​Intro
 
James Gunn’s Superman has already taken the world at large by storm (or, at least, most of twitter – no I’m still not calling it X), with thousands of fans offering their takes, takedowns, praises, musings, and everything in between. From David Corenswet’s casting to Nicholas Hoult’s ultimate hater energy to a few key plot choices Gunn made for the film that are sure to shake up the very core of who we’ve understood Superman to be since 1938, its very existence has set the internet ablaze with largely positive (but also some negative) discourse surrounding its ideas, its direction, its themes, and the essence of the titular character himself. If you’re especially internet savvy, you’ll also see a ton of people dressing up the opening weekend (including me). For those of you who wish to know my spoiler-free thoughts on the film, you can find my original review here. But, for those aching to discuss more specific thoughts, stick around as The Friendly Film Fan covers Superman in completely open, spoiler-y fashion, from small saves to major backstory alterations. We won’t necessarily go over every single story beat, line read, or character choice, but there’s still plenty to cover in just the major leagues. With this being your only full SPOILER WARNING, let’s dig in…or take off…you know what I mean.

​And so it begins…
 
When Superman begins, the first thing we see is an opening text which counts us down from three centuries ago (first metahumans on Earth) to three years ago (Superman becomes a public figure) to three minutes ago, when Superman loses a battle to the Hammer of Boravia, the first time that he’s been beaten. During the course of this text – and due to it being in the marketing – we learn that the whole reason the Hammer is there in the first place is because Superman stopped an invasion by the Boravian military into its neighbor nation, Jarhanpur, a pair of deeply unsubtle stand-ins for Israel and Palestine, respectively. (We never get to actually see this happen, unfortunately, nor are we permitted a view at that fight Superman lost – hardly film-breaking omissions, but it’s hard not to feel like we missed out on some key bits of character growth here.) This is the only introductory text the film includes before beginning in earnest. Having been bloodied and bruised, Superman crash lands in the Antarctic, and we see David Corenswet in the red and blue for the first time, beaten and bloodied as he calls Krypto the Super Dog to take him “home,” (a.k.a. the Fortress of Solitude). Once Krypto shows up at the emerging fortress with Kal-El in tow, the Superman robots quickly get to work restoring him back to health with the help of concentrated yellow sun radiation and a soothing message from his Kryptonian parents. It’s here, of course, that who of all actors would show up but Bradley Cooper as Jor-El (careful, Matt Damon, Cooper’s coming for your cameo crown), in hologram form alongside Kal-El’s mother Lara (Angela Sarafyan) as they impart a final message to their son, which was damaged in transit to Earth, leaving it unable to be played in full. The first part of the message, still intact, states that Kal-El’s parents love him more than anything, and he is being sent somewhere where he can do the most good, that place being Earth (more on that in a bit).
 
Not content to stand by while his city is still under the Hammer’s threat, Superman elects to fly back to Metropolis to continue his fight, although he’s not fully healed, and as the camera moves underneath him, the S logo jumps out, and we get our title card: Superman. (Style-wise, it’s more or less the same as the original Superman and Superman Returns title texts.) This leads straight into a second clash between the Big Blue Boy Scout and the Hammer, quickly revealed to be Ultraman immediately after round two wraps up – almost as soon as it began. Superman gets handily beaten again, courtesy of Nicholas Hoult’s all-time-hater performance as Lex Luthor giving him combo instructions from behind a series of office desks. It’s a solid fight sequence, especially in the way Hoult engages with it, and the editing for it is just as frenetic as it would feel to actually witness Superman lose a fight like this. Once this fight is over, we get our first true glimpse at the kind of world this Superman inhabits, courtesy of an ordinary, falafel-stand-owning civilian named Mali, who rushes across traffic – nearly getting hit – to help Superman out of the hole his body made when it hit the ground (and remind us that he gave the Man of Steel free falafel one time). The image of a Metropolis citizen making the first save of the film is not a coincidence; it signals to us that Superman has already inspired a number of people as a symbol of hope, sincerity, and a helping hand. So much so that when he gets knocked down, the people of Metropolis help him get back up. In just a few short minutes, we know who Superman is, we know how much Lex Luthor hates him, and we know how Metropolis feels about him…or at least we know how Mali feels about him. But there’s no time to waste, and the film knows that.

