The 2025 Superman film follows Daily Planet journalist Clark Kent as he navigates his dual identity as Superman, balancing his Kryptonian heritage with his human upbringing. As he embodies truth, justice, and kindness(?) in a skeptical world, Superman faces challenges from tech billionaire Lex Luthor, whose schemes threaten Metropolis and the Man of Steel.

My Superman:

Christopher Reeve first donned the red cape the year I was born. Obviously, as an infant, I was too young to see it, but when the film made its broadcast TV debut on February 8, 1982, I was hooked—and I’ve been a superfan ever since. Some of my earliest childhood photos show me racing through our little rural house in middle America, arms outstretched, with my Superman bathrobe tied around my neck like a cape, and I have pictures of both of my sons doing the same—each wearing that same robe. One of them is even named after Superman.

I wanted to name the other one Bruce, after Batman. However, he was due to get his grandfather’s middle name—and even I, nerd that I am, couldn’t saddle one of my kids with Bruce Lee. But it was close.

This is all to say that I take Superman and Superman movies very seriously. Keep that in mind as you read on.

Superman (2025) Review

Whether or not you enjoyed it, it’s safe to say that Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel was a divisive film for many fans. While he captured Superman’s inherent epic grandeur with his signature style and eye for iconic and operatic imagery, for many, he missed some very fundamental aspects of The Man of Tomorrow.

Kevin Costner’s Pa Kent telling a teenage Clark that he should consider allowing people to die in order to protect himself—a clear departure from the entirety of the character’s (at the time) 75-year history— stands out as particularly egregious. More than a few fans of the bright and optimistic 1978 classic found this, as well as the muted color palette, frequently morose Clark, and the film’s overall brooding tone, not to mention Snyder’s extended and periodically emotionless CGI fight scenes, off-putting.

This new iteration is not without its own problems. There is no question that James Gunn was trying, frequently detrimentally so, to please fans of both Snyder’s noble resonance and 1978’s sanguinity. Occasionally, it works, but often as not, the results are clunky—much like the writer/director was throwing fistfuls of ideas at the screen, desperately hoping that more would stick than not. Arguably, he succeeded, but the result is still an overstuffed and underdeveloped movie with some significantly rough edges.

Possibly the most polarizing aspect of this film for fans of the son of El will be its comic book-like quality. Debatably, the other live-action standalone films have mostly felt as though they depicted the real world with some comic book elements added. Not so with 2025’s Superman. James Gunn has given us a world with all the pseudo-science and magic-in-all-but-name craziness that comic book fans accept out of hand, but which can be a bit much for general audiences.

There are pocket universes and kauju, sentient robots, nanobot shape-shifters, and unapologetically comic book costumes. Viewers will have to either untether their brains from the more conventional or be left behind.

More than any other standalone Superman film, the 2025 entry features a bloated cast and a sprawling mix of set pieces and subplots that its 2-hour, 10-minute runtime simply can’t support. Lois is an afterthought (a rather unpleasant one, at that) who shares zero chemistry with Clark, and most of the Justice Gang scenes feel like a teaser for their own film rather than a necessary addition to this one. Likewise, Superman’s physical threats (i.e., The Engineer and Ultraman) land with an emotional thud louder than their punches. Each eats up time without ever giving us the sense that Superman won’t triumph in the end.

As a side note, her three-foot-tall miscasting aside, Hawkgirl, played by the live-action Dora the Explorer’s Isabela Merced, is a white and chalky bird turd in every scene. Blessedly, she’s in few of them. From her comical stature to her horrifically bad costume, and her modern empowered woman social media douche personality, the character is box office poison. But, the Birdman-Avenger screech that she makes in every single battle scene in which she is in may be the dumbest, most ludicrous instance of Hollywood retardation I have ever seen. That Gunn tries to sell it as a fierce battle cry only makes it that much more cringeworthy. It’s so bad that, if this were her own Hawkgirl movie, people would have gotten up to leave.

That said, there are some characters worth lauding. This film’s Lex Luthor is a special animal. Looking as though he was ripped from the pages of modern comics, Nicholas Hoult is a force of nature. His Leviathan talent elevates a rather thumbnail character to peak villainy, giving us the best Lex since Gene Hackman.

