Before I get to my thoughts, I want to lead with this and be up front. I'm not a huge fan of James Gunn. I've liked some of his movies/shows (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 1, Peacemaker) and disliked others (Guardians 2 and 3, THE Suicide Squad). I haven't watched Creature Commanders and I'm leaving out previous movies like Slither and the many others I'm sure someone will call out.
I don't like his music choices. I don't always love his comedy beats. I don't always love how he films action scenes. This movie had a lot of what I like from him and what I don't like.
One thing I will say and it might sound like tepid praise based on what I've said so far, but I think this is the best Superman film by far. Unfortunately, Superman is a character that has had a string of middling to bad movies. I also recently watched the first one with Christopher Reeve with my spouse and it was not as good as I remember. I'll have a full review on that one day, when I sit down to write it. Here's my quick thoughts on the Superman movies starting with the Christopher Reeve. I'm ignore anything before 1978 because I want to.
- Superman (1978) - It is better in your memories. You have to wait FIFTY minutes before he is in costume. That also means that's how long you wait before seeing Christopher Reeve. Superman's origin is not that deep and yet the movie makes you sit through it all. I also do not like that ending.
- Superman II - This used to be my favorite movie (as a KID) until I rewatched it a decade ago. I had rose colored glasses. It's not great. The Donner cut doesn't make it THAT much better.
- Superman III - A villain not worthy of Superman. A waste of Richard Pryor. Christopher Reeve remains the only good thing.
- Superman IV - Holy shit. Christopher Reeve does his best, but this movie killed the franchise for decades.
- Superman Returns - A try hard movie. Now they're doing everything they can to recapture the magic of Christopher Reeve, but with a modern twist. Look, Superman has a bastard child.
- Man of Steel - Zack Snyder doesn't get Superman at all and it shows in this movie. There were a lot of artistic...choices, made in this movie.
- Batman V. Superman - Batman's name comes first. Tells you all you need to know.
With that being said, let's get on with it.
- My first unpopular opinion. I do not like Krypto in this movie. At all. They might as well have named him Deus Ex Machina, because that is the role he plays. He was around entirely too much. I don't hate dogs, but this is ridiculous. Congrats for getting him on the big screen I guess.
- David Corenswet continues the long line of perfect, Superman/Clark Kent casting. I think the only outlier in all live action stuff will come as no surprise. We know who that is: Dean Cain. I think this is the most human we've seen Superman portrayed on screen. He had more emotions than crying, angry or happy. They got across that he was a guy that is pained by the people turning on him when all he wanted to truly do was help people. We got a whole arc out of this.
- With all that being said, I don't like how quickly people turned on Superman. Maybe this reflects what would happen in real life, but I'm trying to escape that! Then at the end it was like, "Ooop, my bad." If I was Superman, I would let those fickle humans deal with things themselves.
- From the early trailers, I was worried there'd be too many heroes that take away from Superman. It didn't necessarily feel like that, thankfully.
- Speaking of those heroes, the choice of Guy Gardner, Hawkgirl and Mister Terrific (and later Metamorpho) is NOT who I would have chosen as choices for this movie, but I'm glad that James did. He showcased a bunch of heroes non-comic fans might not be aware of and this can serve as an intro to them. They were all interesting without being overbearing.
- Quick note about Metamorpho, his pratcical costume was AMAZING. Great job by the team.
- I would have really liked to see more Daily Planet stuff than what we got. While I'm happy they went heavy on Superman and less on Clark Kent, I wanted to see more of Perry White (played by the Wire's Wendel Pierce!), Jimmy Olsen and a very great Lois Lane.
- I did not enjoy a lot of the action scenes here. A lot of them were extremely CG heavy. I'm specifically talking about Superman focused fight scenes. I didn't enjoy that whole sequence in Luthor's prison dimension (the back and forth in the proton lake) or the fight scene with the two luthor henchman at the end. I love Mr. Terrific, but I didn't love his big fight scene either. There's an overuse of spinning around, slowdown, etc. in these fight scenes and they don't need it.
- On the flip side, I did like the fight scene at the end with Guy and Hawkgirl. They were used effectively in that scene.
- I really liked Clark's parents and they felt Kansas folksy, unlike the past attempt of other films. They truly felt like concerned parents. Probably the most geniune part of the movie. Kudos.
- Clark/Superman also felt appropriately folksy and a little corny. He wasn't trying to be too cool for school. He's always called a boy scout and he felt like that in this movie. He goes way out of his way to be good.
- While Gunn is able to bring touching moments and humanity to his characters, he can't help himself with some of his comedic beats. Specifically when he's trying to cut the tension with a quip or something funny. I liked it in Guardians of the Galaxy in 2014, I don't want that now. The most specific scene that comes to mind is when Lois and Mr. Terrific are opening a hangar to get to his special ship and the door opens super slowly. I love this absurdist stuff in Peacemaker, a show inheriently silly. I don't want it here.
Overall, I think it's a great introduction to what James Gunn wants to do with the new DC Cinematic Universe. From what I've seen, he's taking time to build it up slowly and starting with characters you wouldn't expect. He at least has a respect for the characters and I think this is a good thing going forward.
