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Superman (2025) reboots the DC set of characters with the DCU, aka Detective Comics Universe, turning away from the DCEU (E for Extended), which concluded in December 2023 with Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom, the 15th film in that series.
The DCEU failed because it couldn’t match the success of the MCU, aka Marvel Cinematic Universe, but then modern Marvel can’t even match that, since both Captain America: Brave New World and Thunderbolts* were flops, as they didn’t turn a profit. Whether or not Fantastic Four can break that mould remains to be seen. Might be an idea if Disney DIDN’T keep rushing them out onto streaming within a few weeks.
I’m not sure why DC think the savour of the DCU is James Gunn. His Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy was meh, and 2021’s The Suicide Squad was awful!
For this film, however, it costs $225m for the production budget, so will have to clear $500m to be in profit after marketing etc is taken into account, and with the lead portrayed by David Corenswet (Pearl), he’s been doing his Superman schtick on Earth for the last 3 years, but given his age, he’s had 30 years of hurt from Kryptonite.
Before the events of this film, he achieved peace in the Middle East, but now it’s all kicking off again, leading to a very blatant scene masquerading as an interview between Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan – The Amateur) and Supes (in his Clark Kent visage, since she’s aware of his true self by the time this film begins). Basically, it’s an understandable rant against Benjamin Netanyahu and his team of murderers who go about under the name of the Israeli Defence Force.
For the purposes of the scene, she takes the “Israel have every right to defend themselves” (against Hamas), which all politicians do, these days, even though that’s not what’s going on out there. The IDF just open fire on innocent civilians in Gaza, even when they’re standing in food queues. They are the members of the modern Third Reich, and Netanyahu is basically the reincarnation of Adolf Hitler. Yes, imagine a supposed Jew being the Nazi. You don’t have to imagine. It’s actually happening.
It’s also odd that the trailer makes a big deal of the start of this interview, having the pair supposedly introduced themselves to the other, using different camera shots, both face-on. In the film, the dialogue is the same for that, but it’s one single camera position from the side, keeping them both in shot.
Still, aside from bringing this topic into the film, Lex Luthor gets involved, for reasons which become clear as it trundles on, but while Nicholas Hoult can be decent at times (as in The Menu), at 35, he’s far too young for the role of Lex Luthor. He has none of the gravitas that Gene Hackman had, even if that role was part of quite a camp series of films.
Guy Pearce is always reliable, and great for both good and evil roles. Get him!
Anyhoo, Clark and Lois have been dating for 3 months (yes, there’s a lot of threes in this!), he’s first seen heading towards his Fortress of Solitude after a big battle, and the dog, Krypto, is so-named, because he’s into crypto currency.
For want of a plot, Lex Luthor tries to besmirch Superman’s name by taking the half-cut-off message from Jor-El (Bradley Cooper – IF) that was sent with him as a child, decodes the rest of it and twists its meaning to make it sound like our hero is here to take over the Earth and have everyone do his bidding.
How can the American public fall for that? Well, enough of them believed that with the laziest US President Campaign of all time, Joe Biden polled 81.2 million votes in 2020!
Add in the splitting in two of Metropolis, thanks to some interdimensional rift thing, and whichever way things turn in a superhero film, you just know that eventually, the population of the city will figure out Luthor’s the baddie, then go to the Winchester, have a nice cold pint, and wait for all of this to blow over.
Oh, and the lead’s also joined by three Metahumans – who I hadn’t come across before – namely, Mr. Terrific (Edi Gathegi – X-Men First Class), Guy Gardner (Nathan Fillion, sporting the Worst. Haircut. Ever.), and Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced, dressing up in lycra again, as with Madame Web).
Before that, though, Luthor also steals Krypto at one point, packing everyone he can into a pocket dimension prison… but taking the dog? Has he never seen John Wick?!
There’s also a daft scene where Lois and an exhausted Superman chat, while outside, the Metahumans do battle with some colourful, flying creature. For the most part, that being is out of focus, due to the basic way the human eye’s focal point works, but given that we’re watching in 3D, they could easily have created that thing in focus the whole time, and just left it all happening in the background. Yes, that would’ve required a separate 2D version where it’s out of focus while he and her are IN focus, but it would’ve made for a much better 3D result.
I remember when 3D films used to bother with that, but it’s just cheaper to make it one way. Oh, and it’s not even shot in 3D, anyway. It’s filmed in 2D, and converted to 3D in post-production. However, generally, the 3D does look fairly decent in this film. Far better than the 3D IMAX trailer we had for Fantastic Four, just before it, but then I can only presume that wasn’t the finished product, as trailers never look quite as good as the finished film. Still, it was a good test of the glasses!
One major problem with Superman 2025, though, and if there’s one thing missing from this reboot, it needs far more humour inbetween the “Israel blah blah blah”. There’s a scene where Mr Terrific goes to take another character (who I won’t spoil) up in his flying saucer (and that’s NOT a euphemism), but it’s parked in a garage that opens up incredibly slowly, leading the other character to remark, “Couldn’t get a faster garage door(?)”
Plus, it’s interesting to note that since the other character is American, they still say ‘garage’ properly, and not “ga-raaaaaaaage“.