​Welcome to the Planet
 
We’re then introduced to the Daily Planet crew as they all weigh in on the front-page article Clark’s written; some find it dry or lackluster (Steve Lombard and Lois Lane), whereas others celebrate the occasion (Cat Grant and Jimmy Olsen, an apparent hunk around the office according to Gunn’s interpretation). This is all happening as Clark is on the phone with Ma and Pa Kent, who are checking in from Smallville to say congrats and see how things are going in what turns out to be the film’s only extended pure comedy bit (some extended bits that come later offer a more multi-tonal emotional pallet). This is also likely where some people may begin to see cracks in the armor of Gunn’s film. The Kents more like technologically-challenged boomer parents with good hearts than as chosen noble stewards of a great Kryptonian’s rise to adulthood. For my part, the bit works for this version of Superman’s world, but does exist just on the cusp of becoming too silly before thankfully not overstaying its welcome, so if it doesn’t work for you the first time, it’s unlikely to work for you on any repeat viewings either. Following a back-and-forth between Lois, Clark, and Jimmy about Superman’s involvement in the Boravian conflict as their President denies having any connection to the Hammer, the next major plot point sees Lex Luthor pitching his new metahuman police – a.k.a. Planet Watch (Ultraman, the Engineer, and a fleet of Raptor Guards) – to the U.S. defense department before jetting off to the Fortress of Solitude location in search of answers about Superman. Meanwhile, Lois interviews Clark as Superman in her apartment; it doesn’t go well (though the scene itself is great).

​Jor-El and Lara’s Mission
 
It’s at this point, as the the villains enter the fortress and the Engineer quickly dispatches with the Superman robots before being attacked by Krypto (subsequently torturing him), that the big spoiler of Superman – the one that’s bound to have audiences debating for months regarding its validity – is unveiled. Up to this point, audiences have been used to Jor-El and Lara – Superman’s Kryptonian parents – as upstanding citizens of Krypton, vessels for the inherent good that Clark embodies in the suit and cape; not so with James Gunn’s version. Following an epic fight with an exponentially growing Kaiju during which Superman saves a dog, a woman, and a tiny little squirrel (the Justice Gang swoops in for an assist, our first glimpse at a wider world of heroes), it is revealed that the second half of the message Clark’s parents sent with him contained directions to rule over humanity as a god, destroying those who refused to bend to his will. The nature of how this other half of the message is acquired – through the Engineer plugging in to the fortress console – may lead one to believe the message has been manipulated by Luthor’s team and thus walked back by the end of the film. But there is no reversal, no revelation of manipulation or mistranslation. The message is as-is: Jor-El and Lara really do want Kal-El to be dictator over the entire planet. It’s a revelation that shakes Clark to his core, having never heard the rest of the message until now, as he races back to the fortress to find the robots destroyed and Krypto gone.
 
At first, I was unsure how to feel about this revelation of Jor-El and Lara’s true intentions in sending their son to Earth. Was James Gunn really insinuating that a truth about Superman’s parents we’d all known as long as we’d known them wasn’t actually true? Wouldn’t this ruin those characters, thus infecting the entire idea of Superman’s core values being selflessness and helping people? After further reflection, however, I began to think about choice; it’s why heroes are heroes, and it’s why Pa Kent’s later wisdom-nugget when Clark is dropped off at the farm resonates so deeply with this version of Superman – he is a hero because he chooses to do heroic things, not because he carries those traits genetically. Because he chooses to be a good man every day, he is one, not due to some pre-determined outline of saviorism or even because of his Earth parents’ advice. “Parents aren’t for telling their children who they’re supposed to be,” Pa muses as he sits on the farm’s porch swing with Clark. “We’re supposed to give you the tools to let you make fools of yourselves all on your own.” Pa emphasizes in this scene that Clark’s actions make him who he is; that line appears in the film’s official trailer as well, but in context it takes on a much greater potency.
 
It appears that the message Gunn is attempting to impart with this changing of Superman lore is that it doesn’t matter what sort of world one’s parents or previous generations made, or how they may have failed to protect it properly, how they may want their children to live their lives, or whether they continue to hold beliefs we collectively now know to be wrong. One can always choose a better path forward, make choices rooted in hope and sincerity, and build a new world based on simply doing the right thing, rather than having to compromise rightness for the sake of figuring out how to live in a world that left the ideas of unauthorized heroism and doing good for goodness’ sake behind a long time ago. The same idea comes back around when Superman confronts Lex Luthor at the end of the film, advocating for his humanity and – in true Superman fashion – advocating for Lex’s as well, despite the latter’s refusal to embrace it.

​Pocket Universe
 
And that’s not the only time Superman’s goodness shines through despite what people do to him; after Lois goes to see the Justice Gang to find out where Planet Watch took Superman following his turning himself into the DOJ (which comes immediately after another great Clark and Lois scene in Clark’s apartment), and following the revelation from Jimmy Olsen’s source (who turns out to be his overly attached situationship Eve Tessmacher) of Clark’s location in a pocket universe, she and Mr. Terrific go there to rescue him, unaware that he’s already broken out to save Metamorpho’s kidnapped baby but is currently fighting an anti-proton river and some Raptor Guards. The pocket universe sections of the film do run a little on the long side, especially after the film cuts back and forth between Clark’s interrogation in which Lex Luthor murders Mali the Falafel stand owner in cold blood, and the Justice Gang’s initial refusal to help him. It’s also in this pocket universe that – just after Superman turns himself in to the DOJ – the audience confirms what’s been suspected, that Lex Luthor and Boravian President Vasil Ghurkos were conspiring together to take Superman out of the picture, with the help of some literal online monkey trolls farming outrage against the man of steel. Why exactly Lex is so desperate for the invasion of Jarhanpur to proceed isn’t revealed until later.

