Superman

Superman doesn’t begin with Krypton, nor with Smallville, nor with the discovery of extraordinary powers. The film picks up later. Superman has long been a part of this world; Clark Kent works at the Daily Planet; Lois Lane knows both sides of his identity; and Lex Luthor has already decided that this alien hero is a problem. Even the other metahumans don’t seem like a sensation. They’re part of everyday life. James Gunn thus spares himself the trouble of reintroducing a character whose origin story hardly needs explaining anymore. Instead, he’s interested in a more difficult question: How does someone who believes in good hold his ground in a world that increasingly views this stance as naivety?

Superman (David Corenswet) feels the brunt of this early on. After his unilateral intervention in an international conflict, the celebrated protector becomes a political figure of contention. Was his intervention right because it saved lives? Or did a single man use his nearly unlimited power to flout the authority of nations and disregard the rules? For Superman himself, the answer initially seems simpler than it does to those around him. He saw people in danger and helped them.

Lois Lane won’t let him get away with that simplicity. A conversation between the two begins almost casually and develops into a surprisingly persistent interview. Lois asks about jurisdiction, consequences, and responsibility. Clark doesn’t respond like someone who has long since intellectually justified his position. He responds like someone who is convinced he acted morally correctly and only realizes during the conversation that conviction alone doesn’t answer every question. It is precisely here that the film finds its Superman.

His physical superiority is obvious, yet this Superman rarely comes across as intimidating. He can be hurt, annoyed, unsettled, and occasionally quite awkward. Corenswet doesn’t imbue him with any monumental gravitas. His humanity doesn’t stem from the film downplaying his powers. It is revealed above all in the moments when all those powers are of little help to him.

This is especially true with Lois. Rachel Brosnahan doesn’t treat Clark with awe or as a mere romantic counterpart. There’s an intimacy between them that hasn’t yet become completely secure. She knows his secret, but that doesn’t mean she automatically accepts his decisions. Their relationship provides the film with some of its quietest scenes, because here, no world needs to be saved. Two people are trying to figure out how much intimacy is possible when one of them is also a public figure of global significance.

For Lex Luthor, this very attitude is almost unbearable. Superman’s mere existence seems to be a personal insult to him: here is someone more powerful than he is, who doesn’t even want to use his superiority to rule. Luthor’s hostility therefore requires no grand gesture. Hoult makes it evident through his irritability and his barely concealed need for control. While Superman views his abilities as a responsibility, Luthor thinks in terms of influence and superiority. His true weapon, therefore, is not physical strength. He understands that public perception can make a hero just as vulnerable as an enemy.

As a result, Superman frequently navigates between very different scales. One moment it’s about political responsibility; the next, Clark has to deal with Krypto, a dog as powerful as he is nearly uncontrollable, who has little respect for Superman. Other meta-beings have long been part of everyday life in this world. They don’t appear with grand origin stories, but rather as already established heroes with whom Superman must collaborate. The film doesn’t expect every extraordinary character to be explained in detail first.

This sense of matter-of-factness does the world good. Metropolis doesn’t look like our reality, into which superheroes have happened to stumble. The film indulges in garish colors, strange technologies, giant creatures, and characters whose names would actually sound absurd in a sober conversation. It doesn’t even try to make any of this more believable by presenting it as inconspicuously as possible. It is the people within this world who become believable.

At times, however, things get very crowded. New characters, conflicts, settings, and ideas are introduced at a pace that leaves little time to catch one’s breath. Not every subplot carries the same weight, and some action sequences are less interesting than the conversations that come before or after them. Precisely because the film works surprisingly well when Superman is simply talking to someone, the next big digital clash occasionally feels almost like an interruption.

Yet even amid the spectacle, one unusually simple trait remains: Superman wants to help. Not strategically, not because it benefits his public image, and not only when the rescue is big enough to make headlines. The film takes this impulse seriously without turning it into a constant spectacle. Here, kindness isn’t confused with infallibility. Superman can make the wrong decisions. He can be mistaken. He can underestimate the consequences of his actions.

Perhaps that’s precisely why the character doesn’t need another attempt to make him more complicated than he is. The world around Superman is already complicated enough. His belief that a person in distress should be rescued first and foremost seems, in that context, almost more radical than any of his powers.