I’d been putting off my first “home watch” of the Superman reboot and the right time came up yesterday. After reading all of the “Easter Egg” site posts, it turns out that the major thing that I missed (the mural of heroes in the Hall of Justice) is a background detail that you can’t focus on without screen grabs anyway!
It’s been three months since the big-screen release and on this rewatch, David Corenswet’s Supes and Clark Kent hold up. Ditto Rachel Brosnahan’s Lois Lane. More props to Skyler Gisando as the best Jimmy Olsen since Jack Larson.
Bringing in the minor characters of Otis and Miss Teschmacher from the Donner Superman (1978) was a nice nod to the fan base, but having so much screen time devoted to evil genius Lex Luthor as a bingo caller (B2! I16! G12! G12!) seemed to cheapen the rest of the plotting to discredit and kill Supes.
My personal jury is still out on James Gunn’s take on the DCU. He’s doing many good things, but with the Gunnsian florishes that border on grating with me. The obscure punk music accompanying a slo-mo battle won’t ALWAYS work. He’s getting the overall tone right, though, so I guess you have to allow a guy his tells.
Speaking of Guy–Nathan Fillion is doing a good job as Green Lantern, but I finally figured out what’s bothering me. NOT the haircut, but that he should be a redhead. The character of Hawkgirl feels like a token female superhero; she hasn’t had much to do. Mr. Terrific seems a little too “street” for the third-smartest man in the world–the performance goes back and forth for me.
They took a major “liberty” with Metamorpho’s powerset to further the plot. (He’s supposed to be able to make the elements that occur within the human body, so kryptonite shouldn’t be one of them.) It was such a relief not to have origin stories for heroes OR villains in this movie that James Gunn gets slack from me for not sticking to 100% fanboy approval here.
July 11, 2025 Shared with Your friends
Spent some time tonight rereading some of the ‘new classic’ Superman stories. A tiny bit in the movie is from All-Star Superman; didn’t see anything directly cribbed from Superman for All Seasons. But Gunn took the feel from so much overall. Couldn’t absorb all the ‘thanks’ at the end but a lot of creators I respect were named. Go see it…. You will believe a man can fly.
New note: After having seen Peacemaker S2 credits, it looks like a standard of DC Studios content is going to be to thank all of the creators of the characters in the comics. It was great to see Mart Nodell (creator of Green Lantern) and Ramona Fradon (creator of Metamorpho) listed in there beside a veritable host of amazing talent from DC’s history.