​Boravia, Jarhanpur, and Lex Luthor’s Plan
 
And this is where we come to the film’s biggest tonal clash, the one thing that – for me – keeps it from being a near-perfect film despite how perfectly it understands Superman himself. Lex Luthor decides unilaterally to open a dimensional rift in order to draw Superman out of hiding, which begins heading towards Metropolis at an exponential rate just as the Boravian troops are preparing to finally begin their full scale invasion of Jarhanpur. The single image that nearly brought me to tears in this film is handled beautifully as a group of children raise a makeshift flag with Superman’s crest on it, shouting “Superman” as the John Williams theme (on which the score relies just a little too heavily) kicks in, and Clark sees it happening on Ma and Pa Kent’s television. However, before Clark can go to Jarhanpur to help, Mr. Terrific informs him of the dimensional rift, saying he can’t stop it and if Superman can’t help, there won’t be a Jarhanpur to defend. Superman elects to try to help fix the rift, arriving just in time to save a woman in her car from being crushed by a falling skyscraper, while sending the Justice Gang (and Metamorpho) to deal with the Bovarian army.
 
To me, those two things should have been reversed; for almost the film’s entire length, we’ve heard about how Superman’s involvement in Jarhanpur caused all the problems he’s been dealing with, but in finding out that wasn’t true – and that Lex had conspired with Vasil Ghurkos to give him half of Jarhanpur following a successful invasion – it would make sense for the man of steel to return to the nation’s defense (hell, even if it was true, Superman returning to Jarhanpur would be a sensible story beat). Instead, because Superman has to fight Ultraman, we have the slightly sillier characters (the Justice Gang) dealing with the more serious real-world threat, while the more serious real-world hero (Superman) deals with the sillier, more comic-y threat. And this is all before it’s revealed that Lex Luthor manufactured the whole overseas conflict just to have an excuse to kill Superman; Hoult is excellent in the scene despite how much motivation exposition is dumped on him, but to insinuate that the clearly middle eastern conflict the film is paralleling could be construed as a trivial matter borne of the petty jealousy of one man with something to prove rather than growing out of an organic and fully funded evil supported by millions is not a message I feel Gunn thought all the way through, even if it easily and largely could be (and probably is) wise to ascribe that blame to bald billionaires whose selfishness costs actual human lives. (It also clashes against the near one-to-one metaphor the film acts as regarding Gunn’s firing from Disney due to people who hate him in particular using online trolls to resurface old – and objectively very bad – tweets for which Gunn had previously apologized, which is what led him to work with DC on The Suicide Squad in the first place before being re-hired by Disney to finish Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 3).

​Ultraman Reveal
 
Before Lex confesses his ultimate intentions though, the film has one more major reveal left to unleash; after Superman and Ultraman trade blows once more in a stadium before Superman nose-dives towards the Earth with Ultraman and the Engineer in tow, the two crash land underground, damaging Ultraman’s mask (the Engineer is knocked unconscious) and revealing him to be…a clone of Superman, made from a strand of his hair that Lex found on the ground after one of Superman’s battles. Now, this is hardly surprising, since – at least in the comics – Ultraman is usually a clone of someone; in most cases, it’s a Lex clone, but a Clark clone is not unheard of, and the movie does enough to make it work. However, making the third act power fight once more between two different versions of the same person a) is an MCU staple that Gunn sort of excelled at subverting, rendering this idea somewhat regressive and b) somewhat deflates the excitement of watching the two powers duke it out since we already know all the moves they’ll each have in their repertoire. Lex is controlling Ultraman, yes, but it’s still the same power set as the guy we’re rooting for, meaning neither really has to adjust their fighting style or learn any new skills. Again, it's not a film-breaking reveal, but it’s not as interesting as it could have been otherwise. The film still manages to pull of some true cheer-worthy moments, such as when Superman and Krypto work together to defeat Ultraman and the score swells once more as Superman flies up into the sky to deliver a knockout power set show-off moment against an army of Raptors, so there’s some give and take. The confrontation where Superman advocates for Lex’s humanity after Mr. Terrific closes the rift from Luthorcorp might be worth that whole fight by itself; it’s a moment that should go straight to the character’s all-time highlight reel.
 
