Posted by Joey Peters on Jul 15, 2025
I think the Superman franchise of movies has averaged out to being mostly bad. While fans adore the Richard Donner Superman flicks and there are many fans of the Zach Snyder derived version of the character, Superman (2025) blows them both out of the water.
The latest Superman film synthesizes my favorite parts of Superman history and mythology and creates a new base vision for who the character should be. It is a vital vision for today, and, unlike previous iterations, it is exactly the version of Superman we need today.
In Superman (2025) the Man of Tomorrow is snared in an elaborate trap by Lex Luthor, with the help of Ultraman, the Engineer, and a sparkledog original character version of Benjamin Netanyahu. This version of Superman already has his Fortress of Solitude (his secret arctic base built from technology from his home world), which he has populated with Superman Robots, Krypto the Super-Dog, and he buddies up with the Justice Gang: Mr. Terrific, Guy Gardner and Hawkgirl. He has all his classic friends at the Daily Planet: Perry White, Lois Lane and Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen.
There are ups, there are downs, there are big super fights. Ultimately Superman wins not because he’s good at throwing buildings full of people at his opponents, but with the best super powers of all: hope, empathy and friendship.
It is clear to me that most of this version of Superman is downstream from Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s All-Star Superman. This was the comic that made me a Superman fan. The comic embraces all of the goofy shit from the 1960’s, but it maintains a strong emotional core. Superman is the most empathetic person in the world. He will do anything to save a sentient life, not even necessarily a human one, and even horrible villains like Lex Luthor. And he truly believes even the worst villain can be shown the way to righteousness.
I’m a bitter old cynical son of a bitch. I enjoy some grim-dark science fiction from time to time. I still love the Battlestar Galactica reboot. But especially as the world itself gets darker we need beacons to give us hope. For me, these are Star Trek and Superman.
Nobody is going to bother defending Superman III, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace or the original Supergirl movie. These were pop culture slop squirted out of the hose because the original Richard Donner Superman and Richard Lester Superman II were beloved and incredibly successful. The successive sequels suffered from executive meddling, lower budgets, worse special effects and more creative control by actors.
Once your star is altering the script to contrive a reason to drive dune buggies your franchise is in trouble.
But make no mistake, the original Superman movies were far from perfect. They made you believe a man could fly, but they couldn’t convince you that a movie could have a satisfying final act. In the original Lex Luthor wins completely and kills Lois Lane, so Superman takes a mulligan, turns back time and beats him on the second try. I like my powerful Superman juggling planets and shit but this level of power fundamentally breaks narrative. He could just try anything again and again and again. He can save scum any situation. There is no story if you can just reload a previous save and undo consequences. At the very least you could have the respect for the audience to not show the failed attempts. This can work in the case of like Groundhog Day or Wayne’s World because those are comedies.
In Superman II he gives up his super powers and becomes human so he can live with Lois Lane, but then it turns out Kryptonian villains escaped from space jail so he gets his powers back and beats them up and traps them in space jail again. Then Superman kisses Lois Lane so that she’ll forget he’s Clark Kent. The whole situation is weird because like, why couldn’t you have the status quo slightly update as the movies go along? People could understand that Lois Lane already knows that Superman is Clark Kent in Superman III. It would even give you new different plot hooks.
Interestingly, there was a lot of drama at the time with Superman II. It was originally filmed concurrently with the original Superman, but after it’s release the investors that paid for the film had Richard Lester come in and rerecord huge portions of it. Fans vehemently swear by a later reedited version advertised as the “Donner Cut.” In this version the memory kiss is replaced with Superman save-scumming until he fulfills the right prerequisites to win without revealing he’s Superman. It ties in with the ending of the first movie, but that actually makes it worse. A lot of fans blame Richard Lester for the subsequent decline of the franchise but the problems that ruined Superman III and IV were already present by the second movie.
These aren’t horrible movies, they’re just mediocre.
Superman Returns was an attempt to revive nostalgia for the Donner movies. It wasn’t as bad as the later sequels but it was bland, regurgitated pop culture slop. For some reason after Superman II the Big Boy Scout left Earth to look for Krypton. Now many years later he returns just in time for Lex Luthor to get out of jail and do a new version of his scam from the first movie. You remember the first movie right Lois? The one everyone loved? Do you want me to ask the same question in a perfect Peter Griffin voice? I had to struggle to even think about what the movie was about so many years later.
The less said about the Snyderverse the better. To begin with, I don’t really like Zach Snyder’s movies. The first time I saw his Dawn of the Dead I was baked out of my mind and in the throes of a panic attack. It was the most terrifying thing I had ever seen in my life (which is good for a horror movie). When I rewatched it sober it was the definition of mediocrity. I still hold some ironic fondness for 300, but primarily that’s because it’s a very stupid movie based on a very stupid comic and a fair amount of stupid fun. It doesn’t have aspirations beyond being a stylish action flick with some cool fights. But ultimately this brings me to Man of Steel and it’s descendants.
