The most important thing needed in the new “Superman” film was to give the Man of Steel some life. Jewish actor David Corenswet is handsome and buff, but he also delivers the goods as an actor, showing some real emotion. Nobody will be better than the iconic Christopher Reeve and we shouldn’t expect anyone to be like him.
Corenswet has great chemistry with Rachel Brosnahan of “The Marvelous Mr. Maisel” who plays Lois Lane. (In this universe, she knows that Clark Kent is Superman). They live in Metropolis and work at The Daily Planet.
But the film’s best moment doesn’t involve fighting or flying. It’s when Lois gets an exclusive interview with Superman, who is dressed as a regular guy. She asks tough questions, including whether or not he consulted with the American president before taking action to stop an attack by a Putinesque leader of Boravia on the fictional Eastern European nation of Jarhanpur. Superman doesn’t think it matters, because he prevented a war. Millions who watch will learn what “off the record” means.
Superman was created by two Jewish men — Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster — and first appeared in Action Comics, published on April 18,1938. Sent to Earth from the dying planet Krypton by his parents Kal-El lands in the Midwestern town of Smallville, and is adopted by the Kents, who name him Clark.
Nicholas Hoult, as the supervillain Lex Luthor— in this movie, a billionaire tech executive with close connections to the U.S. government — steals the show. Luthor is determined to rid the world of Superman. He never calls Superman by his name, referring to him as “the Kryptonian,” or “the alien.” In one of the movie’s wittier touches, he shows Superman his disinformation center, where he creates his online “content”; it’s a room filled with thousands of chimps chained to keyboards. He also creates a deep fake where Superman’s parents claim they sent him to Earth to conquer the planet. This is a fitting nod to how misinformation can make people think anything. The war that Superman stopped was plotted by Luthor, who would take over half of Jarhanpur while his company, LuthorCorp, will profit off of war.
Superman is helped in his fight against Luthor by the Justice Gang: Mister Terrific (Edi Gathegi) The Green Lantern (Nathan Fillion) and Hawkgirl (Kendra Saunders), setting up the DC Comics Universe with an “Avengers”-style army of superheroes. Their scenes clutter the storytelling; “The Justice Gang” is neither exciting nor amusing.
But Bovaria, led by a white man who appear to be Russian, invades a poorer and barely armed country Jarhanpur. In DC comics, both countries were located in Eastern Europe. No religion is mentioned in the film.
Gunn has not said if the war is supposed to represent what we have seen in the Middle East. I don’t think it was his intention to be pro-anything or for the movie to be about Israelis and Palestinians, but there are some parallels. You could argue that the brown-skinned and poorly armed Jarhanpurians are a stand-in for Palestinians, while the white Boravians are Israelis. There are Trump haters who will compare the president to Lex Luthor and point to his comment to turn Gaza into a Riviera that America would own as similar to Luthor owning part of Jarhanpur. But Trump made those comments on Feb. 4, 2025. Filming for “Superman” was completed in July, 2024. So that could not have been written to mimic what Trump said. Reportedly the first draft of the script was done prior to Oct. 7, 2023, but the final script was not completed until Feb. 2024, so it is possible Gunn had the war in mind. That the audience should sympathize with an underdog is common in many films.
“Superman” is a successful film that gives the audience what it wants as well as some things it could do without, unless you are an over-the-top dog lover. While some of the plot is predictable, the two lead actors carry the film with performances that mitigate a script that is bloated.