Also, I couldn’t figure out where else to work this in, but since we’re talking about character reveals, the Milly Alcock cameo as Supergirl once Superman gets back to the fortress under the care of the restored Superman robots is supremely fun, and the revelation that Krypto is in fact her dog has had every audience I’ve watched this with go “oh, yeah, that makes more sense.” Alcock is very fun in the scene despite barely a minute of screen time, and it’s an inspired move to make both the film’s mid-and-post-credits gags – both of which are great – have nothing to do with the setup for the next film (the mid-credits panel is straight out of “All-Star Superman”).

​Closing Thoughts
 
Overall, even as an imperfect project that doesn’t quite nail everything it sets out to do, I still think this is a really great Superman movie and a terrific start to the new DCU (though it’s hardly the “best” one amongst its namesakes, even if it does outclass nearly the entire DCEU by a pretty wide margin). The future of these heroes is finally back in hands that actually seem to know what to do with them, and with Supergirl less than a year away now (plus HBO Max’s Lanterns show coming early next year), I’m more than ready to jump back into Gunn and Safran’s sandbox to play with some new toys. (But first, I think I’m gonna watch Superman a whole bunch more times.)

I love Superman. Ever since I was a child, when I saw Richard Donner’s original 1978 film for the first time – the first superhero movie I ever saw – I have loved Superman. Throughout the character’s 87-year history, the Man of Steel has undergone any number of changes whether to his look or to his method of heroism or to the essence of how his dual identity is divided. He’s fought and grappled with a wide variety of foes both average and bizarre, continued to spark debate amongst comic book and superhero fans regarding every facet of his existence, and continued to grow as a wider variety of storytellers and artists have sought to reflect the times in which he evolved. And yet, a few things remain consistent about the Big Blue Boy Scout that have endured through every power set change, outfit alteration, or new show-runner/director/artist at the helm: he’s an alien from the planet Krypton, he was sent to Earth as a child by his parents, his home world is gone, he was raised on a farm by a kindly couple, he has incredible superpowers, he helps people – always putting the needs of others over his own – and he never gives up on anyone.
 
Over the course of the past decade or so, Superman has been in a bit of a state of flux. While I won’t pretend to be knowledgeable enough about the comics side of things to be able to fully flesh out exactly what every change has meant, both the New 52 and DC Rebirth universes have altered the character in ways significant enough to affect the film side, chiefly in the storytelling of what’s been known as the DCEU (“DC Extended Universe”), which began with Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel in 2013 and wrapped up with Blue Beetle – one of its most underrated inclusions – in August of 2023. To say that the DCEU yielded mixed results would be an understatement, as despite some healthy box office returns for certain of its entrants, its cultural impact leaves a significant amount to be desired as it failed to coalesce into anything meaningful, often feeling lost amongst the scramble to become an answer to the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s zeitgeist dominance. And, of course, the question of Superman’s place in all of it was constantly left up to question. Whether one does or doesn’t like Zack Snyder’s version of Superman is inconsequential to the results of the DCEU project; it failed, and so a reset was in order. Enter the newly-birthed DCU, now under the stewardship of The Suicide Squad director James Gunn and creative partner Peter Safran, which begins with – of all characters – Superman.
 
Superman (2025) has no interest in re-examining the Man of Steel’s origins (well, in a sense…), so there’s no fundamental changes to the bones of how Clark Kent becomes the world’s most powerful hero. James Gunn dispenses with these points in order to set up the film’s story, which concerns a military conflict between the fictional nations of Boravia and Jarhanpur – their middle-eastern-sounding names are not a coincidence – in which Superman interfered, sparking controversy surrounding the hero’s ultimate motivations in a world which views his “truth, justice, and the human way” persona as not only old-fashioned but naïve in the context of its political consequences. In this sense, Gunn isn’t especially fascinated with who the character of Superman is – that much is abundantly made clear through David Corenswet’s frankly immaculate portrayal of this more modernized Kryptonian icon – so much as what he means to the world around him, what he ultimately represents, and how he can help humanity chart a new, more hopeful path forward. It’s the same mission that propelled comics like “All-Star Superman” and “What Ever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?” to top-list status among comics fans, and enabled those and other comics to serve as this film’s primary inspirations. To that end, the spirit of Superman is alive and well in Gunn’s DCU launch-pad, as the emphasis of his abilities lies not with who he can beat in a fight, but who (or what) he can save in the face of disaster. Superman is the kind of hero who saved Frisky the cat from a tree in 1978, and in true Superman fashion, takes the time out of a Kaiju fight in Gunn’s film to save a helpless squirrel from being crushed to death. That said, there are plenty of thrilling fight sequences to behold as Superman squares off against foes like the Hammer of Boravia, Ultraman, the Engineer, and of course, the aforementioned Kaiju. And he’s not alone.
 
