027: KILLING THEM WITH KINDNESS: James Gunn's SUPERMAN
The "Man of Steel" returns to the big screen in true form!
LOOK UP.
There’s a new Superman flick in theaters.
It’s been a long time since we last saw the “Man Of Steel” on the big screen and this outing sees Director (and new DC Studios head) James Gunn taking the wheel and, for comic book fans, this was a welcome sight.
Gunn is no stranger to the comic book movie sub-genre, having crafted the critically acclaimed Guardian Of The Galaxy trilogy for Marvel Studios, the light reboot that is 2021’s The Suicide Squad and it’s follow-up series in HBO Max’s John Cena led Peacemaker. So when news broke of his direction being attached to this new approach to the character, the launching pad for a new and rebooted DC Universe, the hype came quickly. And that hype was real.
With this latest film, simply titled SUPERMAN, coming after a decades-long and divisive media run for the Son Of Krypton, Director James Gunn gives a modern day approach to this hero’s story. No, I don’t mean the “selfies” plot device or Lex Luthor having a “bot farm” to trash “Supes” on fictional twitter (#SUPERSHIT) although those are some fun additions here, but modern in the way that this story is being told this time around.
We skip the “crash landing in Kansas” origin story, we skip the first fight and, more importantly for fans, we skip the early growing pains. We meet Clark Kent (David Corenswet) having already taken the reigns of Superman. He’s met his Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan), his existence has already pissed off Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hault) and his heroics has already won over the people of Metropolis and elevated that big “S” on his chest as a symbol of hope across the globe. Oh, and he’s already got his “Fortress of Solitude” going (his headquarters powered by crystals from his home planet of Krypton) and an “adoptive situation” with a super-dog named Krypto. Yes, Krypto wears a cape.
Gunn also throws audiences into a world where Superman isn’t the first super-powered being that the world has seen. We’re introduced to the “Meta-humans” early on, a group of super-powered beings who have been active for some time by the start of the film, “The Justice Gang” (no League yet, numbers probably) that includes a Green Lantern in Guy Gardner (Nathan Fillion), Mr. Terrific (Edi Gathegi) and Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced).
The stage is set with our characters, and it’s capped off with a big fight against a fantastical looking dragon-like ever-growing creature that feels like something ripped right out of Grant Morrison & Frank Quitely’s ALL-STAR SUPERMAN, noted to be a massive influence on this film. And the rest of SUPERMAN’s runtime displays exactly, taking us into a very Sci-Fi and Fantasy heavy Superman story with its creative approach. After our big monster fight wraps up, the film immediately takes us to a sour note with antagonist Lex Luthor breaking into Superman’s Fortress of Solitude and deciphering a broken message from our hero’s parents in which he himself was never able to crack.
The message? That Superman was sent to earth with the idea that he would grow up to invade and take it over.
An early blow to our hero as the masses start to question his own true intentions. The smile, the heroics, the relentless acts of kindness…was it all an act? Was Superman just buttering up the people of earth so he can get the drop on them? Is that big “S” on his chest a symbol of hope or a symbol of Earth’s destruction?
These are questions that the film poses to Superman and why this newest film with “Big Blue” is connecting with many.
Between his love Lois Lane and The Daily Planet questioning his interference with a global conflict, the government harping on him being an alien and Lex Luthor doing anything and everything in his power to destroy him for simply existing…Superman never breaks his posture.
The script from Gunn uses these challenges to explore Superman’s strongest traits in a similar way that Director Sam Raimi and Writer David Koepp approached their SPIDER-MAN film from 2002.
When the world is against you, kicking the hell out of you and your back is against the wall…as a hero, what do you do?
The answer is simple: you do the right thing.
You act with kindness. You can feel those dark emotions that every human does in broken times but what you do in those times, those low points where hopelessness starts to find you in every direction, is what really defines you. You have to fight back. Not just because you can’t let that darkness consume you, but you have to show others that it doesn’t have to consume them either, make them feel that hope is always within reach and to never lose sight of it.
Superman embodies this, and while I personally adore the more grounded (relatively) approach in Director Zack Snyder’s Man Of Steel, the 2013 Superman film that caused division amongst viewers, and the three film arch that he ventures on, I can admit that it took some time before we get to see this version of Superman. A hero that inspires. It’s the same type of inspiration that we see with the character of Spider-Man and his effect on the city of New York, to go back to Raimi’s film.
That’s what Gunn’s film does to a masterful degree. It inspires. It’s full of hope and the non-stop acts of kindness throughout the film radiates a certain amount of positivity that feels rare nowadays.
There’s a moment in the film that acts as the moment where our hero remembers this, a pivotal scene where Clark speaks with his adoptive Earth father Jonathan “Pa” Kent (Pruitt Taylor Vince) on their farm in Kansas. It’s a conversation where Clark questions his purpose, feeling that his Kryptonian parents’ intentions for him defined who he was. Pa Kent gives an emotional response telling Clark that between that positive first half of his birth parents’ message and the concept of kindness that the Kents instilled into him his own actions and choices are what ultimately defines him. They simply gave Clark the tools to work with for him to build his own legacy. It carries a similar sentiment that we constantly see from Ben and May Parker when Spider-Man/Peter Parker (spoiler) reaches those much needed quiet moments in Raimi's films.
Clark may be from another planet, but its moments like these that make him just as human as everyone around him and something that he preaches to Lex Luthor in the film’s most powerful monologue just as he’s about to take down our bald big bad before he destroys Metropolis and almost successfully enables a global conflict. Superman always does the right thing for the right reasons. That’s the path he chooses and its a beautiful message that Superhero stories on the big screen have kind of forgotten about (despite still being very enjoyable).
It has that same positive spirit that Richard Donner’s classic 1978 film of the same name invoked back when comic book movies were just starting to take real form.
And that’s no mistake. While SUPERMAN is a modern day perspective of this story, it also acts as a reboot to that original film.
From its opening title card and the iconic John Williams theme that’s weaved into a new score from frequent Gunn collaborator John Murphy and David Fleming it’s very clear where Gunn is pulling from and yet it never keeps this film from feeling fresh.
Packed with some crisp cinematography from Henry Braham, saturated color grading that gives this a vibrant Saturday morning cartoon feel and just all-around incredible performances here with Corenswet leaving his mark as the Son of Krypton this film is exactly the kind of fresh splash the comic book world needed continuing a great year for comic book movies so far.
With James Gunn’s SUPERMAN, he aims to leave audiences with that same positivity that the "Man Of Steel” himself radiates onto those around him. As Superman says to Lois Lane in one of the film’s quiet moment, being kind is “the real punk-rock”. That’s the core message of this film and in a time where evil seems to be running rampant all over it couldn’t be more timely.
SUPERMAN is a great entry in an already packed summer blockbuster season and a monumental second step in this new era of DC Studios.
SUPERMAN is currently playing in theaters.
