Film Review: Superman (2025)

Major spoilers!

To be punk rock today is to be kind and generous, signaling virtue to others to encourage still more virtue, and maybe even a little cringe and goofy. To be punk rock today is to be earnestly good. To be punk rock today is to stand athwart the miasma of negativity, cynicism, hate-filled, vice signaling, and the cruelty-is-the-point machinations of our current culture and decide differently. Since his inception in 1938 by two Jews in Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, Superman, an alien assimilated into America by Kansas farmers who adopted and raised him, has been the ultimate punk rocker in the way I described above. In the 1930s and 1940s, he stood as a beacon of hope in a world turning to darkness by the rise of fascism. By the 1960s, he did so again during the death throes of the Ku Klux Klan and Jim Crow. Superman has always been explicitly political in that sense — his very existence is political to those who wish to enact fascism, maintain Jim Crow, and otherwise be perpetrators of, and party to, wrongdoing. That’s why the Nazis in their time castigated Superman and his creators. Of course, Superman, whose very namesake is a repudiation and reappropriation of a Nazi talking point about the Übermensch (Nietzsche’s “Superman”) as representative of the “superior Aryan race,” has long outlived the intended Thousand-Year Reich. Director and Writer James Gunn’s 2025 adaptation of the hero, Superman, is undeniably political, only again, in the way Superman’s existence is itself a political problem for some, and again, that makes Superman in Gunn’s film a punk rocker. At one point, in a dialogue with Lois Lane, who is an admitted (and snobbish!) punk rocker, she tells Superman, “You think everyone and everything is beautiful.” Superman retorts, “Maybe that’s the real punk rock.” Indeed it is. By being the unabashedly good, goofy Boy Scout in this film, leaning into every bit of Superman characterization and ethos that makes him relatable and aspirational in equal measure, Gunn’s Superman, and importantly, David Corenswet’s Superman, is the best live-action Superman film of all time. Gunn and Corenswet imbued Superman with everything legions of fans, including myself, have wanted to see out of Superman in live-action, essentially taking bits and pieces of the potential from previous iterations (Reeve’s embodiment of Clark as an awkward, intentionally understated identity; Routh’s poise as the Man of Steel; and Cavill’s empathy to “save them all”) to create a wholly new version for the big screen that is the closest we’ve seen to the Superman of the comics and of the animated films. It felt like I was watching a comic book come to life or one of the exceptional DC animated films turned to live-action. As viewers, we were plopped into a world that’s already existed three years with the knowledge of Superman, and it felt earned and seamless. I came away from the best live-action version of Superman I’ve seen feeling hopeful, reenergized, and proud to be a cornball trying to do good in the world, which is exactly the kind of sentiment Superman is supposed to engender as a “punk rocker.”

Gunn makes an interesting choice for how to start the film, again in a bid, I think, to make Superman relatable: he’s just lost his first battle. He’s been beaten, bloodied, and sent in retreat to his home in Antarctica by the “Hammer of Boravia.” Three weeks earlier, Superman unilaterally intervened in Boravia’s attempted invasion of its neighboring country, Jarhanpur, to prevent war. He gave its president (a facsimile of President Donald Trump in his wild haired appearances, allusions to smelling like piss, erratic nature, surrounded by sycophants praising him and telling him how handsome he is, and being a billionaire’s puppet) a stern talking to about not attempting to invade the country again. The aforementioned “Hammer of Boravia,” then, was the response. Thankfully for Superman, he’s watching a superpowered dog for his cousin, Supergirl, named Krypto. Krypto comes thundering through the artic like a runaway locomotive after being called upon, stomps around like the unruly, playful dog he is, licks Superman’s face, and then heeds the command to take Superman to the Fortress of Solitude where his robots can nurse him back to help with a little Vitamin D (the sun). A source of comfort to Superman is the partially recovered message from his Kryptonian parents, who ostensibly sent him to Earth to be a beacon of hope. After this battle, we get a little taste of the Daily Planet from the comics, replete with Perry White (played by Wendell Pierce), Cat Grant (played by Mikaela Hoover), Steve Lombard (played by Beck Bennett, which made me excited since I’ve been binging SNL lately!), and of course, Jimmy Olsen (played by Skyler Gisondo), Lois Lane (played by Rachel Brosnahan), and Clark Kent. In this world, we find out not only are Lois and Clark already dating, but Lois knows Clark’s identity as Superman. So, Clark allows Lois to interview him for the first time as Superman. Rightly as the dogged, fearless journalist she is, Lois peppers Superman with questions about his intervention in foreign affairs. Within minutes of their interaction on screen and not even 20 minutes into the film, I said to myself, “Oh, this is going to be a great movie.” I thought that because of the way Gunn was already depicting Clark/Superman, how Corenswet was playing it, how perfect Brosnahan was as Lois, and especially their chemistry together, even during an escalating fight about Superman’s role in the world. That wasn’t even close to their peak chemistry on screen, either! I just loved the dialogue of that entire scene, though.