Importantly, though the focus still rests on Superman’s capable shoulders, an abundance of fellow DC characters such as Green Lantern (Nathan Fillion), Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced), and Mr. Terrific – who in this film are workshopping the moniker of the “Justice Gang” – as well as the superstar journalists of the Daily Planet (Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, Steve Lombard, Cat Grant, and Perry White), also join the film’s sprawling cast of characters joining the fight (or at least observing it) against Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) as he tries to destroy not just Superman himself but his reputation as a protector of the planet. Of these supporting players, it’s Lois Lane, Mr. Terrific, and the Justice Gang that get the bulk of the non-Superman focus (at least on the hero side), with Edi Gathegi’s Mr. Terrific being one of the film’s unexpected bright spots, as well as an underused but wonderfully fun first live-action appearance of one Krypto the Super-Dog. As to Superman’s love, Lois Lane, those who knew Rachel Brosnahan from her time on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel will hardly be surprised that she’s note-perfect for this part, and the film gives her plenty to work with, especially given her palpable chemistry with Corenswet during what turned out to be the performers’ chemistry read scene (the apartment interview, another Superman: The Movie callback).
 
A common (and often understandable) strike against James Gunn’s films by those who enjoy them but would not necessarily call themselves super-fans is that he tends to over-rely on humor to get his movies across the finish line, and that humor doesn’t always work or sometimes gets tired by the time the third act kicks in. For my money, Superman’s humor works in lock-step with the film’s ultimate goals, and never seems to actually tire itself out despite how much of it the film contains.
 
Where the film does stumble a bit is in regard to its story, the plotting of which is a tad convoluted for how simple the reveal of what’s going on turns out to be, and as to that reveal – while I won’t spoil any significant details – I’m not sure that treating real-world analogous subject matter in the way this film ultimately decides to makes a whole lot of sense or indeed does much good given how much the film already has to prove in terms of its necessity to the world we currently live in. There’s also the matter of the film’s villains, chief among them Superman’s arch-nemesis, Lex Luthor. There’s nothing particularly off about Nicholas Hoult’s portrayal of the bald technocrat – Hoult is a brilliant actor who continues to impress, inflecting little bits of vulnerability even where none are required – but when it comes to his motivations, which are often spelled out through exposition-heavy dialogue which Hoult is asked to make sound believable despite how clunky many of the lines are in nature, the film never quite brings them into focus in a way that lands. Alongside an Engineer whose characterization leaves a bit to be desired in a film that’s already trying to do a few too many things at once, Lex is the film’s singular weak point, to the degree that one major character can be. There is one major plot development in the film which will either definitely work or definitely won’t, but given the heavy spoiler nature of that development, I’ll save discussion of it for another time.
 
Is Superman a perfect movie? No, not by a long shot, but the flaws it does contain may not ultimately be enough to keep it from creating the same feverish obsession around the hero that Richard Donner’s original film did when it first released in 1978, although there are quite a few more characters in here that have the potential to generate some of that fever for themselves (looking at you, Krypto). James Gunn’s introduction to his new DCU is full of the same spirit that propels the best versions of the titular character, with greater emphasis on Kal-El’s motivations as part of his human side than ever before, and David Corenswet is more than up to the task of embodying those aspirational qualities that Superman has always been about. If this is to be the launchpad for a new era of superheroism, there’s only one direction Gunn and Safran are pointing the genre towards: up, up, and away.
 
I’m giving “Superman” an 8.6/10
 
- The Friendly Film Fan

Were one to inquire of the many, many people who went to see Todd Phillips’ Joker back when it premiered in 2019, one would most likely find a swath of largely binary responses, with a few notable variations. At the time it was either beloved or disliked, with little – if any – room for middle interpretation, and the public response bore that out. Between its billion dollar worldwide box office gross (it remains the only R-Rated film to pull that off) and its mixed critical reception, there was no movie released in 2019 as publicly divisive, nor one as unstoppable when it came to an awards season run. Garnering a whopping 10 Oscar nominations, 2 of which became wins, Todd Phillips’ origin tale of Arthur Fleck’s descent into madness stirred up so much buzz that theaters beefed up security in the event of possible shootings inspired by its titular character (thankfully, no such event occurred). As the years have come and gone, some opinions have shifted up or down, but most seem to have only become more entrenched. For myself, while I continue to flip back and forth on whether Joker is actually good or not, I find it to be an interesting experiment in the realm of comic book storytelling and a well-mounted – if not entirely novel – approach to adapting the Joker character for the screen. (The King of Comedy and Taxi Driver – its two main inspirations – are far better films.) All of this to say, with a billion dollar gross and a character that popular, a sequel was inevitable. But how were Phillips and company meant to pull off a comic book sequel to a film that was originally designed not to have any follow-ups at all? What possible angle was there left to use on a character whose cinematic history held no less than five different interpretations? Joker: Folie à Deux’s answer to this question should have been its saving grace. Instead, it may well be the film’s defining flaw.
 
