[ANOTHER MANDATORY SPOILER ALERT FOR ANOTHER GODDAMN CAPE MOVIE]
Before he was calling the shots over the DC Universe, James Gunn made a little indie superhero movie called Super. It starred The Office‘s Rainn Wilson as a mentally unstable guy whose wife leaves him for a drug dealer, causing him to suit up, grab a wrench, and fight crime to win her back. At a certain point, our hero loses his shit on the bad guy and screams the rules in his face.
YOU DON’T BUTT IN LINE! YOU DON’T SELL DRUGS! YOU DON’T MOLEST LITTLE CHILDREN! YOU DON’T PROFIT ON THE MISERY OF OTHERS! THE RULES WERE SET A LONG TIME AGO! THEY DON’T CHANGE!
– Frank D’arbo, Super (2010)
That same energy carries over into Superman, Gunn’s latest tale of a superhero with a simplistic view of a complicated world. As the film opens we learn that Superman (David Corenswet) has just prevented one fictional Middle Eastern country from invading another. This has caused a political uproar due to the United States’ alliance with the offending nation, and has incensed Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) who had designs on profiting on the conflict. During a heated interview with Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan), Lois presses Superman for answers. Who told him to do this? Which government official signed off on it? What authority does he have to intervene in world affairs? To which Superman, frustrated and confused, shouts “PEOPLE WERE GOING TO DIE!” He doesn’t need any other reason or authority than that. People killing other people for any reason is just plain wrong, and it visibly disturbs Superman that people don’t understand this.
In the comic book worlds of James Gunn (see also: Guardians of the Galaxy), heroes literally cannot compute that there is any way to behave other than virtuously1. Even the heroes swirling around in this Superman’s orbit cannot help but do the right thing, even as they stand around scoffing at the only guy in the room who truly gives a shit. We’ve seen plenty of movies in the last couple decades questioning Batman’s style of vigilante justice, but it just seems odd to ask the same questions of Superman. Obscene, really.
But while this new Superman tries to deliver sights and sounds we’ve never seen before, there is still a mandate to enforce. This is supposed to be the foundation of an entirely new Warner Bros Discovery DC Comics Cinematic Universe, after the one built around Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel2 finally sputtered to its conclusion last year. As such, this Superman throws you right into the thick of things with a plot that starts simple, but quickly spirals out of control before landing on some very well-earned grace notes.
As the film opens, we learn that Superman has just suffered his first defeat at the hands of a metahuman we quickly learn is working for Lex Luthor. Luthor uses this defeat to follow Superman back to the Fortress of Solitude in search of anything that might incriminate him, which he finds in the form of a message that Superman’s parents sent with him to Earth. The first half of that message—that his parents love him and sent him to Earth to save him from Krypton’s destruction—is all Kal-El has ever known, but when Luthor’s nerd squad somehow translates the rest, they discover that Superman was sent to Earth with the hope that he might one day rule over humanity. Luthor uses this to destroy Superman in the court of public opinion3, but also to win a juicy government contract and secure the authorization to capture and/or kill Superman if he so desires. And hoo boy, does Luthor definitely desire that shit.
So since people trust the word of a turbo-rich tech-billionaire creepshow for some reason, now everyone hates Superman. Everyone, that is, except for the team at the Daily Planet, including editor Perry White (Wendell Pierce) and copy boy Jimmy Olson (Skyler Gisondo). There’s also the Justice Gang, led by shitheel Green Lantern Guy Gardner (Nathan Fillion), which also includes the flying, screeching Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced) and good super-tech genius Mr. Terrific (Edi Gathegi)4.
And now that I’ve named everyone who’s in the movie with attached links for better SEO engagement, I can tell you my favorite part of the movie. It’s the fact that for all the talk about social media outrage, international peace treaty violations and Superman’s immigrant status, the movie is actually about something much more down-to-earth: Krypto the Superdog.
Inspired by the havoc wreaked by Gunn’s own rescue dog, Krypto is, as the Joker might say, a true agent of chaos. He’s introduced right up front, and constantly appears at the most inopportune moments. A mostly-CG creation, Krypto is this movie’s version of Groot. He’s wordless (yet very expressive), a reliable generator of comic relief when the film needs it, and also a perfect plot device for whenever the movie paints itself into a corner. One of James Gunn’s true gifts as a popcorn storyteller is knowing how and when to deploy these kinds of characters, not just to tug at our heartstrings, but also for zigging where any other filmmaker might zag. When Superman finds himself in a position where his morality might soon be compromised, Krypto flies in and wrecks up the place, essentially doing Superman’s dirty work for him with full deniability cuz he’s just bein’ a good ol’ doggo! And even though tricks like that are baldly manipulative, Gunn always seems to get away with it because he knows how to sell it.
More than just a handy plot device, Krypto grounds this version of Superman in a way that feels necessary. With so much of the plot revolving around the ethics of superhuman intervention and social media hate-mongering5, Krypto gives us something more relatable to hold onto. None of us knows what it’s like to battle a giant monster, but dealing with an unruly pet? We’ve all been there. Your dog grabs your phone and turns it into a chew toy? It happens. Breaking loose because it catches a whiff of a squirrel or rabbit? My dog did that last night. For all the ridiculous, fantastical nonsense going on in this film, Krypto’s antics are a reminder that not only does the real world not revolve around you, but it never stops revolving. You’ve always got to look after your pets, regardless of the nanobot lady (María Gabriela de Faría) currently trying to circular saw your face off.
But at the same time, Superman’s relationship with Krypto is a microcosm of his relationship with humanity. He’s been tasked with protecting and guiding us, but it’s a completely thankless job. He may be able to lord over us and impose his will if he sees fit, but even if he did, he could never truly contain us. Humanity, like a well-meaning wild animal, will always find a way to buck against authority. Superman’s infinite patience with Krypto reflects his compassion for humanity. It’s easy to ascribe a messianic reading to Superman, but bringing in Krypto reframes it as a ‘boy and his dog’ story. And, at it’s most basic level, it helps us identify with Superman just a little bit more, because there’s something deeply distrustful about a man who doesn’t have pets. Especially an evil tech billionaire/media mogul. (And Lex Luthor too, I guess.)
There are a lot of reasons to be excited about Superman. Chief among them is the fact that it’s the first truly fun Superman film in decades. Certainly since before I was born. But more importantly, this is the first Superman since Richard Donner’s 1978 Superman to not need a numeral or subtitle or any other identifying moniker. James Gunn’s Superman is just Superman, plain and simple, and it more than earns the right to call itself that. And while it might be easy and cathartic to celebrate the end of the self-serious SnyderVerse, it’s more energizing to look ahead and realize this universe is in good hands.
FINAL RATING
4 stars (out of 5). S’good.
- Do not see also: The Suicide Squad, where murder is almost always the only option.
↩︎ - Which I still contend is most of a good movie that never should have been the cornerstone of an entire universe.
↩︎ - One almost gets the sense that Luthor simply faked the other half of that message, because we live in a nightmare dimension of AI and deepfakes where literally anything is possible, but the movie quickly lampshades this when Mr. Terrific confirms that it’s very much real.
↩︎ - The only thing that can stop an evil super-tech genius with endless resources is a good super-tech genius with endless resources. Which I honestly wrote as a joke, until I realized that even in our shitstain of a universe that’s probably also true.
↩︎ - The army of angry monkeys that got James Gunn fired from Guardians of the Galaxy 3 must really be pissed right now. Not only did he get to make that movie anyway, but he also got handed the keys to the DC kingdom. Guy could not have windmill chaos dunked on right wing internet trolls any harder if he tried. ↩︎
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