In no small part, he’s helped by a Luthor that better knits together the character’s mad scientist roots with his modern industrialism than any other live-action iteration. It’s the brilliant, arrogant, and gnawingly jealous Luthor that I’ve been waiting for since first reading Red Son, even if the way in which he’s handled lacks the cinematic gravitas and artistry that I prefer.

Of course, no great Lex Luthor can exist without a compelling Superman to oppose him. Most fans fall into one of two camps (though with an acknowledged bit of crossover). There are the adoring fans of Christopher Reeve’s earnest authenticity, and zealous Henry Cavill devotees awash in his bulging shoulders and a jawline that should be illegal. While I am of the former camp, I always liked Cavill in the role, even if I wasn’t impressed with every aspect of Snyder’s interpretation of it.

No matter your preferences, we can all agree that David Corenswet, the recently turned 32-year-old from Philadelphia, PA, had some very big, very red boots to fill, and it’s been one of the most pressing questions amongst comic book movie aficionados since he was announced for the part almost precisely two years ago.

So, how’d he do? Corenswet nails the Big Blue Boy Scout. Reeve will always be my Superman, but the two have given us the ah shucks Kansas farm boy who does everything he can to spare the lives of villains and the innocent alike that many of us have been waiting for for a very long time. This Supes says things like “golly” and “gosh” without a hint of cynicism or apology. He chooses to be Superman because it’s a blessing, not out of a sense of burdensome obligation or guilt.

He’s not the man’s man who turned Lois to jelly in 1978 or the one who looks ripped from Rugged Magazine, but he’s sweet and good, doggedly tenacious and quietly strong, and Corenswet does a great job with the surprisingly little screen time he gets in a movie for which he plays the titular role. He sets the movie’s tone and carries it on his broad shoulders— no points off for them not being quite as broad as those of the Jersey boy from across the pond.

That said, while Gunn seems to understand Supe’s earnestness and desire to do good for its own sake better than some past directors, he clearly doesn’t understand much of anything else that makes Superman super. The film opens with Clark suffering his first defeat, and he spends much of the rest of it on the receiving end of one beating or another. It’s a conceit that many won’t want to make, and I think that rightly so.

I’ve always been of the mind that weak storytellers have to make Superman “weak” because they lack the talent to develop a story with compelling stakes otherwise. In Superman’s final monologue in this film, James Gunn destroys any hope that the audience might have been holding in the character’s future when Clark wines to Lex that his true strength is his fallibility and insecurities, when every real fan knows that his aspirational nigh-perfection is what the yellow and red shield has stood for since Jerry and Joe forever changed American storytelling in 1938.

That said, if you can suspend your disbelief and take it for what it is, this Superman won’t make a lasting impression on you (and will probably become less appetizing as you ruminate on it), but it’s a moderately fun summer popcorn flick.

ADDENDUM: There’s been a lot of chatter about both sets of Clark’s parents, and everything negative that you’ve heard is true. Gunn’s interpretation of the Els is a radical departure from most of Superman’s lore, though not entirely without precedent. However, the Kents are mush-mouthed country bumpkins with a crappy house and an IQ barely sufficient to power a lightbulb. I would bet money that the former will be retconned in future films, but short of killing them off or ignoring them from here on out, the Kents are ruined. It almost makes one wistful for the dad who needlessly let himself be killed in front of his family’s eyes.

PARENTAL WARNING

Family Movies

• In films specifically created to cater to families and small children, we modify our scoring system to include a section that highlights elements that are unsuitable for kids and have no place in a G or PG-rated film. Even though this film is rated PG-13, Superman is undeniably a character that resonates with families and is one that parents want to be able to take their children to. With that in mind, I felt compelled to give moms and dads a heads up on the following.