The things I like about Superman (2025) are the things I hate about Man of Steel. In Superman (2025) our hero tries to save every civilian. In Man of Steel our hero is fighting Zod as hard as is possible to defeat him, even if it means one of them crashes through a building full of people. Superman murders Zod. I understand Superman and Batman having a “no killing” rule is a contrivance to keep censors off the comic book industry’s back. Superheroes in movies are generally pretty kill happy. For a character who has come to represent “hope” a no kill rule still makes a lot of sense.
The other thing that I really do not appreciate is that the Snyderverse is embarrassed by superheroes. It feels the need to make everything overly grim and self serious. It does away with Superman’s stupid little over-pants.
If you’re going to have Superman mercing dudes I’m not really sure why you’re bothering to use the character in the first place. At that point you might as well start borrowing grim-and-gritty derivatives of Superman, such as Apollo from the beloved comic The Authority. Apollo is pretty much: What If!? Superman was grim and gritty and badass and was boyfriends with Batman.
If you’re embarrassed by kindness and empathy there are other things you can adapt that are not Superman.
But anyway, my unreserved love for Superman (2025) places it far in excess of all the other Superman flicks in my estimation. One scene in particular really illustrates what I appreciate about this version of Superman. A kaiju axolotl is menacing Metropolis. Through it all Superman rescues civilians who are endangered by the creature, but he’s also working to figure out how he might extract this thing from any situation it could endanger people from, and bring it to safety. The movie is not embarrassed to have Superman show empathy for all living things. David Corenswet plays the character admirably and does a good job leaning into the heroic aspect.
The dynamics of the Daily Planet, the newspaper that Clark Kent works at while in his civilian identity, are clearly drawn directly from All-Star Superman, complete with Perry White, Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, Cat Grant, and the annoying sports reporter. Lois Lane in particular is really well fleshed out. She does a good job of highlighting how quaintly square Clark Kent really is. I find it really goofy when versions of Superman work overtime to maintain the classic status quo of Lois Lane suspecting that Clark Kent is secretly Superman but she can’t prove it. In Superman (2025) this Lois has clearly known for a long time and they’re trying to work through their relationship.
The movie isn’t embarrassed to have Superman be very powerful. Both the power and the empathy are critical parts of Superman. He is the fantasy of a man who has power but uses it for the good of all, not just for himself. But my favored version of Superman also has one more attribute: lots of goofy shit in the background. The movie is not embarrassed by this shit for the most part.
The Superman Robots are great. They were originally a plot device from the comics in the 60’s to explain how Superman might be at an event Clark Kent also attended. They mostly faded into the background until All-Star Superman, which recontextualized them as cool robots that do the upkeep on the Fortress of Solitude. Their main bit is to do the classic, “I have no feelings and that makes me feel sad!” Interesting for Alan Tudyk to get type-cast as a wise cracking robot. Krypto is an alien dog with all the powers of Superman. The Justice Gang are completely goofy. If anything they seem mostly inspired by the Justice League International, albeit with a mostly different roster. Mr. Terrific I think was selected to drag in one of the weirdest modern characters. Hawkgirl is relatively under utilized, getting one great moment in the movie. Metamorpho also shows up a couple times and his powers are used extensively. This is really the first time in film making history where the technology exists to portray Metamorpho’s powers with any level of verisimilitude. It’s a ridiculous effect but done without any sneering or nudging you with an elbow.
The main side hero is Guy Gardner. He is a (space type not magic type) Green Lantern who has a bowl cut and is a complete dick. Nathan Fillion steals any scene he’s in by being so one-punchable. But when the chips are down and the LexCorp IDF are about to mulch a small child he can be counted on to create a giant green shield of some sort. This version of Green Lantern is downstream from the Green Lantern Corp, an interstellar peacekeeping force that wield scientific rings that create green constructs out of the user’s will power. Green Lanterns are often described as “police” but you don’t see them beating up minorities and busting up protests. Simply for Guy Gardner to have been selected he must have a good heart. But he is personally very, very annoying. And that’s the perfect characterization for him.
But also Mr. Terrific pushes a lot of the plot forward. He wears a cool leather jacket that says “Fair Play” on the arms, a T mask that covers his face, and his super power is that he has an army of drones which he controls through his mask. I think mostly he plays a functional role and doesn’t have a lot of actual meat to do. I also find it pretty funny that Edi Gathegi appears to be type-cast as a dumbass billionaire inventor who does dumb shit.
The villains interestingly step back from this goofiness a fair bit. Lex Luthor is simply himself. He’s a driven, craven maniac who wants as much power as possible, and to destroy Superman by any means necessary. In the past versions of Lex Luthor have tended toward moustache twirling but Nicholas Hoult’s version is clearly built on the bones of the version from All-Star Superman. He feels like an exaggerated real person who inhabits an exaggerated world. He would like the Snyderverse movies if only they renamed Superman to something else.
