Superman

Another take on Superman: James Gunn directs and this time it stars David Corenswet as the superhero, Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane and Nicolas Hoult as Lex Luthor.

Gunn bins the tedious origin story and dives straight into action, geo-politics and inter-personal drama. There’s a sort of assumption that you understand what the classic story arc of one of these films is, and while it sticks to the formula in terms of structure it’s not afraid to press fast-forward when it needs to in order to buy itself time for more interesting stuff and keep the film at around 2 hours.

I think there’s also a feeling that people are tired of meta humour and winks to the camera in these films, and so it’s fun to see something that is quite earnest in its outlook (but still quite light in tone unlike the grim Man of Steel).

The cast is excellent, Brosnahan in particular brings a lot to the film as Lois Lane. They also put Wendell Pierce in as Perry White and I just love seeing that guy in anything.

It’s still yet another superhero film at a time when I really do not think we need any more. And the effects work like with a lot of these films seems to swing from really dodgy to really good.

However, given that this character that hasn’t been in a truly good film since the 70s, this is great to see! Also it seems to take quite a strong political stance, which you might say is un-called for in a fun family film, but again it’s just something different to the dead-behind-the-eyes superhero films we’ve been seeing for years now.