Meanwhile, later, Lex Luthor (played by Nicholas Hoult), a billionaire who explicitly envies how the world adores Superman, seeks the United States government’s acquiescence of his plan to sideline Superman as a menace to society and adopt his private security forces to protect earth, including the “Raptors,” masked armored-suit wearing thugs. With the help of what’s known as Ultraman (the “Hammer of Boravia” was a thinly-veiled misdirection) and the Engineer, a metahuman with the power to manipulate nanotechnology to do her bidding, Luthor breaks into the Fortress of Solitude looking for something to discredit Superman. While this is happening, Luthor also set-up a little distraction in the form of a kaiju (Godzilla-like creature) to terrorize Metropolis. It should be noted that the world has known of the existence of other metahumans besides Superman. Those other metahumans show up to help Superman fight the kaiju: Guy Gardner/Green Lantern (played by Nathan Fillion); Michael Holt/Mister Terrific (played by Edi Gathegi); and Kendra Saunders/Hawkgirl (played by Isabela Merced). During the fight, Superman is preoccupied, as he should be, with saving human life, and even a cute little squirrel!

Back at the Fortress of Solitude, Engineer is able to decode the damaged second half of the message Superman’s parents sent with him. According to the decoded message, they intended their son to be an Übermensch in the Nazi conception that might makes right rather than how Superman interpreted the first half of the message: right makes might. Before leaving after having already “killed” all of Superman’s robots, Luthor and his cronies also kidnap Krypto. Luthor then wastes no time in broadcasting the recovered, nefarious message to the world, which quickly turns public opinion against him.

I’m forgetting the exact placement of this scene, but Lois and Superman interact again, where they discuss what being punk rock means and Superman’s worldview that everyone is fundamentally decent and good, while the Justice Gang, as Green Lantern refers to it, is dealing with a “interdimensional imp” in the background. Superman tells Lois he loves her and wishes they hadn’t fought. Again, it’s a show-stealer with these two. Because of the punk rock motif, it’s also one of my favorite scenes in the film. Superman decides to turn himself in. He thinks this is how he’ll find out where they’re keeping Krypto, who Superman describes as “not a very good dog,” but he’s “alone and probably scared.” Don’t mess with his dog! He’s the anti-John Wick in that he won’t go on a killing spree to avenge him, but he really, really wants the dog back. By turning himself in, Superman effectively turned himself into Lex Luthor. Luthor, the madman that he is, created a pocket universe to imprison his various enemies, including an ex-girlfriend he’s annoyed with. This is also where he has literal monkeys disseminating anti-Superman takes on the internet. The metaphor is rightly on the nose there! He’s also imprisoned another metahuman known as Metamorpho (played by Anthony Carrigan), who as the name indicates, can morph his body into any substance, including Superman’s one weakness, kryptonite. Luthor is able to get Metamorpho to do this while caged with Superman because he’s holding Metamorpho’s baby, Joey, hostage in a cell across from him.

What I hope people take away from the film, though, is that for as powerful as Superman is, he absolutely relies on the aforementioned doggedness of Lois Lane and the intrepidness of Jimmy Olsen to save him, if the need calls for it. In this case, Lois implores the Justice Gang to rescue Superman. Green Lantern and Hawkgirl have no interest. Mister Terrific is willing to help, though, and he takes Lois to the last known site of Superman before he vanished into Luthor’s secret prison. Jimmy’s source for information about Lex and his plans with Bovaria, its president, and Jarhanpur turns out to be Eve Teschmacher (played by Sara Sampaio). At first, I thought of her in the way Jimmy seemed to: an annoying, oblivious distraction. Instead, she was secretly amassing a treasure trove of information about Luthor and his plans under his nose under the guise of taking selfies. Eve is a bit of an unsung hero in the film! She sends these selfies to Jimmy before she’s also imprisoned by Lex after being found out. Back at the entry point to the pocket universe and prison, Mister Terrific is about the coolest damn superhero (besides Superman, of course!) in one of the slickest scenes of the film. He uses “T-Spheres” to hack into computers and help him fight, and in this case, take down scores of Luthor’s men with ease while also protecting Lois. I need a Mister Terrific movie as soon as possible. Gathegi was so good in this movie!

In the sickest, most depraved scene in the film, Luthor, who has kidnapped a Muslim food truck vendor who previously helped Superman, shoots him dead in front of Superman. This prompts Metamorpho to see the light, as it were, and help Superman escape. In bad-ass fashion, Superman holds baby Joey while fighting Luthor’s men while also nearly getting sucked into the gravitational pull of a black hole. He’s a beast. Thanks to Lois and Mister Terrific, they are able to save Superman, Metamorpho, Joey, and Krypto from the collapse of the pocket universe. Superman needs time to rest, however, so Lois takes him back to Kansas to not only rest but get a much-needed pep talk from Ma and Pa Kent. Gunn rightly situated the Kents as true-blue citizens of Kansas, with an accent, and as a salt-of-the-earth as possible. In a lovely moment, Pa Kent lets Clark know how proud he is of him.

