The Fantasy Review’s review of Superman (2025), the first movie in James Gunn’s DCU.
Unlike many comic book and superhero movie enthusiasts, I’m not really a Superman fan. I don’t find the hero interesting, I don’t find his villains interesting, and no Superman story has ever got a super positive review out of me (except, maybe, for Mark Millar’s Superman: Red Son.
James Gunn’s Superman (2025) is the exception. Kind of.
Spoiler-Free Review of Superman (2025)
The movie jumps right into the action, trusting that the audience is smart enough to follow along. Gunn might have figured he could risk this narrative decision as Superman is so engrossed in the culture at this point, and he is right.
But even if Superman was an unknown, I love the in medias res – diving straight into the story without the preamble that becomes tedious in new superhero movies.
David Corenswet is the perfect casting for Superman, and the titular character is fantastic. He’s full of hope, love, and kindness, but is intimidating to his enemies.
Clark Kent’s relationship with Lois Lane is great, except for the added drama. A relationship drama sub-plot could have been good if the movie wasn’t too busy already, and if the drama was at all interesting.
Lois challenges Superman/Kent in the best way – in exactly the way this hopeful hero needs. She pushes him and tests him, almost helping to make his beliefs more concise. This dynamic of the relationship was highly enjoyable.
When it comes to the other side characters, the only ones of note are Mr. Terrific and Lex Luthor. Terrific is the brains to Superman’s heart, so when they worked together, it was seamless.
This Lex Luthor might just be the best version of the character I have seen in adaptations. He’s not running about in a stupid robot suit, and he is always one step ahead of his nemesis, Superman.
Because Superman (2025) was such a busy movie, we didn’t really get enough time with Lex or any of the other characters to really learn much about them and their motives. You get snippets here and there, but for the most part, it looks like bad people do bad things, and good people do good things.
This brings me onto the plot. The plot is messy, but not hard to follow. Gunn does a decent job cramming a lot of movie into two hours, but maybe he shouldn’t have had quite so much going on.
There is only one scene I can think of where the script takes the time to slow down and let us see the characters. Luckily, this is a scene with Clark Kent (and 2 or 3 others), which adds to the main character’s characterisation.
Superman (2025) looks amazing. This is exactly how I want superhero movies to look – like a comic book printed onto the screen. The colours are vibrant and exciting, but without looking ugly – this goes for everything from the set design to the costumes.
The MCU’s upcoming Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025) looks like it will be trying the same thing, and after the success of Deadpool & Wolverine just giving the fans what they want, it seems this is the way comic book movies are going – and I’m not mad about it.
To finish this review of Superman (2025), the movie was a decent start to James Gunn’s DCU. Was it as incredible as they wanted it to be? Probably not. But I enjoyed it, and I think lots of other people enjoyed it too, so I along with many others will be happy to watch the next movie in the DCU.
However, they need to start doing things a little differently to Marvel. The MCU got stuck in a rut they are still struggling to get out of. Their TV series on Disney+ gave them some room to do some interesting things, but all the movies are copy-and-paste superhero action flicks.
Superman doesn’t break the mold, and that’s alright, but I’m hoping to see something more interesting in future titles.
