i think coolsville superman sucks!!! hey, waitaminnit... wasn't that quote from a james gunn movie? DAMN YOU, JIMMY!!!

no but actually i thought superman was a stinker. it was pretty rich of gunn to talk up superman as an immigrant story in the lead-up to the film's release, only for the actual message to be "you are only as good as you can assimilate human (i.e. american) values". some immigrant story, james! and then in the aftermath, gunn would express confusion that people thought superman was "woke". well, i appreciate the honesty there, man, but i wish you were honest before the film came out so i didn't have to sit there in the theatre feeling all disappointed.

i also thought it was derivative of the last fifty years or so of superman films, where superman is presented as sort of throwback to a simpler time. in superman '78 he was a throwback to the pre-watergate days, in returns a throwback to the pre-9/11 days, in man of steel a throwback to the pre-war-on-terror days. alternatively, each movie is trying to pull off a "what if superman was real?" gambit that kind of falls flat for me. it's doubly-derivative when you recall how much gunn was leaning into the '78 iconography for the branding (re-using elements for the poster, the title cards, the score, etc.).

this is the comic fan in me talking, but if you wanted to do a "what if superman was real?" movie for reals, you gotta go back to the golden age superman. the guy who stopped wrongful executions, beat up wifebeaters, tore down slums so they'd be rebuilt, stopped orphanages from abusing kids, spooked corrupt senators, helped guys win their football games, ran from place to place to place helping people in a whirlwhind of humanitarian wish-fulfillment. of course, this will never happen as long as james gunn is leading the charge (and as long as tom king is nearby to meddle).

anyways, i'll cap it off with a relevant quote (recall the shuster estate filed a lawsuit against WB): "I, Jerry Siegel, the co-originator of Superman, put a curse on the Superman movie! I hope it super-bombs. I hope loyal Superman fans stay away from it in droves. I hope the whole world, becoming aware of the stench that surrounds Superman, will avoid the movie like a plague."