SUPERMAN

SUPERMAN is a reimagination of the famous comic book superhero where Superman’s early arch-nemesis, billionaire Lex Luthor, uses a super-powerful metahuman to defeat and eventually try to kill Superman and rule the world, but he also manages to turn the people of America, and the world, against the superhero. Writer/Director James Gunn packs SUPERMAN with lots of exciting physical and emotional jeopardy as Superman and his friends work to overcome Lex Luthor’s evil plans, but the movie changes Superman’s origin story in a significant way that destroys the original story’s biblical allusions to Moses and Jesus, creates a politically correct but self-contradictory pro-immigration theme, and has some gratuitous obscenities and two gratuitous, unnecessary and annoying strong profanities, so MOVIEGUIDE® advises strong and extreme caution.

The movie opens with a title card. It says, “3 centuries ago, the first metahumans appeared on Earth. 3 decades ago, Kal-El [aka Clark Kent] crashed on Earth. 3 years ago, Superman made his debut. 3 minutes ago, Superman lost his first battle.”

With that, Superman crashes onto the icy landscape of Antarctica. Bleeding and unable to walk, Superman whistles for his dog, Krypto. Krypto soon appears, but all he wants to do is jump on top of Superman and play. Between gasps of pain, Superman manages to grab his cape and shot it to Krypto while saying, “Home.” Krypto finally gets the idea and drags Superman to hos Fortress of Solitude, which rises out of the ice.

A huge door with Superman’s family logo opens, and Krypto drags Superman inside, where Superman’s tended to by a group of robots. The robots carry Superman to a couch, where they let him soak up rays from Earth’s yellow sun, which starts to restore Superman’s powers. To soothe Superman while that’s happening, the head robot, Gary, plays for Superman the original recording from his parents on Krypton about his home planet. However, the recording abruptly ends, having been damaged when Superman’s rocket ship crashed to Earth.

Superman decides to return to the battle with only 83% of his power back. He orders Krypto to stay at the Fortress.

Back in Metropolis, the movie reveals that, without consulting the United States government, Superman stopped an Eastern European country, Boravia, from invading a smaller, defenseless country. So, Boravia has enlisted the help of a masked, armored metahuman named “the Boravian Hammer” to attack Metropolis in revenge. The Hammer seems to be more powerful than Superman. In fact, he’s the one behind all of Superman’s injuries. Not only that, but Lex Luthor is controlling the Hammer, with the intent of deceiving and eventually killing Superman. Having defeated Superman for the time being, the Hammer has left Metropolis but promises to return to destroy it.

Posing as Cark Kent, Superman returns to the Daily Planet. It turns out Superman and Lois Lane have been in a secret romantic relationship for the past three months. Lois knows all about Superman’s other identity as “mild-mannered reporter” Clark Kent. That night, they have an argument about whether Superman was right in stopping Boravia’s invasion. Superman is more idealistic about his interference, but Lois questions whether it was the prudent and right thing to do.

The next day, Lex Luther instigates a diversion in Metropolis. He creates a giant dinosaur monster to attack the city. While Superman and three superhero friends, the Green Lantern, Hawkgirl and Mr. Terrific, fight the monster, Lex Luthor follows his two minions, the Boravian Hammer without his armor and a metahuman female who’s actually a human-machine creature or cyborg merged with powerful nanobots, to Antarctica. They’ve tracked Superman to the place where the Fortress of Solitude lies hidden under the ice.

Mysteriously, the Fortress rises from the ice and the doors surprisingly spring open for Lex and his two supervillains to enter. After destroying the robots inside and muzzling Krypto the dog with nanobots, they uncover a surprising fact that will destroy Superman’s reputation with the people of America and the world.

Superman will need the help of Lois, his superhero friends and even Krypto the dog to defeat Lex Luthor and restore his reputation.

Writer/Director James Gunn packs SUPERMAN with lots of exciting physical and emotional jeopardy. Superman, Lois Lane and their three superhero friends, the Green Lantern, Mr. Terrific and Hawkgirl face incredible danger as they work to stop Lex Luthor’s evil plans. Also, the opening with Krypto is pretty funny and unique, a quality that many of Gunn’s movies share, especially his GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY movies for Marvel. Gunn is now leading DC’s new superhero movies, and DC hopes his creative energy will help DC’s new superhero movies compete better with Marvel. SUPERMAN has other comical moments that lighten the story. For example, Nathan Fillion of FIREFLY, THE ROOKIE and CASTLE plays the Green Lantern as an abrasive, overconfident jerk. He wants to name Superman and the other two superheroes as “the Justice Gang,” but the others disagree, and this becomes a running joke in the movie, with a funny payoff at the very end. Of course, eventually the group will add other superheroes, including Batman, and be known as “the Justice League.”

SUPERMAN also has some heartfelt, touching moments. These moments reflect a strong Pro-American, morally uplifting attitude. The best of these moments come when Superman must travel to his adoptive American parents’ farm in Kansas to hide from Lex Luthor’s minions and recover. While there, he seeks advice from his father, Jonathan Kent. His father restores Superman’s confidence, including his decision to stop Boravia invasion. He expresses pride in his adopted son’s actions since leaving the farm. He also tells Superman that a parent’s job is not to decide everything for their children but give them the tools to make the right decisions. “Your choices, your actions, that’s what makes you who you are,” Superman’s father adds.

Ironically, the scenes with Superman’s father contradict the movie’s politically correct pro-immigration theme, which has been touted by Gunn and his movie’s star, David Corenswet, who plays Superman, in recent press interviews. Their comments have generated some public controversy. Many liberals and radicals in Hollywood have virulently opposed the efforts of politicians like President Donald Trump to control illegal immigants. In the movie, however, a twist reveals that Superman’s parents had some ulterior, negative motives for sending their son to Earth. Not only that, but it turns out that Superman’s positive values and compassionate instincts to help other people come not from his biological parents from a foreign planet but actually come from the American parents who adopted him! Thus, the movie actually reveals there are good reasons for people to be concerned about the impact that immigrants can have on their homeland. It also reveals that the American heartland has a culture that fosters good values in the people who live there and in the children who are raised there.

As many people know, the original Jewish creators of the Superman comic books, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, inserted biblical themes into their creation. Thus, Superman’s story carries allegorical or symbolic similarities to the story of Moses and to the depiction of the Messiah in the Hebrew Scriptures. There are also obvious symbolic connections to the story of Jesus Christ, since, after all, Jesus is THE Messiah and fulfils more than 300 messianic prophecies, according to the New Testament Scriptures and the best biblical scholars.

By inserting negative motives into the story of Superman’s parents in his movie, Writer/Director James Gunn has diluted these biblical themes in his version of SUPERMAN. This sadly has the effect of reducing the gravity and power of the iconic Superman story.

Finally, SUPERMAN has lots of action violence and scary danger. The scenes in the “pocket universe” created by Lex Luthor are particularly dark and scary. So, the movie is sometimes too dark and scary for pre-teenage children. SUPERMAN also has about 30 or more obscenities and profanities, including two gratuitous strong profanities. These two profanities stand out and will hit sensitive viewers in the face. As a result, they’re unnecessary and rather annoying. They easily could have been cut from the picture. So, MOVIEGUIDE® advises strong or extreme caution.