How many movies are there about arguably the most recognizable comic book character of all time, Superman?  One could make the case for there being twelve, going all the way back to Superman (1948).  You also have to include such titles as Justice League (2017) as being about him to get to that number, while also not counting the 2021 Zack Snyder cut of the same film.  I try to forget both of them, but that might just be me.  This is why when you write today’s iteration, you have to include the (2025).  It is a minor inconvenience.  Actually, I probably should not rage against it at all.  My Faith, Catholicism, is the largest and oldest Christian sect in the world.  Culturally and socially speaking, when somebody thinks Christian, they are likely to conjure images of people praying in churches built by Catholics.  Along those same lines, it can be said that without Superman, there are no comic books or their cinematic cousins.  Is this why they keep resurrecting the character for the big screen?  I do not know, but I hope you continue reading my review anyway.

What Superman (David Corenswet) is hoping for at the beginning is that his Kryptonian dog, Krypto (Jolene), will come to his rescue.  If that sounds strange, the opening crawl, after reminding us of his familiar backstory, informs us that he has just suffered his first defeat at the hands of Ultraman (David Corenswet) and is in need of healing.  Though overly enthusiastic, Krypto manages to get Superman to his arctic refuge, known as the Fortress of Solitude, where technology from his home planet, mainly Superman robots, help restore his health.  With a substantial dose of the sun, he is able to speed back to Metropolis to continue the fight against Ultraman.  This is the distraction Superman’s arch-nemesis, Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult), needs.  As the two overpowered being clash, Lex sends another villain of his creation, The Engineer (María Gabriela), to locate the Fortress of Solitude.  Once this is done, Lex ends the battle with Superman since he controls Ultraman, and travels to the Fortress of Solitude.  Once there, using The Engineer’s nano-technology, he is able to break into Superman’s Kryptonian computer.  This is not Superman’s only problem.  A few weeks previously, he had stopped the outbreak of war when the bellicose Boravia tried to invade its weaker neighbor, Jorhanpur.  This action has some around the world, including the United States government, wondering if a superhero is more of a threat to humanity than he is worth.  Lex offers his services to take care of Superman, but for the moment he is turned down.  More personally, Superman has to deal with his girlfriend, Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan), who is also his colleague at the Daily Planet in his guise as mild-mannered Clark Kent.  With the world bringing unwanted attention to Superman, he agrees to be interviewed by her as the superhero.  Her questions are fair but tough, and it makes her question their relationship.  Meanwhile, the world comes to question Superman when Lex releases a recording by Superman’s Kryotonian parents, Jor-El (Bradley Cooper) and Lara Lor-Van (Angela Sarafyan).  For years, Superman had only been able to hear the first half of the message, which exhorts him to be a good man and a symbol of hope to the people of Earth.  With Lex’s ingenuity, he is able to repair the second half, which adds that Superman should subjugate the planet and spread his Kryptonian seed.  Like anyone else, he is horrified by this revelation and decides to turn himself into the authorities.  They hand him over to Lex, who imprisons Superman inside a pocket dimension of the evil businessman’s own creation.  To keep Superman from breaking out, he is put into a small cell with Metamorpho (Anthony Carrigan), a mutated individual who can make his body into any element, including Kryptonite.  Meanwhile, Lois goes to members of the so-called “Justice Gang” for help in finding Superman and freeing him.  At the same time, Jimmy Olsen (Skyler Gisondo), is getting information on Lex’s shady dealings from the arch-villain’s girlfriend, Eve Teschmacher (Sara Sampaio).  Eve is actually infatuated with Jimmy, and she sees turning on Lex as the only way for them to be together.  Thus, while Lois teams up with Mr. Terrific (Edi Gathegi) to go after Superman, Eve risks her life to send Jimmy selfies she took of the documents proving Lex’s involvement in the Borvian-Jorhanpur conflict.  In short, things are falling apart for Lex, particularly after Superman escapes with Matemorpho.  Lois takes Superman to recuperate for a day at his boyhood home with Jonathan (Pruitt Taylor Vince) and Martha Kent (Neva Howell) in Kansas.  In order to draw Superman out of hiding, Lex tells the Boravian president, Vasil Ghurkos (Zlatko Burić), to launch his new invasion, while also opening a rift between Earth and his pocket dimension that literally begins to tear Metropolis in two.  The people of Jorhanpur appeal to Superman for help, but he sends the Justice Gang, led by a jerk version of Green Lantern (Nathan Fillion), to handle that situation.  This is because Superman must focus on saving Metropolis.  To do so, he again faces Ultraman.  During the course of their battle, Superman discovers that his opponent is a clone of himself.  With some help from Krypto, Superman is able to push Ultraman into the black hole at the end of the rift between the dimensions.  It gets worse for Lex.  In the midst of the unfolding chaos, Lois is able to publish her story exposing Lex’s evil machinations.  The article destroys Lex’s credibility and restores Superman to hero status, with Lex going to prison as a result.  We close with Lois and Superman sneaking off for a kiss.

