Starring: David Corenswet, Rachel Brosnahan, Nicholas Hoult, Edi Gathegi, Anthony Carrigan, Nathan Fillion, and Isabela Merced.

Directed by James Gunn

Warner Bros., out now

The return of the Man of Steel…

I grew up on Marvel. Kinda. X-Men mainly. Mutants were my jam. Batman seemed like an overgrown rich conservative who needed a good therapist while most of DC’s villains seemed like right wing extremist takes on progressive issues. However, I loved Christopher Reeve’s Superman. Superman II is a film that seared itself into my mind as a child.

After that, Superman kind of meandered unsuccessfully for me. The Snyder reboot was wonderfully cast but everything else about it was terrible – sour, sombre and po-faced. So when I saw that James Gunn was going to helm another reboot I didn’t know how to feel.

Gunn has a knack for making films that are good to eat popcorn to. They tend to be light hearted, funny, exciting and know how to use sound/music. But a trailer featuring a super dog and an apparent cast of thousands left me pretty sceptical that this film wasn’t going to land for me. There’s light hearted and then there’s cringe.

Gunn has achieved something therefore I wasn’t expecting – a film in which Superman is interesting, the story is madcap but still coherent, funny and exciting. It suffers from the third act superhero CGI crashfest we see too often but regardless of this, it is a superb bit of popcorn eating spectacle.

It’s also deeply political because being kind is, it turns out, a hugely political act in 2025 that speaks to a type of society that most people want but that a few billionaires and right wing extremists hate.

Superman has always been political (everything’s political). Superman is the paragon of immigrants. He has no legal way to arrive because he comes from SPACE as an unaccompanied minor. He’s fully assimilated (a deeply political act), he’s more American by values and culture than the Americans around him. Yet he’s also got one eye on the stranger, the person in need. He never forgets his own origin or the plight of those who need help. Superman could argue that, given he’s the most powerful person in the world, everyone else is undeserving. Instead he chooses kindness, compassion and to submit his strength for use by the weak for the betterment of all.

Many people in our society find this cringeworthy. They find it unrealistic. Lex Luthor certainly sees the idea of a strong man bowing down in service as his literal definition of evil. Luthor sits in the camp of ‘strong men should be able to do and say what they like without repercussions’. It’s also why he hates Superman, because someone like him, with so much strength, acting to serve others is, according to Luthor’s view of the world, to upend the natural order.

James Gunn’s Superman sticks a finger in the air and calls kindness the real action of heroes. Gunn has his eye to this throughout – whether it’s a food stall owner being kind, or people looking past their own fear to help, Gunn reminds us all that helping others, putting others on an equal footing in terms of their value to us, is a radical step.

Superman is a political film because it states kindness to strangers, to those less powerful than us, is the best of humanity at a time when large portions of the English-speaking world are doing their best to paint such behaviour as actually evil, as some plot to destroy their vision of society.

Without spoiling the film too much – there are concentration camps, private armies kidnapping people off the street, torture as routine, abandoning of due process, allusions to genocide and powerful people trying to make themselves kings. Superman knows who its enemies are. I loved it for that clear sighted identification but also that Superman/Clark Kent doesn’t ever allow himself to become like his enemies.

So, yes. It wins for me on that point.

As for the dog – well, to my surprise Krypto isn’t an annoying bag of CGI nonsense, actually adding the film in neat ways. So another win.

It is also funny. Nathan Fillion is superb in a terrible haircut and Mr Terrific is also fantastic.

But that does lead me to some of the problems. The female characters in this suck. Lois Lane is interesting but only there really as supporting cast. Brilliantly acted when she’s given a chance she spends too much of the time on rails even if the romance between her and Superman/Clark is really satisfying.

As for the other female characters? Blink and you’ll miss their 1D stereotypes.

The plot itself is two parts satire on a society that stops actually seeking uncomfortable truth over preference and bias. Yet it’s also one part Saturday morning cartoon conflict where physics is entirely optional. The two are probably both necessary but particularly in the final act it felt like they didn’t mesh all that well with reveals that don’t really feel earned even if there’s a wonderful throwback to the Phantom Zone of Superman II.

Verdict: It’s a nice friendly riposte to The Boys. A reminder that people can be good and complicated and caring even when the world is not. The DC slate needed something like this. It won’t work for everyone – especially those who think selfishness and hatred are virtues – but it is a film for the times and comes down in a place where Siegel and Shuster would be proud I think. 8/10

Stewart Hotston