In the opening chapter of DC’s relaunched superhero franchise, the director mocks the mythology of his main character, played by the likeable yet limited David Corenswet.

By Kyle Smith – July 9, 2025 10:45 am ET – Wall Street Journal

---

---

Rachel Brosnahan and David Corenswet Photo: Warner Bros. Pictures

My cmnt: Like most Hollywood movies: We’ll wait until it plays for free on Netflix or Prime. We so much more enjoy movies in the privacy and quiet of our big screen TV in the basement. You can start and stop the movie anytime, popcorn is cheap as are the sodas, and if you’re bored you can shut if off, leave or watch something else. This woke POS movie sounds terrible to boot. Also, if the film is any good we will buy it for about half the price of going to the theater and then can watch it as many times as we want. The old theater system is dead and needs to end.

The alert reader will have noticed by now a certain frustration on my part with the willful unoriginality in Hollywood, where “creative industry” is proving increasingly to be an oxymoron. Imagine my excitement in the opening moments of “Superman,” written and directed by James Gunn as the first chapter in a relaunch of DC’s superhero-movie franchise, now called the DC Universe. Mr. Gunn is determined to shake things up a lot, and does.

Different, however, is not always good. The film starts out with some myth-busting: The man in the cape, played by David Corenswet in his first major role, has suffered his first defeat in battle. Look, down in the dirt! It’s Superman! Appearing about as glorious as Jake LaMotta after 10 rounds with Sugar Ray Robinson. A prologue explains that for centuries Earth has been home to many superior beings called “meta-humans”; just as the new Jurassic movie imagines dinosaurs as public pests notable for disrupting traffic, Supes is merely one of many amazing beings crowding the airspace. As Clark Kent, working at the Daily Planet with Jimmy Olsen (Skyler Gisondo) and Perry White (Wendell Pierce), he has a habit of landing suspiciously exclusive interviews with Superman. Supreme power has gone stale, and Mr. Gunn gambles that his world is so prosaic it’s funny.

Back home, Lois Lane (a cute Rachel Brosnahan) knows Superman’s true identity and the pair have been dating long enough to get on each other’s nerves. For once, he gives Lois an interview, which devolves into a spat. Also, Superman has a super-dog, Krypto, who is annoyingly hyperactive but also keeps saving him. 

Despite being fake-looking and digital, the mutt is the star of the movie, because this “Superman” has the soul of a sitcom. It features wacky neighbors: the subsidiary metahumans Green Lantern (Nathan Fillion, in a “Dumb and Dumber” haircut); Mister Terrific (Edi Gathegi), who floats around pushing buttons on a console; and the attacking Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced), all of whom pop in to assist Superman. Its villain, Lex Luthor (a staggeringly miscast Nicholas Hoult) is the persnickety Dwight Schrute of the piece, forever huffing about how Superman is breaking the rules, particularly at his Fortress of Solitude, which apparently is not up to code. Lex, whose girlfriend, Eve Teschmacher (Sara Sampaio), is a ditzy online influencer—Mr. Gunn takes a lot of feeble swipes at social media—is accompanied by a henchwoman, the Engineer (María Gabriela de Faría), who can make her hands into circular saws or tentacles that double as data cables for hacking into computers.

Nicholas Hoult Photo: Warner Bros. Pictures

Luthor, an arms dealer trying to profit from the invasion of a sort of Middle Eastern analogue for Ukraine, threatens Superman by uncovering secret information, unknown even to the hero himself, about his background, which leads to a semi-comical stint in prison with a lump of Kryptonite and a strange being named Metamorpho (Anthony Carrigan). In keeping with the general air of mockery, Superman’s adoptive Earth parents are a pair of Dust Bowl dimwits (Pruitt Taylor Vince, Neva Howell) instead of strong-backed heartland avatars of decency.

That’s new, even startling, but also painful. For the most part the movie is, like Metropolis after Luthor gets to work, a disaster area. I’m not a huge fan of Mr. Gunn—I didn’t like any of the three “Guardians of the Galaxy” movies he directed, though I enjoyed his 2021 action comedy “The Suicide Squad” and the very funny spinoff HBO Max series “Peacemaker.” But even if I were, I think I’d be nonplussed by what he’s doing here. Peacemaker is supposed to be a spoof of comic-book heroism; Superman isn’t.

Mr. Corenswet is likeable enough, and has a powerful physical presence, but he’s vaguely pathetic for most of the movie. Superman can be a myth, a god, an American emblem or a symbol of the overachieving immigrant, but making him a schmo who’s so weak he’d be in deep trouble if it weren’t for his ridiculous dog feels like a dizzyingly dismissive choice.

When, in the third act, Mr. Gunn essentially says, “Forget how I’ve been ridiculing the legend for the last hour and a half, now I want you to feel awestruck and inspired” and cues up some of that incomparably glorious John Williams score from the 1978 “Superman,” it’s too late. Typical of Mr. Gunn’s nonsensical approach is a scene where skyscrapers get knocked over but we’re supposed to cheer because Superman saves one little girl. There’s a marvelous image of Superman and Lois Lane sharing a passionate kiss while they rise into the air, but its earnestness seems borrowed from some other movie. Otherwise the clanking gags and surfeit of super-people drain the wonder out of this Superman. The Gunniverse is starting with a misfire.

Copyright ©2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

Appeared in the July 11, 2025, print edition as ‘A Man of Steel With Feet of Clay’.