How to Decide If You Want to Watch ‘Superman’

Plus: a key lesson in cinematic art, assigned!

(Courtesy Warner Bros.)

SUPERMAN HAS, SOMEHOW, become the most controversial superhero of our age.

No, no, I’m not talking about the fights over his motto, which has evolved from “Truth, justice, and the American way” to “Truth, justice, and all that stuff” to “Truth, justice, and a better tomorrow,” a series of changes that have fed grist into the culture-war mill these last twenty years. I’m not talking about Donald Trump’s childish insinuation that he’s a Super-President, highlighted by our own Bill Kristol. I’m not even talking about the new movie’s invocation of immigration or allusions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (or is that the Ukrainian-Russian conflict?); as I noted in my review, excerpted below, the immigration argument in Superman could easily be characterized as ultra-reactionary.

Rather, I’m talking about the critical reaction and the reaction to the critics.

Superman currently sits at 82 percent fresh on Rotten Tomatoes and has a 68 on Metacritic (“Generally Favorable, Based on 54 Critic Reviews”). These are respectable scores, but by no means extraordinary; the Rotten Tomatoes score has ticked down as the embargo has lifted and more non-influencer critics have had a chance to see it.

The usefulness of Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic is a subject of eternal debate and I have no interest in trying to settle it today; my constant refrain is that they’re useful as a general guidepost but should not be the thing that determines whether or not you see a movie. No, that should be me. (I’m kidding, kinda, but also serious: Find a critic or two you vibe with and take their advice if you’re on the fence about seeing a thing. But also, just go see things if you’re interested. The point of criticism is less to help you decide what to watch than to help you think about what you just watched.)

But Rotten Tomatoes has, like Superman’s motto, become a cudgel of sorts. If it’s too high, it’s because Warner Bros. packed the screenings with shills who are paid to be there and give good reviews. If it’s too low, it’s because Snyder Bros have infiltrated the process in the hopes of tanking the film’s box office in an effort to resurrect the so-called Snyderverse so cruelly snatched from them following the disappointing box-office returns of the Joss Whedon-butchered Justice League (2017). All the while a million monkeys are typing at a million laptops in an effort to replace joy with rage.

Indeed, this is one of the goofier images in James Gunn’s notably goofy Superman: At one point, we see a huge array of simians banging out mean tweets in a pocket universe in the hopes of ruining Superman’s reputation with the masses. It is, of course, a not-so-subtle reference to the accusation of botfarming that led to Warner Bros. spending tens of millions of dollars to allow Zack Snyder to finish his cut of Justice League, which debuted on HBO Max at the tail end of the pandemic.

Really, though, it’s a stand-in for everything these days. From Russian botfarms to Chinese influence operations to “race realists” hyping fight videos and shootouts on American streets, social media is a million monkeys banging away at a million keyboards generating a million pieces of outrage every minute. If Superman really wanted to restore “truth, justice, and the American way,” melting the servers of every social media outlet in the world with his heat vision wouldn’t be a bad way to start.

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Superman review

(MovieStillsDB)

SUPERMAN IS ONE OF THE MOST UNRELENTINGLY GOOFY movies I can remember seeing.

I don’t mean this derogatorily, precisely, despite being one of the strongest and longest defenders of Man of Steel, a movie noted for its self-seriousness. James Gunn is simply going for a different vibe, and when he sticks to that vibe, Superman works. Mostly. If you dig what Gunn’s laying down.

We’ll get to Superman (David Corenswet) himself in a moment, because the movie really lives and dies by every supporting character and how quirky they can get. There are Superman’s robots in the Fortress of Solitude, who disclaim any possibility of emotional attachment and then squeal in delight when Big Blue throws them a spare glance. There’s Superman’s pal Jimmy Olsen (Skyler Gisondo), who is a cub reporter and sexual dynamo, an irresistible magnet for every nine and ten in a five-mile radius. He is pursued by Eve (Sara Sampaio), Lex Luthor’s (Nicholas Hoult) selfie-snapping supermodel girlfriend, who spends most of her time making silly faces while Superman tries to save Metropolis from her billionaire boyfriend’s various villainies, most of which involve framing (kinda) Superman as some sort of nefarious invader.

Superman is aided in his efforts to save Metropolis by Guy Gardner (Nathan Fillion), a Green Lantern with a bowl cut and an impossibly large ego who spends most of the movie trying to convince Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced) and Mr. Terrific (Edi Gathegi) to call their team the Justice Gang. Mr. Terrific, meanwhile, speaks in the cadence of a 1970s soul singer and wears a jacket with his own name on the back of it. And then there’s Krypto the Superdog, who spends most of the movie bouncing around the frame and causing general chaos. He’s a bad dog, but hey. Everyone loves him.

Again, the plot—Luthor wants Superman out of the picture and he’s ginned up an overseas conflict to goad Superman into interfering in the hopes of demonstrating that this god-like being sees himself as master of the planet rather than subject of any of its states; he’s got a point, but he doesn’t need to be such an asshole about it, and it’s hard to care about the plot of a movie that serves as little more than a brand extension for Warner Bros.’s desire to reboot their DC line of heroes—is secondary to the vibe, the sense of humor.

Click here for the full review.

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I interviewed Christian Swegal, the writer-director of the new movie Sovereign, on this week’s Bulwark Goes to Hollywood. It’s a crime thriller of sorts about a father (Nick Offerman) and son (Jacob Tremblay) who consider themselves “Sovereign Citizens,” which inevitably leads to a tragic confrontation with the police.

It’s in theaters and on VOD now. And look: I often hear from folks who say they want something new, something different, something that’s not a big franchise or comic-book movie. If that’s true—if you want to support an original movie with great performances and important insight into a modern problem—then you owe it to yourself to make an effort to see Sovereign. I don’t want to hear from anyone about how there’s nothing worth watching if you don’t watch this.

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On Across the Movie Aisle this week, we discussed the shameful settlement and side deal between Paramount/Viacom and Donald Trump in cons and nons before pivoting to dinos in a review of Jurassic World Rebirth.

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And on the bonus episode, we discussed the death of ad-based media. Subscriptions are the only way media outlets—and maybe the film industry—are going to survive:

Keep that in mind if you haven’t yet become a paying member of The Bulwark. We can’t do it without you!

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Assigned Viewing: The Lost World: Jurassic Park (Peacock)

(MovieStillsDB)

Look, this is a bad movie, but it’s also a movie that helps you understand a key truth about the artistry of filmmaking: Despite being a bad movie, it’s a Steven Spielberg movie, which means that even in its badness it looks and moves better than 90 percent of movies ever made. Maybe 95 percent. The man’s a savant, what can you say?