Film Review - Superman (2025)

Superman is written and directed by James Gunn and is the first big movie under his and Peter Safran’s DC Studios label and sees Superman (David Corenswet) having to stop Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) from manipulating global events in his favor and also having to contend with the Justice Gang (Nathan Fillion, Edi Gathegi and Isabela Merced) as well as hide his romance with Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan)

Superman is one of my 3 most anticipated movies of 2025 (the other 2 being Wicked for Good and Avatar Fire and Ash) and while I was excited to see the movie and kept my faith in James Gunn to deliver the goods I was also very nervous as both Bryan Singer and Zack Snyder had tried to reboot the character with their movies and had failed miserably and could this buck that trend or be yet another example of the DC migraine striking Warner Brothers once again.

Happily (very happily) this movie bucks that trend and James Gunn with this one movie lays down a good foundation for his DC universe despite some issues but first I must mention David Corenswet as like Henry Cavill before him he proves himself to be worthy of the mantle of Superman which Christopher Reeve embodied not just on film but in his life in the years after his horse riding accident and Corenswet is earnest, kind, humble and driven to do the right thing by the world around him and I sincerely hope that he becomes the Superman of this generation just as Reeve is Superman to my generation.

Also great here are Brosnahan and Hoult, Brosnahan was always going to be a good Lois Lane but she is great here not just as a gutsy reporter always wanting to chase a story but also in her scenes with Corenswet and the two of them have great chemistry while Hoult is deliciously evil as Lex Luthor and thankfully does NOT try to imitate the late great Gene Hackman like Kevin Spacey and Jesse Eisenberg tried to do only to fail miserably, Hoult’s Lex is manipulative, petty and without a shred of decency in his bones and it is glorious to watch.

Also good fun is the Justice Gang and firstly I have to give Gunn huge credit for making other parts of the DC Universe feel like a natural and organic part of the storytelling instead of being shoved in to show the audience “We’re building a Cinematic Universe here people” like Batman v Superman did and Nathan Fillion as Guy Gardiner the Green Lantern has single handedly redeemed that character after the dreadful Ryan Reynolds film in 2011, Gathegi is a lot of fun as Mr Terrific and gets a lot of the films more humorous moments while Isabela Merced was good as Hawkgirl but she doesn’t get as much action as the others sad to say.

And I have to mention Krypto the Dog who is a very good boy and deserves lots of treats for his work here.

However the film has some editing issues that bothered me while I was watching the film as this movie zips around from one scene to the next and what feels like one plot point to the next that it feels jarring in terms of how quick the edits are and the movie drops you right into the thick of things without much explanation either but thankfully this does not become a detraction from the overall film as Gunn makes this work very well, much more than I thought he might have.

And so that was Superman and it is terrific fun despite those editing issues and the future of DC on film is bright after this one go, if Gunn can keep the quality intact and sort out what to do with Batman plus make sure the audience doesn’t fragment between movies and shows then he and Safran will have given WB the Panadol Solubles DC has needed to cure that migraine, 4 out of 5.