Superman – James Gunn
Post Endgame, I haven’t been able to get into superhero movies the same way I did when I was a teenager. Possibly fatigue setting in, possibly the studios spending too much time setting up a new ‘cinematic universe’ in every supposedly standalone film. Either way, Superman just didn’t hit any of the spots that I wanted it to. The trailers had me guessing what the film could be: a deep story on Superman’s role in geopolitics, a second film in an origin-stepping-up-climax trilogy, a funny film about Superman and his dog, a commentary on the state of the world, a classic clash of Lex’s brains vs Sups’ brawn. Unfortunately, it was just all of them at once. In my head, the original script for this was written pre-October 7, and was going to lean into the geopolitics much more, but it had to be toned down a fair bit to appeal to a broad audience. And I have to applaud Gunn for trying to take Superman into this serious subject matter, but you need to go hard or go home on this, or it just ends up being an empty film trying to appeal to everyone. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a fun watch, but I don’t think I’d bother going back to it any time soon.
3/5