Superman (Theatrical) 2025

With a monumental marketing campaign including light shows, banners on world landmarks, daily social media blasts, and even a publicity tour across the world, you would have to be a cave dweller to not know about SUPERMAN (2025). Its trailers promise a fun story, action packed, with a mix of comedy and tragedy. In that aspect, the movie mostly delivered.

 The highlight of the movie for me are its actors and the characters they played. David Corenswet dons the cape as Clark Kent aka Superman. He’s simply a good person wanting to do the right thing with his gifts. His was a very earnest portrayal, human in every respect and down to earth despite his high flying powers. My favourites however were Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor and Rachael Brosnahan as fellow reporter and Superman’s love interest Lois Lane. 

Hoult combines elements from past Luthor portrayals, balancing the calm calculated savvy businessman Luthor, made most popular by Clancy Brown’s portrayal in the 90s Superman: The Animated Series, with the an equal dose of manic crazy scientist genius Luthor of early golden age comics. He’s simply a bad man with bad plans, motivated by an extreme superiority complex and jealousy.

 Meanwhile Rachael brings that independent fire and fight to Lois, something sorely missing in live action portrayals for a while, easily making her my all time favorite live action portrayal. She is simply awesome. 

 The movie is a briskly paced plot taking place in a world where super powered beings both good and bad are a common feature. Superman interferes with a war which Luthor as a vested interest in, Luthor launches a campaign to discredit Superman as a hero and it works, Superman clashes with another group of heroes called the Justice Gang, a giant monster and another super powered being with seemingly similar powers to Superman. Meanwhile the movie espouses a simple yet timely message that kindness still matters. 

 I was not too thrilled with the visual style chosen. There was a lot of fish eye lens shots as if the movie was shot with a GoPro camera, leading too hilariously stretched proportions. I get that it is meant to approximate a kind of speed and hectic energy but the stretched proportions get weird after a while. 

Similarly the style of lighting felt very flat like that of the DC superhero tv shows by the CW (Supergirl, Legends of Tomorrow), and with a weird overexposed look to it that only heightens the glare from light sources and the sun. Basically it looks much cheaper than it is supposed to for a big budget movie. But perhaps it is intentional? 

Perhaps that look ties in to the overall simplicity of the whole movie and its characters? “Simple” is a word that came up a lot in the writing of this movie. The whole thing feels less like the more sophisticated 1996 Superman The Animated Series and more like an old school Superfriends or the 1988 Ruby Spears Superman cartoon in every sense. It is wholesome, nostalgic, simplistic, straightforward.

 The world of SUPERMAN is a fantasy that exists in a simplified black and white moral dichotomy. There is none of the underlying complexity that define real world people and conflicts. Superman interferes with a war and the consequences are mentioned and never brought up again. Superman has his reputation ruined, it is mentioned, then never brought up again. Superman doesn’t always succeed but he never reflects on his failings and they have little effect on him and is just swept aside for the next action beat. Just like the old classic cartoons. 

 And like the classic cartoons, SUPERMAN is fun and entertaining. It is both a throwback and an advancement of the comic book movie genre, retaining the light hearted tone that made Marvel’s MCU a hit, but dispensing with any attempt to reconcile the going-ons of the plot with any real world nuance or complexity. 

And because of its simplicity, this is the movie I would recommend to be shown to kids to get them interested in Superman or DC comics as a whole. It is simple familiar entertainment and sometimes there is comfort in that familiarity.