In full disclosure, I am a Superman fan. I have multiple Superman t-shirts, a Superman hoodie, and a Superman cap. My truck, which is painted Superman blue, has Superman seat covers, a little Superman plushie on the dash, and an S shield decal on the back window. I have a movie poster size poster of the cover of Action Comic #1 on display in my media room. Like I say, I'm a fan. That doesn't mean I've uncritically loved everything about every iteration of the Man of Steel. I was one of the people who thought Snyder's version was too mopey. I never got into Smallville and something always rubbed me wrong with Dean Cain as Kal El, even before I knew he was a right wing nut job. All of that being said, boy did I like this movie.
Superman was corny, and I mean that as the highest compliment. He was cheerful, optimistic, hopeful. All things we really need right now. At one point Lois says to him something along the lines of "You think everyone you meet is beautiful" and he replies "Maybe that's the real punk rock". I wanted to give the movie a standing ovation at that point. Superman should be nice. He'll do what needs to be doing, but he tries his best to do it in a way that hurts as few people as possible. That's another thing I loved about this movie. He did everything he could to make sure people and animals did not get hurt. The love for animals is something especially that touched me. Of course a lot of people are talking about the squirrel he saves, and another standout line for me was when he was talking about Krypto having been dognapped by Lex Luthor and says "He's not even a very good dog, but he's aout there somewhere alone and scared."
Ah, Lex Luthor. Let's talk about old baldie. I'll admit I was initially disappointed when Lex was the villain of this movie. Superman has a pretty good rogue's gallery, and we've only ever had one movie without Lex Luthor. And that was arguably a Richard Pryor movie which co-starred Superman. But I have to admit, this Lex was great to watch. They took elements of old versions, like Lex's obsession with real estate, and combined it with a modern day tech bro. And now is as good a time as any to touch on the movie's politics. Because, you see, it maked the case for billionaires being at the root of world problems. I'd seen a lot of stuff about the movie being "woke" and most of it seemed to be ignorant people who were mad about Superman being referred to as an immigrant. I guess somehow they have no idea what Superman's story is. But it turns out the right wingers were right to be mad at the movie, but I am not saying this in defense of them or as an attack on the movie. Now, I am decidedly left wing, but I thought the depiction of the right wing army of keyboard warriors as a group of monkey trolls was hilarious. The Q-Anon jokes with Lex saying Supes is grooming humanity for Kryptonian rule was great. The fact that Lex was willing to destroy the world in order to achieve his own goals was spot on. And of course there are the Ukraine/Russia and Israel/Palestine parallels. And this might make some people mad, but I was all in for it. Above all I loved the theme of the movie that it doesn't matter where you come from, or even who your parents were, it's our choices and our actions that define who we are.
Getting back to the lighter side. it was great to see the movie pulling little details from almost every version of the character that has existed. The Justice Gang (which seems to me to be setting up Justice League International) has their HQ in the Hall of Justice, which looks just like the building in the Superfriends cartoon. Otis and Miss Tessmacher from the Reeve Superman movies pop up. Cat Grant (and her cleavage) is on display, along with other Daily Planet staff. I think everyone knew Nathan Fillion was going to kill it as Guy Gardener and there was no disappointment there. Everyone who has ever had a hyper dog who had behavior issues related to every scene with Krypto. But the real standout is Mr. Terrific. He almost stole the show. Everything about him was, well, terrific. Hawkgirl was fun, being a bit of a different portrayal than I've seen before. Ma and Pa Kent were great. One thing I was concerned with was the movie being too jokey, but there was really only one moment when the humor felt out of place to me. I love the fact that we start out in a workd where heroes already exist, and we don't have to sit through a bunch of origin stories. My daughter, who is not a DC Comics fan, had no problem following what was going on at all. I've seen a lot of people complaining that the score relied too much on the old John Williams themes, but if anything I could have used more of them. In full disclosure, I do hold the opinion that his Superman theme is the greatest piece of motion picture soundtrack music ever composed.
I haven't said much about the story, and I don't think I will. It's a decent story, nothing ground breaking there but it's engaging and entertaining. Well, there is one twist to the story that involes Superman's Kryptonian parents that I won't give away, but it was a very interesting twist. One thing that struck me is that in the recording of his biological parents Jor-El is speaking Kryptonian and not English. That was a nice touch. The villains other than Lex were good. Ultraman was kind of exactly what you'd expect from a superhero movie, and that's fine. Engineer was actually a pretty cool character in this, and I hope we see her return. In fact, I kind of wondered if one scene with her in particular wasn't a stealth introduction of Brainiac. The move overall definitely has a James Gunn feel, but without feeling like another carbon copy of Guardians of the Galaxy. And it leans into some of the more "old fashioned" Superman ideals. Ideals like helping humans, seeing the best in them, striving to be better ev en while acknowledging that we're not perfect. Getting back up when we get knocked down. Standing up for what is right, no matter if it's easier not to. Looking out for the little guy. I think this is exactly the movie we needed at this point, after decades of "realism" and "grim and gritty" in our comic book movies (especially the Warner Brothers ones) it was refreshing to get silliness and color and fun. It was refreshing to get hope and kindness and a feel good message that touched on real world topics. It showed that as comic book fans we really can have it all.
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