But it’s not just where the humour is absent as to how the writing fails. There’s too many characters, such as with Luthor having a girlfriend in the workplace, Eve (Sara Sampaio), who stands around taking selfies. Plus, the Daily Planet throws in every staff member it can think of, including Cat Grant – who’s played by the lovely 4’11 Mikaela Hoover (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.3 IMAX 3D), with nerdy glasses – but she seems to just walk on, shake her big tits, and walk off.
Another baddie employed by Luthor is known as The Engineer (María Gabriela de Faría), although given her strange haircut and demeanour, I thought she was going to be one of those self-obsessed oddballs who claims to be “non-binary”, even though there’s no such thing.
There’s also a point where a big monster is pushed out to do battle with the Metahumans and Superman, but given that everyone in the town is gawping at it, how come all the Daily Planet staff are in the office, lounging around? Surely, that’s what they’re there for?
Similarly, when it’s all kicking off in the final act, and those staff ARE actually on-site, why is no-one asking where Clark Kent is?!
Anyhoo, even if they had, it wouldn’t stop this Superman reboot being such a ‘meh’ film.
And I know I shouldn’t compare this to the 1978 movie, but David Corenswet is no Christopher Reeve, and Bradley Cooper, appearing briefly as Jor-El, is no Marlon Brando!
When it comes to the presentation, I understand Superman (2025) is 1.85:1 for standard screens, but 1.90:1 for IMAX. I presumed, as is the usual case, that the latter would be slightly cropped top and bottom, but apparently on this occasion, the IMAX version actually has slightly extra image at the sides.
I’m not in a rush to watch the film again so soon, but I know one test I can try early on in the film, at Lex Luthor’s command base, or whatever he calls it, where there’s a couple of wide shots with staff members around the extreme left and right of the image, so I’ll have to compare the two to see how they… well, compare!
As for the audience, the row behind me was a whole long line of lads aged around 12. Okay, I still remember going to see Beverly Hills Cop II when I was a kid, around the same age, and we had a great time. However, we didn’t have phones.
As the teaser for Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey was coming to an end, one of the kids (about 2 seats to my left) had his phone torch on, and given the distance between rows, I had to stand up to make myself seen, pointed and said, “YOU! Yes, YOU! TURN THAT PHONE OFF!”, and he did.
However, during the ads and trailers, I heard another phone sounding like a call was taking place, with the speakerphone on. That lad was further along the row, so I had to get up, go past the two people to my left, and stand in front of him, getting his attention, until he did actually realise I was there (it was obviously dark, and he had his head in his phone most of the time, but his friends saw).
He had a look of, “Oh, not me guv”, as I said I could hear the phone going off with the conversation.
I guess he switched it off at that point, but as I went to sit back down, a couple of staff members came in, one of whom looked like a manager, and they spent about 3-4 minutes having what looked like a determined discussion with the kids. At that point, two people stood up from the row behind, so it turned out they were the adults accompanying them, but just hadn’t wanted to sit with them! I guess they tried to placate the staff, and then there was no other major issues. At most, a slight bit of chat, and a “PHWOAR!” when Lois and Clark snogged. Well, that’s something they’ll never come across in real life.
NOTE: There’s also a mid- AND post-credits scene, as described in the video below.
Superman is in cinemas now, and is available to pre-order on 4K Blu-ray, Blu-ray and DVD.
In the meantime, you can buy the Superman I-IV 4K Blu-ray Limited Edition Boxset.
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 130 minutes
Release date: July 11th 2025
Studio: 1.90:1 (IMAX version) (Dolby Vision, Phantom RAW (4K), Redcode RAW (6K, 8K), 1.85:1 (standard screens)
Cinema: Odeon Trafford Centre
Rating: 4/10
Director: James Gunn
Producers: James Gunn, Peter Safran
Screenplay: James Gunn
Music: David Fleming, John Murphy
Cast:
Superman: David Corenswet
Lois Lane: Rachel Brosnahan
Lex Luthor: Nicholas Hoult
Mr. Terrific: Edi Gathegi
Guy Gardner: Nathan Fillion
Hawkgirl: Isabela Merced
Eve Teschmacher: Sara Sampaio
The Engineer: María Gabriela de Faría
Perry White: Wendell Pierce
Malik ‘Mali’ Ali: Dinesh Thyagarajan
Ma Kent: Neva Howell
Pa Kent: Pruitt Taylor Vince
Cat Grant: Mikaela Hoover
Jimmy Olsen: Skyler Gisondo
Superman Robot #4: Alan Tudyk
Superman Robot #12: Grace Chan
Superman Robot #1: Michael Rooker
Superman Robot #5: Pom Klementieff
Jor-El: Bradley Cooper
Lara: Angela Sarafyan
Ron Troupe: Christopher McDonald
Vasil Ghurkos: Zlatko Buric
Rick Flag Sr: Frank Grillo
General Mori: James Hiroyuki Liao
Boravian Tech: Tatiana Piper
Sydney Happersen: Stephen Blackehart
Cheryl Kimble: Giovannie Cruz
Ms. Jessop: Bonnie Discepolo
Otis Berg: Terence Rosemore
Jake Tapeworm: Jake Tapper
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.