If anyone had told me that a new Superman film—one not starring the implacably handsome Henry Cavill but helmed instead by the broad-shouldered, blithely anonymous David Corenswet—would soar, I would have rolled my eyes faster than a Kryptonian in mid-spin. But James Gunn’s Superman propels itself out of the crate marked “2020s franchise relaunches” and straight into pop delirium, unexpectedly bristling with wit, irreverence, and yes, a genuine affection for tights, capes, and Clark’s enduring decency.
I approached Corenswet’s take on Superman, uncertain and with baggage: Cavill’s blue-steel awkwardness is hard to relinquish, and the mere idea of a reboot begins to feel like studio therapy for intellectual property. Yet Corenswet, tucked behind Nilos glasses and pressed suits, brings an open, at times almost bashful, humility to Superman—a Big Blue Boy Scout who manages to look almost sheepish when hashtagged #supershit by socially amplified monkey bots set loose by a jeering Metropolis. Gunn rather ingeniously cooks up a “monkey bot” subplot that has the digital age’s frothing outrage farming rendered literal and, for a moment, truly funny. The movie winks and grimaces at our post-Twitter world, where Superman can bench-press buildings but not meme cycles.
Much of this bright fizz is thanks to Rachel Brosnahan, a Lois Lane with spiky nerve and sly timing. I’ve been partial to her mercurial, seen-it-all energy ever since House of Cards, and here, trading quicksilver dialogue and tender challenge with Corenswet, she practically reboots the role from the ground up. Take the moment when, in the middle of a dire rescue mission, she’s stuck waiting in Mister Terrific’s garage—tense silence stretching as his supposedly high-tech flying capsule sits idle behind the world’s slowest garage door. Lois breaks the tension with, “You have a flying saucer, but can’t get a faster garage door?” It’s pure comic-book vaudeville—Gunn’s Marvel-proven aesthetic, all eye-popping colors and self-mocking quips, finally freeing DC from its customary, ponderous gloom.
But not all that glitters is super. When a kaiju strides into the frame—a moment seemingly block-lifted from the pixelated anxieties of any modern blockbuster—the flames flicker and stutter with the crunchy weightlessness of a PlayStation cutscene circa 2013, a reminder that no amount of clever banter can always patch up a visual-effects budget straining at the leash. Gunn’s giddy embrace of comic-book excess is exhilarating, but when your monster flames look like afterthoughts, the spell is briefly broken.
Still, Gunn packs the screen with a riot of new faces and ephemera: Mr. Terrific, with his stoic incredulity and robotic aides, emerges not just as scene-stealer but as a contender for franchise breakout star. Even Nathan Fillion’s Green Lantern and the irascible Hawkgirl (as grumpy as a reincarnated immortal ought to be) shimmer in the Technicolor melee—a reminder that Gunn, part-imp, part-carnival barker, excels at organizing the unruliest funhouse.
And then there’s Nicholas Hoult—he of the porcelain charm and villainous aspirations—cast as Lex Luthor. Much as I like Hoult, he’s less Man of Steel’s nemesis and more “the clever intern you’d want to have coffee with.” Even with a shaved head and the arch glower dictated by Luthorian tradition, the menace never quite lands—he’s not so much a “bad guy” as a method actor hunting, with poised frustration, for a reason to loathe a man in a cape.
Gunn, of course, is the difference here. DC has spent the last decade knotted in self-seriousness—films that mistake scowling for profundity, and murk for gravitas. Superman throws open the shades: sunlight pours in, characters bicker and banter, romances are allowed to percolate without doom hanging overhead. The best surprise? The whole affair is unapologetically, majestically comic-booky: canines with capes, sentient robots, pocket universes, and supervillainous schemes that feel hand-drawn rather than focus-grouped.
If Cavill’s Superman felt etched from granite—a monument at which we were meant to genuflect—Corenswet’s is endearing, emotionally tossed about, the kid with the dog (Krypto is the MVP) who struggles with the sadness and the joke at the same time. This is, in the end, the super-saga of Monkey Bots and meme hordes, super-dogs and garage door gags—a world where “truth, justice and the American way” means ducking a digital brick as often as a Kryptonite bullet.
If it’s not perfect—if Lex is a little too dapper and the kaiju flames a little too synthetic—for two hours, this is the Superman movie that lets us look up again, rather than inward. Gunn, that old Marvel slyboots, has finally snuck fun back into the fortress. For once, DC’s optimism feels earned—and with Krypto at Superman’s side, who needs anything else to fly?
This Superman soars—not by outmuscling Cavill’s brooding demigod or remaking Christopher Reeve’s gentle icon, but by capturing the sense of wonder that first hooked me as a child. When I watched Christopher Reeve’s Superman all those years ago, I felt the awe of a world made bright by heroes. Now, watching Corenswet’s take with my seven-year-old daughter, I can see her experiencing that same wide-eyed excitement. Gunn’s film hands the magic down—a perfect introduction for a new generation, every bit as joyous and inviting as it was for mine.
