What’s that, up in the sky? On the train? On the side of a bus? In the ad break, in your Youtube videos, and before every cinema screening for the past month? That’s right, it’s Superman!
It has been nine years since Superman last attempted to launch a universe of DC films. But while 2016’s Man of Steel made an interesting take-off, it never really stuck the landing.
Eight years before it, Iron Man brought new audiences into Marvel’s connected universe of comic book films. It also caused a wave of poorly-made connected universes desperate for the same pull, which have since crumbled into a distant memory.
This Superman relies on audiences forgetting about that mess, and hopes to draw in casual viewers, at least if the massive advertising spend is anything to go by, so the film has a lot of explaining to do to set up this new universe from the ground up.
Power struggles in the new DCEU
At the start of this film, Superman has already been protecting the world for years, but has only just lost his first fight. After some recuperation and an early introduction to some of the stranger parts of the comic book lore, the first part of the film focusses more on Clark Kent, Superman’s human persona, and his relationships with his partner, his co-workers, and his dog.
Soon, we meet the other superheroes already working in this new DCEU, who view their jobs quite differently to Superman but still work alongside him. Monitoring from afar is self-important tech bro Lex Luthor, who soon drags Superman into his grand plan, desperate to take the hero down to size due to his self-confessed jealousy.
In 2025, a grand plan like this involves manipulating media and telling tales, so while characters in the film doubt him, the audience is left in no doubt that Superman is in the right. While previous films explored the character’s moral code and what happens when it is stretched, here the right and wrong is very obvious throughout.
For his efforts, he faces some pretty horrible punishment, and some of the film’s more brutal moments place it squarely within its 12A rating.
Despite the weirdness of the world and clarity in the morality, Superman clearly references modern world events, touching on the ideas of disinformation, radicalisation, and conflict. These are tackled not just by Superman, but by his colleagues at the Daily Planet newspaper, bringing Superman’s physical power together with a form of political and social power that he could never wield.
With the news team, the superhero team, and the bad guys each having their own stories, the plot threads become more complicated than you might expect, giving casual viewers quite a lot to get their heads around. These stories don’t all work well on their own, but they do work together to push things forward and keeping the film moving at an impressive pace.
One notable absence is from Kent’s parents, who played a more memorable role in previous DC films. Here, they are relegated to a small role in the middle of the film, in one of the few parts to move at a more leisurely pace. Instead, we are kept inside the busy world of Clark Kent and Superman, and the life he has already built for himself.
Learning a new Superman
While the new DCEU technically started with on TV, this will be the first film in DC’s new story arc. The Gunniverse, perhaps? Much of the talk around this film has focussed on James Gunn, the director and grand architect of this DC universe, after his off-and-on relationship with Marvel when working there. Any film is bigger than one person, but Gunn’s fingerprints are all over this outing, from the weirdness of the world to the some of his regular castings.
Gunn’s style of “we’re just going to keep telling you what’s going on and you’ll keep listening because it’s weird” works surprisingly well in this film. A pocket dimension? Sure! Aliens? Fine. A super-dog and an ice palace within the first five minutes? I guess so! That said, it’s a bit disappointing that the heaviest pieces of exposition very noticeably come from walls of text, followed by men explaining the obvious to women, but at least those women are evil or robots.
This strangeness is one of the most striking things about the film. The films of the old DCEU, directed by Zack Snyder, often took care to be grounded, real, and gritty compared to Marvel’s more bright and extravagant MCU. Gunn’s Guardian’s of the Galaxy films were some of the most bright and upbeat there, and now he has brought that energy to Superman in a bombastic style.
Punching Lex Luthor
From the start, this Superman is at home in in lesser-known territory, relying on audiences to already be familiar with the idea of the hero. From there, it quickly steps into a rich and impressive world, with plenty of characters both well-known and obscure.
For example, Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan) is already in a relationship with Superman at the start of the film, and has her own clear goals throughout. Krypto, Superman’s dog, also has a surprisingly complicated relationship with the lead role. Nathan Fillion and Sean Gunn, both common castings by James Gunn, fill out the universe with characters that comic readers will immediately appreciate, alongside oddballs who will come as a funny surprise to those less familiar with the source material.
Wearing the cape and red trunks, David Corenswet comes fresh from his role in Twisters. Here, he plays a modern, empathetic “ideal American”, whose powers seem like the smallest part of his character. Throughout, Superman comes across as a likeable man making the best of a difficult situation, somewhat irritated that the world is a complicated place even if you have physical power over it. He is happy to save a squirrel from disaster, but frustrated when others don’t see it as important, and upset when his allies assume the worst in each other.
Corenswet gives an unquestionably heroic take on Superman, balancing human displays of emotion with some of the loftiness expected of a powerful alien. Broccoli hair aside, this portrayal feels more timeless than other recent efforts, despite the character being better established from the start.
Outside of the physical struggle, he is also put through an emotional trial by Lex Luthor, played by Nicholas Hoult. This Luthor is a self-important tech bro, desperate to take down Superman out of self-confessed jealousy. If you’ve ever met this sort of psychopath, Luthor’s blend of rage and ego will make you want to punch him as much as any idiot talking loudly about his Tesla stocks at the gym.
Personally, I have a weakness for Nicholas Hoult, who has played a wide variety of likeable nerds, weird creeps, sniveling sidekicks and cat owners. Here, he has some great moments, winding up Superman from behind a desk like a good modern troll,
And, despite reaching boiling point, Superman never lays a finger on Luthor, giving more weight to this modern portrayal.
The super-strength to hold a film together
As the various teams of heroes and villains make their way through the world, they come across a few CGI fights that are pretty much fine. There is plenty there to entertain a child, but not so much as to bring the film to a halt for them: there are other plot threads for that.
While Superman’s colleagues at the Daily Planet are fun – and it’s great to see a news team in a helicopter again – their plot thread teeters towards the ridiculous at a time where the film starts to go a little too far. Most of the film carefully balances its more real and more absurd elements, there comes a very noticeable point where it has to make a choice and suddenly seems a whole lot worse for it.
It’s impressive to have a big-budget film in 2025 make such an obvious commentary on world conflicts, but eventually these come to clash with Superman’s universe, cheapening both.
Similar films are often criticised for having a complicated plot that crumbles into computer-animated punching. Superman offers a better variation of this, mainly improving by making its climactic scenes more personal and shorter. At just over two hours, the film itself is hardly short, but does feel shorter than its runtime with a consistent pace and plenty to see.
This carries on until the end, when the filmmakers clearly can’t help themselves but to tease the next DCEU film, Supergirl. I have heard that this taster has actually worked to make viewers interested in the upcoming film, so perhaps this DCEU is taking off quickly?
Superman: Flying high or crashing to earth?
It would be difficult to call this first outing anything other than “a success”, presenting a new Superman that feels bright and unburdened by the baggage that superhero films drag around. The visuals are interesting enough to pull in casual audiences, and if they come along for the ride, they should be able to deal with the learning curve at the start of this new DCEU.
More devoted fans will be excited to see the range of characters in play, some of them in their first cinema outing. The promise of a new universe will likely receive a more mixed reception, but at the very least, this film suggests that the new DCEU, more than being bad or good, will be different.
Although there are a few stumbles, it is difficult to be unimpressed by the scale of Superman, even for those with no skin in the game. At a time when most superhero films are blending together to become some indistinct blob, Superman stands out and promises an interesting new slate of superhero fun to come.