Positioned as a jukebox musical – regardless of what the cast continues to deny about it on press tours – Joker: Folie à Deux picks up not long after Joker left off, with Arthur Fleck still in Arkham Asylum after two years, awaiting trial for the murder of the three New York subway accosters and television host Murray Franklin (Robert De Niro). While living amongst Gotham’s most notorious criminals and preparing his case with his lawyer, Arthur is invited to participate in a music class, where he meets Lee (Lady Gaga), and the two form a connection based on their shared madness, hence the film’s subtitle. Together, the pair engage in a whirlwind of various musical sequences across the film’s runtime as both prepare for the first-ever live broadcast of what is being dubbed “the trial of the century,” and civil support for Joker continues to grow ever stronger in the Gotham streets.
 
If you were to give me fourteen guesses as to where the Joker sequel would go back when it was first announced, “jukebox musical” would have never made the top forty-five guesses I had. Regardless, it was a bold move to turn what was more-or-less a Scorsese rip-off story into something no one has ever done at this scale before, and the addition of Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn to the mix is a genius bit of casting for this interpretation of those characters. That said, if the story synopsis above sounds too vague, it’s because, frankly, there’s not much of a story to Folie à Deux at all. In some manners of speaking, it is in fact the antithesis of its predecessor – boring, drawn out, repetitive, and thematically murky, to the point where the addition of the musical sequences become not a fresh new angle by which to push the story forward, but the main thing sapping it of any real energy or narrative momentum. Each time a character breaks out into song, which – unlike most musicals – just happens for the sake of happening, regardless of how little sense it makes narratively, the movie stops dead in its tracks, and this happens over and over and over again. The music is decently performed, and there are one or two numbers that are genuine hits in terms of how they’re mounted, designed, etc, but they do nothing to advance what little story there is. By the time these sequences roll around, the story is already where it was going to end up anyway, and the music more or less only reminds the viewer what we’re already watching happen, without deepening its meaning or offering any greater weight to the performances.
 
The introduction of Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn – as stated – is a genius bit of casting, and she does what she’s able to, excelling particularly in the film’s musical moments, but the script offers her little to chew on in terms of her relationship to Arthur, making her seem like more of a crazed fan than a devoted fellow psychopath. There are some greater specifics to that idea that I won’t spoil here, but suffice it to say, she doesn’t get a lot of interesting things to do, and the character is too underdeveloped for what the script asks of her. As for Joaquin Phoenix as Arthur Fleck, he’s given less grimy material to chew on, which leads his performance to run more or less the same lines as his pre-Joker personality in the last film. Luckily, he’s still quite talented – even a little more interesting as a character – in that bit of the last film, so even when the film’s not working, he is working within the confines he has.
 
The unfortunate side effect of a movie like Joker, when a sequel is greenlit, is that all the worst defenders of it as some masterwork of comic book storytelling are hoping for the least interesting approach to the follow-up. In that manner, I can absolutely understand what Todd Phillips and company set out to do when crafting a narrative that investigates not only whether the Joker character is in fact a sympathetic figure in this universe, but whether the decision to mount the character in that way previously was ever a good idea, an idea Folie à Deux confronts directly. Unfortunately, this angle just didn’t work. The storytelling is repetitive, the narrative is disengaging, and even the small surprises the film has in store are too little, too late to fix what’s broken here.
 
I’m giving “Joker: Folie à Deux” a 4.2/10
 
- The Friendly Film Fan

When I was approximately 8 years old, I watched Superman: The Movie for the very first time. To my memory, my father had rented it from the local video store at my own request after my having seen the cover art. It was the origin of my experience with superheroes and with superhero movies, as well as one of the first cinematic ventures on which I voluntarily journeyed. Though I was too young then to understand what any of it meant, I – like so many others when the film was first released – saw for the first time that a man could fly through the air without the assistance of wings or other devices for support; he could soar high above the ground, traveling from place to place at lightning speeds, accompanied by an epic musical score (courtesy of maestro John Williams) and a set of dynamic additional superpowers that allowed him to do all sorts of miraculous things. He instantaneously became, and remains to this day, my favorite superhero. I remember distinctly printing out a paper Superman logo, cutting it out with scissors, and taping it to my blue-shirted torso while I wore a bright red velcro cape we had lying downstairs in the toy chest. I would then go to jump on our neighbor’s trampoline and pretend that I, too, could fly. What I was unaware of at this time, and what I wouldn’t come to fully grasp until my late teens/early 20s, was just how much of the hero I so adored was informed by the man who wore that bright red cape with the symbol on his chest, nor how soon the world would lose the man who made us believe that he could fly.
 
