Sarafyan is your mom, but mostly I wanna see her in more).
Back to the fight our flying guy lost, and man the flying is still fun to watch. I read some shit about lenses and fancy ways they made the flying look different, but I don't remember any of it. It just looks cool.
Here we also get the reason for the fight. Superman stepped in when a military of a US ally began a ground invasion of a small contentious nation. People are a little angry about that and a guy calling himself the Hammer of Baravia came to kick Superman's ass. It's really Ultraman controlled by Lex Luthor doing a video game style code-battle. We started with Superman beaten, but here he's out matched. Lex has proven to be the smarter opponent while taking the time to study Superman, learn all his movies, and use them against him. Superman is reactionary at this point, as the screenplay and general storytelling dictates, and as we saw earlier with him coughing up blood can be beaten. And he is with nobody seeming to give much of a shit about where to the Hammer of Baravia vanishes.
Then we get to meet everyone not punching things in this movie. Lois the intrepid reporter and Jimmy the sex machine are ribbing mild mannered reporter Clark in the newsroom. Lex is trying to sell his brand of metahumans like a tech bro grifter. Eve Tesmacher takes selfies. Everyone feels of the world, even the sweet Ma and Pa.
Ma and Pa are as folksy as they come with thick rural accents that almost feel a little mocking to be honest. I'm from Mississippi. I grew up around strong accents that for years have been mocked in movies and television. Even though this is a positive depiction, it still feels awkward for me to hear because I keep waiting for the joke. Except there's not. They are old with Ma holding her cell phone a foot away and yelling into it. They may be simple in caring for their superpowered son, but they are genuine. In their house I would say "please" and "thank you" and "yes ma'am" when she asked me if I want more green bean casserole because I bet that shit is tasty. Stuff, sorry ma'am.