Review James Gunn’s ‘Superman’ movie is corny. Which is why it gets Superman right July 10, 20254:27 PM ET
Heard on All Things Considered
David Corenswet plays Superman in James Gunn’s new film. Warner Bros. Pictures
Glen Weldon, 4-Minute Listen
Before I saw James Gunn’s new Superman movie, which sets out to lay the cornerstone of a new era for DC superhero characters, I was pessimistic.
Over my years as a critic, I’ve loved a few Gunn projects for their humor and cleverness (Slither, Guardians of the Galaxy) but more recently hated others for their adolescent glibness (Peacemaker) and cheap sentimentality (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3), respectively.
But I’ve spent far more years — decades, in fact — as a Superman fan. A few years back I channelled that fandom into an egregiously nerdy form of scholarship, when I wrote Superman: The Unauthorized Biography, a cultural history of the character that tracks which aspects of him have changed over the years (and why) and which have remained constant (and why).
Here’s the TL;DR for that book: The two central, definitive attributes to any Superman story are selflessness and resolve. He must always: 1. Put the needs of others before those of himself and 2. Refuse to give up. If either of those factors are missing, our minds rebel — it’s simply not Superman.