When I was 9, Christopher Reeve passed away due to sepsis, following a long struggle with full-body paralysis after a tragic horse-riding accident fractured his upper spine, leaving him unable to breathe without a respirator or move without assistance. Though many more pieces of Superman media would be produced to varying degrees of success, including 3 more live-action movies, and though I wouldn’t understand the impact of this sentiment until much later in life, to most of the world, their Superman had died. And yet to a much smaller corner of the world, Christoper Reeve the actor, the father, the activist, the human being had passed on. For all the theatrics and celebrations about what it meant for him to be Superman, and for the legacy he left in having carried that mantle, there was still so much more to Reeve than what the silver screen allowed people to know. What Super/Man – which comes to us from directors Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui – sets out to do is both recognize the superheroic iconography of Reeve as an actor, and celebrate his more human-bound struggles as a man. Much as the Superman character acts as a comic-book stand in for the Christian figure of Jesus (i.e. both God and man), the filmmakers’ aim is to examine the duality of the Super and the Man, ultimately assembling a portrait of a hero in both senses.
 
To those who were aware of Christopher Reeve’s public life outside of his work as Superman, as well as his disability activism following his accident, most of what The Christopher Reeve Story has to offer won’t be especially surprising, nor is the film itself any kind of revolutionary act within the documentary space. There’s no upending of documentary structure, nor rug pulls of information about which the public was previously kept in the dark. It’s largely full of archival footage of Reeve at various stages of his life, interspersed between testimonials of his three children and other working professionals who knew him. In terms of the sheer importance of the documentary to the world stage, and the story it aims to tell, there’s nothing in the film that elevates it above most films like it. But for those to whom Superman means something more personal, and especially to those like myself who were unaware of much of Reeve’s life and work outside of the costume, the portrait painted is a relatively full one, which is buoyed by excellent pacing throughout its two halves.
 
Though both sections of the Christopher Reeve Story are told between flashes to key dates in the timeline of his struggle with paralysis, the first half – which moves at a slightly more rapid pace – is much more concerned with Reeve’s life as a man and an actor as it follows his origins in the theater and coming from a broken home to his screen testing for the Superman part, and on through his eventual falling out with both the role and his longtime partner Gae Exton, with whom he had his first two children. It also chronicles his friendship with former Julliard roommate and comic icon Robin Williams, about whom actor Glenn Close muses “if Chris [Reeve] were still around, maybe he [Robin] would still be alive.” Finally, the upper section essentially ends following Reeve’s partnership and eventual marriage to Dana Morosini, with whom he had his third child, and to whom he stayed married until his passing. (Dana is featured more prominently in the film than just as part of a first-half break – in fact she’s one of the movie’s sort of mainstays throughout – but in terms of structure, their marriage acts as a cut-off point.)
 
The second half of the film more closely follows Reeve’s activism in the disability community, from his controversial ad wherein his search for a cure to full spinal paralysis lead to his walking again, to his advocacy for stem cell research, to his friendships with other people in disabled spaces. This is the half where viewers are able to witness Reeve’s heroism outside of the costume, and though it moves at more of a clip than the first half, and so has a little bit less fun with the story it has to tell, it is the more compelling section of the film, and it’s in this second half where we also learn of Dana Reeve’s tragic passing due to stage four lung cancer so soon after Christopher Reeve’s death. If the film has an emotional low point, it’s when Alexandra Reeve Givens and Matthew Reeve, Christopher’s first son and his daughter, put it quite succinctly that Will Reeve lost his father, grandmother, and mother all within a 24-month timespan. Still, all three children held onto hope and to the legacy of their parents, following in their footsteps at the Christopher and Dana Reeve foundation, continuing to fight for the disability community as both Christopher and Dana did right up to the end. As a sort of counter to the emotional lows of loss that followed the Reeve family, the filmmakers also note that Christopher’s regaining of limited movement in some of his limbs before his passing would go on to inspire others with spinal cord injuries to hold onto hope, eventually resulting in regained mobility. To hear his assistant tell it “people are literally walking because of him.”
 
Whether Super/Man will compete for or is worthy of awards consideration is a subjective topic, but it’s also not the question being asked of viewers who venture out to the theater to see it. The entire goal of The Christopher Reeve Story is laid out plainly in the film’s marketing: “you will believe in a hero.” To some, that may mean being reminded of just how meaningful Reeve was as Superman; to others, it may mean learning about his work as a disabled activist and advocate for change. There are no allusions about Christopher Reeve’s being a perfect man or living an idealistic public life, but the life he did live became an inspiration for many, and whether or not one considers him super or just another man, this film makes no mistake about it: he was, and always will be, a hero.
 
I’m giving “Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story” an 8.9/10
 
- The Friendly Film Fan

Matt Reeves' take on the Caped Crusader is a Triumph of Noir Filmmaking​.