Then, while still at the farm, Clark sees on the television that Boravia is going to invade Jarhanpur again. Thanks to LuthorCorp’s arms, Boravia is a well-equipped modern military while the people of Jarhanpur are essentially tribes people with the equivalent of sticks and stones. In the most aspirational, tear-inducing scene of the film, a small boy hoists up a Superman flag and all the people start chanting for Superman. Gah. That’s everything that makes me love Superman. I’m getting goosebumps just reliving it in my head. Unfortunately, Superman is also split, pun intended, by the need to stop the black hole rift that is tearing through Metropolis created by Luthor to lure Superman out. Thankfully, the Justice Gang, with the help of Metamorpho, arrive to save the people of Jarhanpur (Hawkgirl unceremoniously drops the president of Boravia to his death, admitting she isn’t like Superman) while Superman battles Ultraman. Ultraman is revealed to be Luthor’s clone of Superman, just dumber, who needs direction like its a video game, to battle Superman. Luthor crows, “Brains always beats brawn!” Of course, my contention with Superman’s depiction in live-action films is that he is far more than just brawn! He can, and should, do more than punch. Gunn gets it, though, because Superman uses “brain” to beat “brawn” by having Krypto chase the “ball” of the drones around Ultraman Lex and his team uses to control him. That effectively allows Superman to defeat Ultraman and then confront Lex to allow Mister Terrific to stop the black hole rift.

Back to his super friends, Lois and Jimmy reveal Luthor’s scheme to “own” half of Jarhanpur and make himself king after the invasion by Boravia (although, again, Luthor’s real motive was to kill Superman out of envy), which helps to clear Superman’s name with the public. The public is rather easily swayed back and forth depending on what is put in front of them! But … fair.

After the world is saved, Lois and Superman share a hovering kiss that is so electric it will make you swoon. Later, recovering at his Fortress of Solitude with his reconstituted robot helpers, Superman’s cousin, Kara (Milly Alcock) comes in, drunk and calling him a “bitch,” to pick up her dog, Krypto. She likes when Krypto thrashes her about “playfully.” I can’t wait to see more of Superman and Kara’s interactions! Then, in a sweet way to end the film, instead of watching his biological parents’ message for comfort, Superman watches scenes from his childhood on the Kent farm. Aww.

In a hilarious post-credits scene, Superman expresses his displeasure to Mister Terrific that when he stopped the rift, one of the buildings didn’t go back together perfectly. Superman then chastises himself for being mean to Mister Terrific.

Gunn achieved a remarkable feat with Superman and it starts with incredible casting. In totality, Corenswet is the best live-action Superman I’ve seen (I’ll always have soft spots for Reeve and for Tom Welling’s Clark Kent on Smallville, though). Gunn and Corenswet conveyed the way in which Superman is a symbol of hope in the world while also being a goofy, relatable dude. Just as importantly to any Superman story, Brosnahan played the best Lois Lane in any live-action Superman I’ve seen as well. She had the right mix of moxie and love of Superman. Which is to say, she loves Superman, but is strong-willed and independent enough to not be cowed by the aura of Superman. And as I’ve mentioned many times, the chemistry between Corenswet and Brosnahan was magical. I hope to see many more films with these two. Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor is far better than Kevin Spacy and Gene Hackman ever were (and I love Gene Hackman). Again, I have a soft spot in my heart for Smallville, so I adore Michael Rosenbaum’s portrayal of Lex Luthor, but for feature film? Hoult all the way. He conveyed such loathing and egomaniacal cunning well without seeming too cartoonish and outlandish, while also presenting as a formidable foe to Superman. Everyone else was cast well, too, as I already gushed over Gathegi, but Fillion played the aloof and also goofy Green Lantern well, particularly in his back-and-forth with Merced. I look forward to future installments that give Gisondo, Pierce, and the rest of the Daily Planet gang more to play with.

I also have to give a shout-out to Henry Braham for the incredible cinematography involving Superman flying especially, and to the soaring, goosebump-y score by John Murphy and David Fleming. When that Superman theme kicked in at times, I was all up in my feels. But also, it was so perfect to end on a punk rock song (I believe Punkrocker by Teddybears featuring Iggy Pop). Who would have thought how fitting that would be for a Superman movie?!

Superman is punk because to be punk is to rebel against the dominant forces of the culture, and at this time, the dominant forces of our culture are antithetical to Superman’s ethos, as the culture was when he was created in the 1930s, and as it was in the 1960s. Superman provides that clarion call to lean into what Abraham Lincoln called in his first inaugural address, the “better angels of our nature.” My hope is people walk away from the film having heard it.