Last weekend was opening weekend for a movie I had been anticipating for quite some time – Superman. From the day the first teaser dropped and they so expertly wove a variation on the old theme music into a series of images that told us nothing while simultaneously peaking our interest… I was pumped.
I watched this multiple times in a row and hyper analyzed every frame when it came out. The casting looked great, and they clearly wanted to appeal to old fans of the comic. There were a few full trailers that came out after this, and each one got me more excited than the last while only somewhat giving us an idea of the actual plot. They evoked the right emotions while spoiling nothing.
Fast forward to a little nonbinary nerd celebrating their day (happy belated nonbinary day everyone!) while finally getting to watch the movie they had anticipated for what seemed like ages. The reviews were all great (minus the people crying it was too woke) so I knew I was in for a treat.
Here’s where the actual spoilers for the movie come in, so pause here if you haven’t seen it yet and come back when you have.
The movie starts with the theme playing and the old Superman design appearing, which immediately got me in my feels. We then get a brief bit of text appearing on screen explaining the history we need to know about the character in this universe. I am super grateful to them for doing it this way and not making me sit through yet another origin story.
Cut to a scene we got in the teaser, of Superman having just lost a fight and having to be dragged home by bestest boy Krypto. In general the scenes from the trailer all mostly happen at the top of the movie, which I also really liked that choice.
I won’t do a play by play of the whole film, but I will dive a little bit more into what I loved and what I can see some people nitpicking over. First, the likes! I loved the casting for starters. Everyone was the perfect choice for their roles. I also love that black Perry Mason seems to just be canon now. I’ve seen it in a few iterations at this point. Personally I don’t think skin color matters for that character, as long as you nail the personality down. You don’t get a ton of Perry in this movie, but the scenes you do get really captured his spirit. I also almost said out loud “that is a perfect representation of Cat Grant” but held back since I was in public. I can’t wait to rewatch this at home and really get into it.
Next, let’s talk about it being too “woke”. There are aspects of the movie that can perfectly be layered over our current discussion about immigration right now, but does that make it “woke”? In my opinion, the folks who are complaining about this are simply realizing that they are more similar to the villains of these stories than the heroes. Comic books have always been about standing up for justice and protecting the little guy. Sorry if you’re just noticing now that you worship an actual supervillain (Elon Musk) and lost some of your humanity along the way. Superman gives a fantastic speech towards the end of the movie where he calls Lex out on what it means to be human and how he would be better off if he saw that for himself rather than being jealous of Superman. But other than that, the movie doesn’t beat you over the head with its message, and if you were uncomfortable that might be a you problem.
Now for the possible nitpicks. If you’re a comic book fan, you might notice that they change the origin of Ultraman. I personally am not bothered by this, but my knowledge of the character is also weak to be fair. The one teeny thing I could nitpick on is the appearance of Supergirl at the end of the film. My ears perked up when Superman mentions his cousin, but I don’t love making her a party girl. Again, my knowledge of the character isn’t as good as the core cast (Superman, Lois, Jimmy, and Lex) but I feel like she’s supposed to be more mature than that. Hopefully her own movie gives her more depth.
Despite the teeniest of complaints at the end, I overall thoroughly enjoyed the movie and would give it a solid 4.8 out of 5 stars. I would go see it in theaters again (which is rare for me) if it weren’t for the fact that I’m saving my money to go see Fantastic Four later this month. I highly recommend going to see Superman in theaters, and the sooner the better. It’s the little dose of goodness and hope we could use in these dark times.