Through the many iterations and adaptation of the Caped Crusader’s adventures, the Batman character has always been one of DC’s most beloved characters, both because it’s easier to make media content centered around a non-superpowered person (meaning much less VFX work is necessary) and because he belongs to inarguably the most iconic trilogy of superheroes ever to grace a comic book page, the other two being Superman and Wonder Woman. But that’s not what The Batman is concerned with – its aspirations are closer not to legends, but scandals, not to symbols or ideas, but to the pursuit or revelation of truth, whatever that means for a city as corrupt and seedy as the title character’s hometown of Gotham City. It’s a world and a character ripe for crime capers and film noirs, but for whatever reason, the closest anyone has come to making a straight-up crime drama in a Batman movie before now was in 2008’s The Dark Knight, which wasn’t so much about Gotham or the Batman character as it was about whatever was happening to them as the Joker made his arrival. The Batman is not that movie. Director Matt Reeves’ solution to taking on the Batman story is to start not quite at the middle, not quite at the beginning, and do what should have seemed obvious from the get-go: make it a detective noir story.
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The Batman picks up just a few years into Bruce Wayne’s tenure patrolling the Gotham rooftops and alleys, which begins with Robert Pattinson’s voiceover not just explaining what kind of Batman he is, but what kind of story the film is about to tell; it’s one of seediness, corruption, scandal, darkness, and reckoning. Without diving too far into spoiler territory, the opening sequence of the film – just before Pattinson gives us his voiceover – is certainly the darkest a Batman movie has ever had the balls to put right up front, but it’s the nature of what we’re seeing and why we’re seeing it here that lends credence to the idea that while Gotham’s reckoning has come and gone, Batman’s is just beginning. It’s not only a reckoning well-formed and expertly told, but one that could only happen in a noir story like this.

What makes The Batman succeed where other “dark” adaptations failed is all in the eye of the beholder – that’s not me saying it’s a subjective opinion (though it is), but that what this film gets right is on display for all to see. The further we dive into the plotting of the film, the more beautiful it begins to look beyond what we’re shown for shock value or whatever was used in the trailers. Beyond the gorgeous wide shots, the striking color palettes, the makeup work, minimal use of visual effects, we see shadows. We see Batman emerge from them even as the camera has been focused on them for quite some time with nothing in sight. The only other Batman movie to get close to this was Batman v Superman when the dark knight first appears, but that movie never does that again. The Batman, by contrast, does it three or four times over the course of the film, and each time, it works, which makes Gotham’s lower-level criminals fear his being nearby, whether he’s actually there or not, and in turn lets the audience understand why.

Why is the big question posited by The Batman as its mysteries begin to unravel over the course of its three-hour runtime (a runtime which is felt, but not resented). Though it does back out of some of its more challenging material at one or two points, the answers to that question are nonetheless riveting to discover, especially when the script attempts to challenge some more traditionally held views on how the Batman story is meant to go and how the audience has become familiar with certain versions of characters the films rarely, if ever, actually explore. Few films about superheroes can challenge whether they belong on the pedestals we built for them, but fewer still can challenge whether their particular brand of heroism does more harm than good. That’s something usually reserved for anti-heroes, the answers usually falling along the lines of “I’ll go good” or “it doesn’t matter.” In The Batman, it does, especially where Paul Dano’s chilling, calculatory Riddler is concerned. “Unmasking the truth” is Riddler’s obsession, through violence or psychological terror, but we never wonder what it is he’s doing or how – we want to know why.

As Michael Giacchino’s instantly iconic score for the film blares through the theater speakers to signal the arrival of the Batmobile with all its cacophonous sound, we’re not obsessed with the epic car chase sequence or the many hand-to-hand fights leading up to this moment, but with what might happen after, since it might give us more answers to “why?” (though the car chase and those action sequences are excellent in practice as well). We’re not here for an action film, we’re here to help solve the mystery of what’s going on with the world’s greatest detective guiding us along the way. It’s the milieu of Gotham that intrigues most; who holds the power? What do they use it for?

The most intriguing of these social elite are the Penguin (Colin Farrell), who owns a nightclub in the city that Zoë Kravitz’s seductive Selina Kyle works at when she’s not parading around the Gotham rooftops herself (though the name “Catwoman” is never actually mentioned), and John Turturro’s Carmine Falcone. Waiting in the wings with naught but a few words to share and a lot of money to move around, these are the guys who make things happen, and the why of it all is what makes them the most interesting secondary villains to watch, even as Riddler remains the most captivating core antagonist since Heath Ledger’s Joker back in 2008 by taking down people exactly those kind of characters, though his focus is centered on Gotham’s social elite.

Reviewing a film like The Batman without discussing some of its more interesting elements in a spoiler-heavy fashion is a tall task – there’s not that much to spoil that anyone who watches the film won’t expect, but in describing how it all fits together and what’s great about it, there are some heavy-spoiler plots I can’t really divulge in a meaningful way. But, in summary, it’s an excellent crime noir with a visionary look, excellent sound design, an instantly iconic score, and performances that aren’t necessarily standouts, but that more than get the job done. Does it really matter if it’s better or worse than The Dark Knight?
 
I’m giving “The Batman” a 9.1/10
 
- The Friendly Film Fan