Language

• Although Clark says things like “golly” and “gosh” rather than taking the Lord’s name in vain (even the other characters keep that to a bare minimum of maybe three times in total), Superman’s PG-13 rating can almost exclusively be attributed to its salty language.
  • Thankfully, there are no F-bombs dropped, but it goes much further than the one or two hells and damns that made their way into 1978’s Superman: The Movie.
    • I stopped counting the damns halfway through, but there are a number of S-words, including those said by Superman—though, to be fair, he isn’t saying them as a curse but lamenting their use in reference to him.
    • The word d!@k is seen via a text message two or three times.
    • Son of a b!t@h is muttered once.
    • Godd!mm!t is said once.
    • Hell is thrown around quite a bit.
    • Jack@$$ gets said at least once.
    • @$$hole gets tossed in once or twice.
    • There was probably some more, but I wasn’t paying extremely close attention to this until around the halfway point when I thought it was getting out of hand and wanted to warn you.

Am I Seeing Double…D’s?

• The Cat Grant character is hardly in the film, but her considerable assets should get their own film credit despite their limited time on camera. She wears a very low-cut, form-fitting dress throughout the movie. Even though she says and does little, her intentionally unmissable decolletage is always prominently displayed in the scenes in which she appears, and quite a few of those scenes include her especially bouncy walk and even bouncier run.
• There’s a brief moment in a short scene in which a character goes to the seedy part of town and walks along a sidewalk bracketed by eight or ten sluttily-dressed, hookers who each take a turn asking him if he wants a date, or something similar. Each one could give Miss Teschmacher a run for her money, and each one shows more cleavage than even she did. The camera is mildly out of focus on their ample cleavage, but not so much that you can’t see it.

  

REDRUM

• Most of the violence is very PG to PG-13, with little blood, and the life-or-death status of defeated enemies is left vague. However, Hawkgirl straight-up murders a man. I don’t remember who, but he says something to her to the effect that she won’t drop him because she’s a goody goody like Superman, and she replies with a smirk and says, “I’m not Superman.” She then drops him to his death from skyscraper heights, and it’s framed as a comedic moment.
• There’s another brutal murder earlier in the film that I don’t want to spoil, as it’s a pretty dramatic scene. There’s no blood shown, but it’s an intense scene with a gruesome conclusion.

Swipe Right

• The exact nature of Clark and Lois’s physical relationship is left blissfully ambiguous… ruuntil the film’s very end, when Perry White asks Jimmy how long the two have been “hooking up.”

I’m Not As Think As You Drunk I Am

• Spoiler

  The film closes with a Supergirl cameo. She stumbles drunkenly into the Fortress of Solitude, insults Clark a couple of times, and exits. Clark then explains that she enjoys partying on planets with red suns.

Thou Shalt Have No Other Gods Before Me

• A little boy who is in danger appears to be praying to Superman. One could argue that he is simply closing his eyes and repeating Superman’s name out of fear, in the hope that the Man of Steel will come to the rescue, but it sure looked like praying to me.

WOKE REPORT

Politics and Immigration

• If you’ve been paying attention up until now, no doubt you’ve heard rumors that James Gunn’s Superman film was going to be heavily political, with Kal-El’s immigration status set to be a significant plot point. Well, I’m thrilled to let you know that neither is so.
  • Yes, early on, there’s some political talk about Superman’s intervention in a foreign war—specifically, his stopping it from starting. However, it is used as a plot device, and it never feels as though the writers or director are trying to foist their personal political beliefs on the audience. If anything, the film sides with Superman.
  • It’s mentioned several times that Clark is an alien, and this is a factor in the film; however, his status as an American or his right to be here in that capacity is never mentioned. Instead, Gunn and crew do an excellent job of making his non-human status closely adhere to Lex’s distrust of Superman in the comics. More than anything, Lex is motivated by his jealousy of how much praise is heaped upon Supes.

Ambient Wokeness

• Almost all of the following WOKE REPORT are minor background noise-level infractions that may have taken me a lot of words to describe, but truly barely move the needle. That’s why, despite it perhaps looking like an extensive list, we only took off ten points.

A Touch of Diversity

• There is a smidgeon of forced diversity, and it’s mostly an unnatural abundance of women.
  • For an evil sociopathic narcissist, Lex Luthor has some pretty progressive hiring practices. I’d say that well over half of his cabal of evil henchmen are diverse henchwomen.  Most are extras, with only one or two having a couple of lines. In my opinion, this makes the casting seem even more artificial, with the casting directors doing the bare minimum to check off their quota boxes.

