PETER HOSKIN reviews Superman: It’s a bad sign if Superman isn’t even the hero of his own movie

Christopher Reeve’s Superman made us believe a man can fly, and Zack Snyder’s Man Of Steel showed us that he can also snap necks. That 2013 movie ended with a fight between Supes and General Zod that flattened half the city of Metropolis… before our hero decided that enough was enough. Through tears, he super-twisted Zod’s spine out of line. Yeesh.

The new Superman, played by David Corenswet, is very different; a necessary corrective, you might say, after the heavy going miserabilism of Snyder’s take on the DC Comics universe.

When we first meet him, he’s admittedly a little bloodied and bruised, after crashing into the frozen ground of the Arctic. But he soon whistles a, erm, caped superdog called Krypto to his aid.

Then some comedy robots help out, too. Pretty soon, this Supes is well enough to utter a single word: ‘Golly!’

Golly, indeed. It’s a weird, almost overwhelming prologue, but an encouraging one. Superman finally has a sense of humour again. Which is presumably why they hired James Gunn to direct this movie – and to oversee the entire line of new DC films.

Gunn made the tremendous Guardians Of The Galaxy trilogy for rivals Marvel and is about as irreverent as filmmakers get. What follows is mostly – or maybe just partly – a vindication of that hiring decision. 

In his irreverence, Gunn thankfully ditches the usual preamble. There’s no scene of baby Kal-El landing in Kansas. There’s next to nothing about him growing up with Ma and Pa Kent.

Instead, Corenswet’s Superman is already in a relationship with reporter Lois Lane (Mrs Maisel’s Rachel Brosnahan), who knows all about the secret identity stuff.

And the nefarious plans of Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) are so far advanced they actually feature in that weird prologue. They involve foreign conflicts, other dimensions, manufactured (lowercase-s) supermen, the usual.

It zips along tremendously quickly. No sooner have you got used to the sight of a flying doggie than you’re watching Superman battle a great, slobbery, 100ft-tall monster with the help of a wacky new superhero team: Green Lantern (a boisterous Nathan Fillion), Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced) and Mister Terrific (Edi Gathegi).

Every scene contains at least three punchlines, with at least two landing nicely.

But, after a while, the film’s superpowers become its weaknesses. Gunn’s Superman never sits still before it’s on to the next thing, then the next. 

It feels as though we never really spend any quality time with our hero, much less Corenswet as Clark Kent. 

Other purportedly major characters, such as Wendell Pierce’s Daily Planet editor Perry White, are on screen for about 30 seconds.

In fact, it’s telling that the most exhilarating action sequence – which drew the biggest cheer in the screening I attended – involves Mister Terrific alone.

At times, it seems as though this Superman isn’t even the hero of his own movie. He’s jostling for attention with a thousand other comic book references.

Or, worse, he’s wrestling with the script’s awkward, lurching shifts. It’s hard to take its abrupt moralising seriously – ‘You are the choices you make…’ – amid so much silliness. 

And it’s even harder to accept its pro forma CGI ending, which sees the skyscrapers of Metropolis collapsing and crashing into each other… just like in Man Of Steel.

All of which adds up to a movie that’s just fine, really. A mix of good and bad, which is its own sort of achievement.

We’ve had Superman in the past. We’ve had Terribleman. Now we get something different: Okayman. Superman is in cinemas now.