Actually, there is one more moment where Superman is back in the rebuilt Fortress of Solitude and he is visited by his cousin, Kara Zor-El (Milly Alcock), otherwise known as Supergirl.  This does nothing for the plot.  There are also two end credits scenes in Superman after the kiss, but neither of them set up another film as you might expect from Marvel.  It is fair to bring in the competing comic book movie franchise.  The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has had one person, Kevin Feige, guiding it for a few decades.  He deserves a lot of credit, even if some of his latest moves have not been met with the same acclaim he once enjoyed.  One of his better choices was hiring James Gunn, who contributed the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy.  Even when the MCU entered a downturn in quality, he continued to deliver good material.  Hence, it was a coup by the DC Extended Universe (DCEU) to lure Gunn away from the MCU to direct Superman.  At the same time, this felt familiar if you know his previous work.  That is okay, and I am trying to do my best to be a charitable Christian, but I wonder if the character is right for the director.  This could be my own tastes.  As the square Catholic that I am, I appreciate Superman’s boy scout like values.  He has a moral compass that he sticks to, and I admire him for it.  Mine is informed by Faith, which is not an inaccurate way of describing his, though he undergoes a transformation.  It had once been associated with how he understood his parent’s admonition to be great.  By the end, he is identifying himself as human, one who has bad days and is capable of love.  I like to see such changes because it shows growth, and that is something God wants of us.  It just all feels slightly off with the madcap antics Gunn typically injects into his movies.  After all, there is an enthusiastic dog terrorizing friend and foe alike.  It seems out of phase.

What is more in phase in Superman is how Lex labels the superhero as an alien.  Fair warning: this is going to be a politically charged section of this review, but I am not saying anything the Church would disavow, especially in recent weeks.  In demonizing Superman, Lex consistently refers to the universally loved superhero as an “alien.”  Though Lex stops short of using the word “illegal,” it is all but implied with the way he goes after Superman.  When Superman gives himself to the authorities, he is escorted by several armed men in masks to be imprisoned in a place that it is far away from the public eye.  Does any of this sound familiar?  Now, one can argue, as Lois does during her interview, that Superman is placing himself as essentially above the law.  Whether he is doing good in the world is irrelevant.  Such a person against whom humanity is powerless can be a threat.  What we mere mortals are forced to do is to trust in his better nature.  In response to that, I come back to Superman’s speech to Lex about being human.  Because God created us, all of us, we are worthy of being treated with dignity.  I daresay everyone is deserving of the benefit of the doubt, which is another way of saying trust.  It does not matter if we are considered a criminal, or where we come from, we all share similar hopes and dreams.  These are ideas that are intrinsic to everyone, but Lex would have us believe that nobody is capable of achieving these ideals.  Even though Superman is not real, or if he was, he is an “alien,” the fact that he shows himself to be like us demonstrates that we are capable of better.  I pray that we do better as a society of giving everyone the respect they are due.

“Respect” is a good word for Superman.  It is not a great movie, but it is respectable.  It is a fine, if somewhat disjointed effort, that is largely inoffensive.  I do not know what this means for the rest of the DCEU, or even if there will be one, but I am okay with it.