    

    • The same goes for the latina super villain, whose character is so inconsequential that I had to look up the name for this. She’s known as The Engineer.
      • Ditto for latina Hawkgirl. She has maybe three lines.
        • Just as a matter of intimidation, if you’re going to choose to include her instead of the superior Hawkman, why cast a three-foot-tall girl who looks like a teenager instead of a six-foot-tall chick from the Eastern Bloc?

Legacy

• Not everyone is a comic nerd. For those unfamiliar and who would like me to mark down the Woke-O-Meter for the film’s use of Hawkgirl instead of Hawkman and the female version of The Engineer, it is essential to note that both have been around for decades. Hawkgirl first appeared in the same 1940 issue of Flash Comics as Hawkman, and a female iteration of The Engineer has been canon since 1999. I find their tiny stature to be an unnecessary distraction in the film, but since neither character gets much screen time, I didn’t deduct points for their inclusion.
  • However, The Engineer has always been white until now. Even this wouldn’t be such a big deal if they hadn’t gone out of their way to cast a woman with a heavy Venezuelan accent to really make sure you knew she was latina. That was worth a point.
    • Oh, and for the idiot leftists who read that as me having a problem with minorities, my problem is with the unnecessary race swapping. There are latina villainesses in DC Comics.
• Perry White, traditionally portrayed as a white man in the comics, movies, and TV shows, was first played by a Black actor when Zack Snyder cast Laurence Fishburne in Man of Steel. In this film, the role is once again portrayed by a Black actor.

Modern Women

• All of the women suck. From the silly “female” Fortress of Solitude robot meant to be funny but isn’t to Lois Lane, and everyone in between, in this, Gunn’s female characters are incredibly poorly written. However, none of them is given much of importance to do. Each feels obligatory rather than a thoughtfully included and intricate part of the story. Only Lois is given anything approaching significant screen time. Even at that, she does little more than provide some exposition or a sounding board for exposition. Their minimal impact on the film is why the Woke-O-Meter didn’t receive a more significant mark down.
  • Ma Kent vascillates between being a half-retarded hick and a dust-bowl tough woman who leaves the crying to Pa Kent.
  • Hawkgirl is a stereotypical modern woman whose first language is snark and putdowns.
  • And Lois…
    • Lois is the pinnacle of modern femininity.
      • I’m all for not oversexualizing women, but she dresses like she’s late for a Melissa Etheridge concert.
      • Instead of a personality, she is caustic. Her introduction is marked by her snarky insults to Clark’s writing abilities. It’s the first thing out of her mouth.
        • Later, he laughs it off like it was a joke that they were both in on. It wasn’t.
      • She’s opposed to Clark’s position on foreign war intervention because we couldn’t possibly have a modern woman who supports her man, or even attempts to see things from his perspective.
      • She balks at being called his girlfriend, even though the two have been dating for three months.
        • She’d much rather continue to “hook up” than have a serious and mature relationship.
      • She is put back on her heels when he tells her that he loves her.
    • However, she recognizes these traits as shortcomings, and she even overcomes many of them by the end, mainly under the onslaught of Superman’s awesomeness (I don’t mean his superpowers).

Modern Men

• First and foremost, while not everyone is always kind to Clark/Superman in this film, he is unwaveringly portrayed as a stalwart, kind, brave, self-sacrificing, and vigilant hero. Furthermore, he views his role as Superman as a blessing and a privileged duty rather than a burden. This factor alone significantly weighted our Woke-O-Meter score heavily toward BASED, helping to shore up the score. With that said…
  • There are only two primary male characters, other than Lex, who is evil, who are never dunked upon or treated with disrespect by women. They are Perry White (black actor) and Mr. Fantastic (black actor).
• Twice, Ma Kent calls Pa “a mushy,” meaning that he gets emotional about Clark, while she is stoic. In one scene, he gets a little teary-eyed. It’s actually a great scene, and he doesn’t sob or anything, but the insult is unneeded and unhelpful.