Good news for fans who have been holding out for a hero who is strong enough to potentially restart the DC Universe: James Gunn has delivered! At least according to critics, anyway. The director’s new take on Superman — which stars David Corenswet as the titular alien, Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane, and a blond Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor — arrives in theaters on July 11 as the first installment of the DCU’s “Gods and Monsters” phase. So far, early reviews are happy with the hero … and his little dog, too. In her review, Vulture’s Alison Willmore describes the prominence of Superman’s superpowered canine, Krypto, in the film as a way for Gunn to “emphasize how fallible his take on the Man of Steel is going to be as well as to signal how wonderfully dorky and earnest his movie is about to get.” Some did feel as though a little too much was stuffed into the plot that involves an assortment of metahuman foes, but critics largely agreed that the final product tapped into the entertainment and appeal of a classic comic book. We’re still waiting to hear what Clark Kent’s Daily Planet thinks, but for now, here’s what the press has been saying so far.
“[James Gunn] may love this source material, but he approaches it with a mixture of sincerity and irreverence that makes his new movie feel like a window being thrown open to a sunny day after years of oppressively dour DC action. He doesn’t politicize Superman, exactly. He just returns the character to his roots as the creation of two Jewish American men whose families fled the pogroms and who gave their extraterrestrial defender of the planet a background as a refugee himself.” —Alison Willmore, Vulture
“Gunn constructs an intricate game of a superhero saga that’s arresting and touching, and occasionally exhausting, in equal measure. Audiences should flock to it, though a question still hovers over the larger DC Universe: Even if you build it this well, will they come?” —Owen Gleiberman, Variety
“Gunn’s Superman is overloaded, even muddled at times, but relentlessly entertaining. Perhaps its biggest strength is that it sidesteps all the revisionist murk of superheroes onscreen in the last decade or two and reverts almost to an enchanting state of child-like wonder.” —David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter
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“The poppy, satisfying adventure […] succeeds on both fronts with the best Supes since Christopher Reeve. The movie features pervasive positivity, one really cool canine and a bright comic-book aesthetic. And while this fresh superhero landscape is extremely busy and a little bit familiar, it also feels lived-in and electric.” —Brian Truitt, USA Today
“Mileage will inevitably vary when it comes to Gunn’s idiosyncratic touch. He can be outlandish and sweet, often at once. In a conversation between metahumans, he will insert a donut into the scene for no real reason, and cut from a body falling through the air to an Alka-Seltzer tablet dropping into a glass. Some might call such moments glib, a not-unfair label for Gunn. But I’d say they make this pleasantly imperfect Superman something quite rare in the assembly line-style of superhero moviemaking today: human.” —Jake Coyle, the Associated Press
“It’s faint praise, even in the post-MCU era of the genre, to say that Superman is a solid superhero film; the caveat is hiding in plain sight. What Gunn has pulled off is something more complicated, more interesting, and far tougher: He’s given us a Superman movie that actually feels like a living, breathing comic book.” —David Fear, Rolling Stone
“But what is the point of a film so stymied in its digitally encoded and generically prescribed world that it can’t even go through the motions, as that would imply some level of activity and signs of life? How many more superhero films in general, and Superman films in particular, do we need to see that all end with the same spectacular faux-apocalypse in the big city with CGI skyscrapers collapsing? They were fun at first … but the thrill is gone.” —Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
“James Gunn’s Superman may not be the greatest superhero story ever told but it’s trying to be, and I respect that. The director of Guardians of the Galaxy shoves everything super about Superman into a single motion picture, and it’s bursting at the seams with strange, wonderful, intricate ideas. Superman is a fabulously smart and entertaining film whose flaws stem from trying too hard … which are the best flaws a film can have.” —William Bibbiani, TheWrap
