SUPERMAN (2025)

Genre: Action/Adventure
Director: James Gunn
Cast: David Corenswet, Rachel Brosnahan, Nicholas Hoult, Edi Gathegi, Anthony Carrigan, Nathan Fillion, Isabela Merced, Skyler Gisondo, Sara Sampaio, María Gabriela de Faría, Wendell Pierce, Alan Tudyk, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Neva Howell
Runtime: 2 hrs 9 mins
Rating: PG13 (Some Violence)
Released By: Warner Bros
Official Website: https://www.supermanmovie.com.sg

Opening Day: 10 July 2025

Synopsis: When Superman is drawn into conflicts both abroad and at home, his actions to protect humankind are questioned, and his vulnerability allows tech billionaire and master deceiver Lex Luthor to leverage the opportunity to get Superman out of the way for good. Will the Daily Planet’s intrepid reporter Lois Lane, together with the aid of Metropolis’s other metahumans and Superman’s own four- legged companion, Krypto, be able to help Superman before Luthor can completely destroy him? The film follows Superman’s journey to reconcile his heritage as the Kryptonian Kal-El with his human upbringing as Clark Kent of Smallville, Kansas, and his selfless determination to use his power for good as humanity’s protector. Guided by human kindness in a world that sees kindness as old- fashioned, he is the embodiment of truth, justice and a better tomorrow.

Movie Review:

So much hope, so much expectation, and so much promise has been placed on James Gunn’s ‘Superman’ that we feel lamentable that it is a bit of a mess – and for avoidance of doubt, we say this with complete objectivity, and not because we are a fan of the Synder-verse.

Carrying the weight of the launch of a whole new DC cinematic universe, Gunn throws everything but the kitchen sink at this reboot – from refashioning Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) as a tech megalomaniac, to a Kaiju-like monster that looks like an evil clone of Stitch, to a shape-shifting Engineer (María Gabriela de Faría) with nanobots in her bloodstream, and to the superheroes-for-hire Justice Gang comprising Green Lantern (Nathan Fillion), Mister Terrific (Edi Gathegi) and Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced), it is a busy and even overstuffed affair all right, even if it does stay fun and brisk for the most part.

Ironically, that is also what makes ‘Superman’ lightweight. Determined to free the character from the self-serious and heavy-handed trappings of its immediate predecessor, Gunn keeps the proceedings distinctly fast-paced, flying through two hours at the speed of light that unfortunately renders the developments somewhat impact-less. Oh yes, you barely feel any stakes involved, not the fate of the citizens of Metropolis, or for that matter the very existence of Planet Earth itself.

But that is precisely what Gunn is trying to convey – wisely opting to skip the backstory with four paragraphs of intertitles to plunge us right into Superman’s story, Gunn begins with our indefatigable hero (David Corenswet) facing his first beatdown against a hulking armoured monster known as the Hammer of Boravia. As we soon learn, despite his superhuman strength, Superman is ultimately not unbeatable, especially when up against the Engineer as well as Lex’s other right hand man known as Ultraman (whose identity and origins will only become clearer at the finale).

Likewise, Superman is powerless to save himself when thrown into a ‘pocket universe’ that Lex had created, a penal colony in a different dimension that Lex uses to house his political opponents in glass cubes. He is also terribly weakened when incarcerated with Metamorpho (Anthony Carrigan), who conjures a hand of Kryptonite crystals to sap Superman’s power. He is surprisingly vulnerable all right, most of all so when the Engineer doctors the message that his birth parents had sent with his escape pod to Earth to make it seem as if he were here to conquer the planet.

Just as with Synder’s ‘Man of Steel’, Gunn finds real pathos in Superman’s relationship with his adoptive parents – here played by Pruitt Taylor Vince and Neva Howell – as well as with Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan). Though brief, the one scene that sees Superman return to the Kent farm where he grew up to recuperate is perhaps one of the most heartwarming moments in the movie, especially as a poignant reminder to him (as well as to the audience) how Clark was brought up as one of us.

We’d also wish Clark and Lois spent more time together, but their similarly defining scene is that where he agrees to an on-the-record interview with her as Superman, which promptly turns into an intelligently engaging debate about the moral responsibilities of his powers, about checks and balances versus going rogue, about the political consequences of doing the morally right thing, and about whether being a fan of The Mighty Crabtrees is ‘punk’ or not.

Frankly, we wish Gunn spent more time on the relationships to Clark that matter in the movie, instead of stuffing and overstuffing it with so many disparate elements that end up competing with one another for attention. We can’t say we cared much about the automatons at Superman’s Fortress of Solitude in the Arctic, or a too-convenient flirtation between scrappy reporter Jimmy Olsen (Skyler Gisondo) and Lex’s über-ditz girlfriend Eve Teschmacher (Sara Sampaio), or the supposed border conflict between two fictional nations Boravia and Jarhanpur over the latter’s natural resources, or even the black hole caused by Lex’s ‘pocket universe’ machine tearing through half of Metropolis; it is no wonder that Gunn’s ‘Superman’ has been compared to a live-action Saturday action, and we say this for better and for worse.

What ‘Superman’ does have going for it is perfect casting. We dare say Corenswet makes a damn fine Superman, injecting the character with wit, virtue, fortitude, and an unwavering respect for truth and justice even if he comes at a personal cost. He also shares great chemistry with Brosnahan, and it is to their credit that even without setting up how they got together, we believe in our heart of hearts that they are an actual couple. And together with a startlingly bald but frighteningly good Hoult as a bold, bad and determined Lex, Gunn has assembled a capable, congenial ensemble to usher Clark, Lois and Lex into a new era.

We respect Gunn’s vision for ‘Superman’, and indeed it is clear that the new author of DC Studios’ cinematic universe intends to take it in a radically different direction from where Synder had led it before. Those who have followed Gunn from his early days specialising in B-grade sci-fi horror will also notice how he continues to retain his own voice, notwithstanding the scale and scope of his blockbuster endeavours. But we’d sincerely wish ‘Superman’ had more stakes in it, and didn’t feel the need to do too much at one go, so much so that it ends up overloaded and underwhelming. It’s a promising start no doubt, just not one we’d say soars as much as we had hoped.

Movie Rating:

(Fun but lightweight, intelligent but overstuffed, James Gunn's DC cinematic universe reboot could do with a lot more stakes and a little less indulgence)

Review by Gabriel Chong