Superman

Directed by James Gunn, Superman follows David Corenswet’s title hero as he attempts to stop Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) from executing a diabolical, potentially world-ending scheme. Filmmaker Gunn, armed with his own screenplay, does a nice job of immediately capturing the viewer’s interest and attention, as the movie, which thankfully eschews Superman’s very familiar origin story, kicks off with a promising opening stretch that effectively reintroduces the iconic DC Comics figure – with this vibe heightened by Corenswet’s charming, engaging performance and a legitimately solid sequence wherein Clark/Superman is interviewed by Rachel Brosnahan’s Lois Lane. It’s disappointing to note, then, that Superman slowly-but-surely wears out its welcome as it segues into a misguided and mostly tiresome midsection riddled with questionable attributes and developments, with this particularly true of Gunn’s frustrating, wrongheaded decision to keep Superman sidelined for much of the second act’s frenetic happenings. (And it doesn’t help, either, that Gunn does an awful job of developing the various periphery characters, including Hoult’s petulant, one-note Lex and Skyler Gisondo’s eye-rolling sex symbol Jimmy Olsen.) By the time the endless, hopelessly over-the-top final half hour rolls around, Superman has undoubtedly (and thoroughly) cemented its place as a disappointing missed opportunity that is, for the most part, rarely in the spirit of the decades-old protagonist. (This is to say nothing, as well, as the shockingly idiotic reveal regarding Superman’s Kryptonian parents.)

* out of ****