The Engineer is derived from a character from The Authority, who does science stuff and had nanite powers. The Authority was the culmination of the grim-and-gritty 1990’s era of superhero comics that were trying to adapt to not just having bombastic art but also decent quality writing as well. It’s a critical darling and an interesting pull for a character who acts as a counterpoint to Superman. Unfortunately, the Engineer is a little under developed, as she is ultimately subordinate to Lex Luthor.
Ultraman is a living weapon built by Lex Luthor to kill Superman. The name is descended from a comic book villain of the same name who lives in various versions of the Evil Universe. In the DC Comics cosmology there is always an alternative universe where good and evil are reversed, although the exact nature of how this works varies a lot. Ultraman is an evil version of Superman who often fights the heroic Lex Luthor. This movie’s Ultraman is more descended from a different Superman villain, but I won’t name names because it would give too much away.
I would have liked if Superman gave him a really square stupid nickname, maybe Super Menace (after a classic villain from the 1960’s), but I do think there are hints of embarrassment in the edges of the movie that prevent this from happening.
Another thing I really do appreciate is that Superman (2025) has unrepentant progressive politics. The sub-plot involving the original country do-not-steal of Borovia, a middle eastern nation equipped with a massive array of weaponry obtained from America and especially Lex Luthor himself, as they rattle their sabers and prepare to invade Jarhanpur, a tiny unarmed enclave, is basically impossible to misinterpret. The evil president of Borovia has Benjamin Netanyahu loaf glued to his face.
And the way these things are woven into the narrative flows naturally. Sparkledog Bibi doesn’t show up and Superman in his perfect Peter Griffin voice does not say, “Hey Lois, remember that time Benjamin Netanyahu was a fascist dictator? Hehehehehehe!” The allusions to comic books, cartoons and current events are there, but there is no need to hang a lantern on them, not even a strangely colored lantern.
All of that is not to say that Superman (2025) is a perfect movie.
The first thing you have to keep in mind is that Superman is a pop culture product. Corporations are not your friend. Capitalism can incorporate anything into itself. One more time the estate of Joe Shuster took another bite at the legal apple in the run up to Superman (2025) to wrest control from Warner Bros’ over their ancestor’s very profitable creation. Once again, they lost.
The situation is already totally fucked. What Warner Bros should do is to basically bribe the Siegel and Shuster estates as much as it takes to get them on their side. Take it from the marketing budget. The Siegel and Shuster heirs should be dressed in suits made from hundred dollar bills and out doing promo for your movie. Instead they have to sue for scraps, and even that is doomed.
There has been a tendency to make superhero suits look like some form of armor. In most cases this works, but Superman is different. He doesn’t need armor. He’s super. I actually rather prefer the Richard Donner version of the Superman costume. At least they brought back the sorely missed over-pants.
The movie shows a little embarrassment at the idea that nobody would see the difference between Clark Kent and Superman, with a throw off line about Clark Kent wearing hypnotic glasses to distort his appearance. If you’ve already gone with Superman Robots and Krypto the Super-Dog you might as well go all in. In my estimation Superman has three personas. The first is of course Superman, which is a performance, he is being brave and strong and kind as a form of inspirational figure. This is an exaggerated version of his original Clark Kent persona, but built out as a public figure of aspiration. You want to be Superman. Whereas the original Clark Kent persona is a Kansas farm boy who wants to use what power he has to make the world a better place and he just happens to have a lot of power. He wants at least some measure of privacy and that’s why the Superman persona is exaggerated in the way it is. But the final piece of this trinity is that there is the fake clumsy Clark Kent. He stumbles over his feet and his words. He makes himself meek. And it makes it impossible to see how much he resembles the brave Superman.
Probably the greatest part of Frank Quitely’s art in All-Star Superman is that when you look at his portrayal of Clark Kent and Superman you instantly understand how nobody would think for a second these were the same person. Clark Kent is hunched over, nervous, he wears an ill fitting suit so his ridiculous musculature makes him look fat. Superman stands up tall and shows his physique off to full effect.
The closest thing to a real criticism of the movie itself is how Superman finishes the plot with Ultraman. I can’t even talk around it without giving it away. Did I find it unsatisfying? Or was it a violation of my understanding of this version of Superman? It’s not a deal breaker because I can see the void of context that could make this scene mean several different things. And also I expect the whole situation to be a swerve that will be paid off in a sequel.
Excepting the corporate nature and culture of Warner Bros, these are minor nitpicks. But the corporate ownership of Superman is no small thing. This movie gives me everything I want out of Superman. It gives me a man with incredible power who uses it to do the most good. I know people who have already seen it three times, and, like I get it. I could see myself watching it again in the cinema. But I’ll definitely still feel a bit of a sting in my back pocket giving money to Warner Bros.