Superman has been the archetypal superhero since he first entered the public imagination in 1938 on the cover of Action Comics, where the Man of Steel was pictured smashing the car of gangsters who had abducted news reporter Lois Lane.
It’s only natural to cheer for this square-jawed saviour created by Jerry Siegel and Toronto-born Joe Shuster. Most people will loyally do just that going into James Gunn’s “Superman,” a summer blockbuster retelling the perennial do-gooder’s tale that launches a new DC Universe of comics-derived features.
I regret to say, though, that this film may inspire more jeers than cheers. Writer-director Gunn is brilliant at conjuring spectacle and creating alien realms, as he has demonstrated in such previous triumphs as the comic “Guardians of the Galaxy” trilogy.
He has a vivid imagination and real love of fantastic characters, monsters and locales, which he presents in bright hues, eschewing the monotonous desaturated colours of most modern action blockbusters. He’s aided here by the muscular cinematography of frequent collaborator Henry Braham and the inventive soundtrack composed by John Murphy and David Fleming, who mix orchestral grandeur with modern sounds and references to John Williams’s classic score for the 1978 “Superman” film.
What Gunn is not so great at is storytelling. “Superman” is all over the place, not just geographically — zipping from the icebound Arctic to the skyscrapers of Metropolis to the corn and wheat fields of Kansas — but also narratively. Gunn packs so many heroes, villains, creatures and incidents into his screenplay, it’s as if he’s presenting a preview of future DC Universe delights. That is, in fact, largely what he’s doing. He seems to have forgotten that popcorn munchers want to see the story now, not tomorrow.
His casting instincts are noteworthy, even if the end results are sometimes puzzling.
David Corenswet (“Twisters,” “Pearl”) is a boyishly sweet Superman, a more blue-collar version of the Man of Steel — he calls people “dude” and “buddy” — than previous iterations played by George Reeves, Christopher Reeve, Brandon Routh and Henry Cavill.
Corenswet plays the most sensitive Superman yet. He’s the kind of guy who will interrupt a fight to rescue a squirrel and voice objections to the killing of a Godzilla-style monster that briefly menaces Metropolis, arguing the creature should be captured alive for scientific study.
This native son of Krypton, whose alter-ego Clark Kent reports for the Daily Planet newspaper, says his mission on Earth is “to serve humanity and to help the world be a better place” — and also a kinder one, as Gunn has said in interviews.
Noble sentiments, to be sure, although the universe isn’t as high-minded as Superman. He endures repeated ass-kickings from a variety of freaky foes.
His earnestness brings eye rolls and patronizing comments from his fellow superheroes, the Green Lantern (Nathan Fillion), Mister Terrific (Edi Gathegi) and Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced). The group, collectively known as the Justice Gang, have been around the block a few times and harbour no illusions about collective goodwill.
Equally impatient is Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan, terrific), Superman/Clark’s erstwhile girlfriend and spiky colleague at the Daily Planet. Lois seems unsure whether she should bed him, exploit him for an exclusive interview or hector him for naively inflaming a war involving the fictional Eastern European nation Boravia.
The bad guys are even more dismissive of our embattled hero. Follically challenged Lex Luthor, the criminal mastermind played by Nicholas Hoult, thinks Supe is just a dope; he calls him “it” rather than “he.”
More obnoxious than villainous, Lex is jealous of how much attention Superman gets and he’s out to sully the hero’s image with fake news fed to a compliant media. Lex’s campaign includes stirring up public sentiment against Superman’s immigrant status — Gunn bravely wades into one of the most hot-button topics in America today — while also wielding the kryptonite mineral that can weaken or kill any former resident of Krypton.
Gunn mercifully spares us most of the well-told origin story of Superman’s arrival on Earth and his adoption by a kindly Kansas farm couple (Pruitt Taylor Vince and Neva Howell). But he jams in a sexist subplot about Eve Teschmacher (Sara Sampaio), the selfie-obsessed girlfriend of Lex Luthor, who falls for Daily Planet hotshot Jimmy Olsen (Skyler Gisondo), who can barely disguise his contempt for her.
Many more characters crowd the thin story, including shape-shifters the Engineer (María Gabriela de Faría) and Metamorpho, a.k.a. the Element Man (Anthony Carrigan), as well as voice cameos Gunn fans will enjoy discovering.
The real star of the show, however, is Krypto, a snowy-furred mutt that rescues Superman (as seen in the trailer) and upstages him every time the two share the frame. I’d rather see a film about superdog Krypto than yet another one about Superman.
My main beef with this movie, apart from its scattershot plotting, is the number of times it shows Superman getting knocked senseless by humans, humanoids or robots. His role as a punching bag brings to mind a scene in Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood,” in which Al Pacino’s Hollywood agent, Marvin Schwarz, warns Leonardo DiCaprio’s action star, Rick Dalton, to stop taking TV roles where he plays the bad guy who gets thumped by the good guy.
“So Rick, who’s gonna kick the s—t out of you next week?” Schwarz asks. “Mannix? The Man from U.N.C.L.E.? The Girl from U.N.C.L.E.? How about Batman and Robin? Ping! Pow! Choom! Zoom! Down goes you, down goes your career as a leading man!”
It’s a good question, one that Gunn should take to heart.
