#IReadsYou Movie Review: SUPERMAN 2025

Superman (2025)

Running time:  129 minutes (2 hours, 9 minutes)

Rating: MPA – PG for violence, action and language

DIRECTOR:  James Gunn

WRITER:  James Gunn (based characters created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster)

PRODUCERS:  James Gunn and Peter Safran

CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Henry Braham (D.o.P.)

EDITORS:  Craig Alpert and William Hoy

COMPOSERS:  David Fleming and John Murphy

SUPERHERO/FANTASY/ACTION

Starring:  David Corenswet, Rachel Brosnahan, Nicholas Hoult, Edi Gathegi, Nathan Fillion, Isabela Merced, Skyler Gisondo, Maria Gabriela de Faria, Sara Sampaio, Wendell Pierce, Beck Bennett, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Neva Howell, Bradley Cooper, Angela Sarafyan, and Sean Gunn

Superman is a 2025 American superhero, fantasy, and action film from writer-director James Gunn.  It is the first film in the new DC Comics cinematic universe known as the “DC Universe.”  The character, Superman, first appeared in the comic book, Action Comics #1 (on-sale date of April 18, 1938), and was created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster, who also created other characters and situations related to Superman.  In Superman, the embodiment of truth, justice, and the human way must reconcile his desire to help humanity with a shocking revelation about his alien heritage.

Superman opens threes years after the metahuman, Superman (David Corenswet), revealed himself to the people of Metropolis.  His alter-ego, Clark Kent (David Corenswet), works as a reporter for “The Daily Planet,” where he has a relationship with fellow reporter, Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan).  Lois knows that Clark is Superman.  She knows that he is Kal-El, a baby sent from the planet, Krypton, by rocket ship to Earth.  Lois also knows that Clark was raised in Smallville, Kansas by his adoptive parents, Jonathan and Martha Kent (Pruitt Taylor Vince and Neva Howell), a fact he has kept secrets from others.

Superman recently stopped the country of Boravia, an ally of the United States, from invading its neighboring country, Jarhanpur.  As the film begins, Superman has just received a beat-down from Boravia's own metahuman, the Hammer of Boravia.  Things are not as they seem, however, as brilliant billionaire Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) has launched a secret plot to destroy Superman, whom he sees not as a superhero, but as an existential alien threat to mankind.  With the help of his lackeys, Ultraman and The Engineer (Maria Gabriela de Faria), Luthor believes that he has the science and technology – the brain power – to beat Superman.

But Superman is not the only metahuman who is a superhero.  He occasionally gets help from the “Justice Gang”:  Michael Holt/Mister Terrific (Edi Gathegi), Guy Gardner/Green Lantern (Nathan Fillion), and Kendra Saunders/Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced).  And Clark Kent will need all the friends he can get; a complete version of the broken message his Kryptonian parents, Jor-El (Bradley Cooper) and Lara Lor-Van (Angela Sarafyan), sent with him has come to light.  Now, some of the people of the world are starting to feel differently about Superman just when they need him the most.

Superman is a good film, but not a great film.  Overall, I like it, but I found myself rather cool to it as I watched it in a local theater last night.  I must admit that I felt the same way about the previous two attempts to reboot the Superman film franchise, director Bryan Singer's Superman Returns (2006) and director Zack Snyder's Man of Steel (2013).  Like Superman (2025), the plot and narratives of these earlier films are over-stuffed with subplots, settings, and characters that make the overall plot and narrative struggle to come together.  The over-stuffings are like roadblocks that force the central plot and narrative to veer off their most obvious and productive path.  I don't think the new Superman is as awkward in these areas as the aforementioned Superman reboots, but I do believe that the new film spends its first half bouncing around ideas, subplots, themes, relationships and conflicts.  To me, it is obvious that Superman 2025 borrows the big action set pieces of Man of Steel and also follows Superman Return's veneration of director Richard Donner and star Christopher Reeve's respective work on the Superman film franchise (1978-87).

There are things about the new Superman film that I really like.  I think the actors and the way they play the characters, for the most part, are nearly perfect.  The best thing about David Corenswet as Clark Kent/Superman is that he is the first actor that I have accepted as a true heir to the late Christopher Reeve (1952-2004), who is the gold standard when it comes to a cinematic Clark Kent/Kal-El/Superman.  In a way, Superman 2025 offers its audience a vision of Superman as the quintessential nice guy the way Christopher Reeve and Superman: The Movie (1978) did.

Also, Rachel Brosnahan is a true heir to my favorite cinematic Lois Lane, the late Margot Kidder (1948-2018), Christopher Reeve's co-star.  I also got a kick out of Edi Gathegi as Mister Terrific.  I liked him in his early roles in such films as Twilight (2008) and X-Men: First Class (2011), and I'd like to see him play Mister Terrific as a lead in either film or television.  I like Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor, but the character is played way too over-the-top, but I think Hoult as Luther will be a huge benefit to future DC Universe films.

I obviously don't like James Gunn's Superman as much as I enjoyed his work on Marvel Studios' Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy, which ended with the fantastic Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023).  Still, the new Superman is both a fresh start and a start in the right direction.

B

★★★ out of 4 stars

Friday, July 11, 2025

The text is copyright © 2025 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved.  Contact this blog or site for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

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#IReadsYou Movie Review: SUPERMAN III

Superman III (1983)

Running time:  125 minutes (2 hours, 5 minutes)

MPAA – PG

DIRECTOR:  Richard Lester

WRITERS:  David Newman and Leslie Newman (based characters created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster and on characters appearing in comic books published by DC Comics)

PRODUCER:  Pierre Spengler

CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Robert Paynter (D.o.P.)

EDITOR:  John Victor Smith

COMPOSER:  Ken Thorne

SUPERHERO/FANTASY/COMEDY

Starring:  Christopher Reeve, Richard Pryor, Jackie Cooper, Marc McClure, Annette O'Toole, Robert Vaughn, Annie Ross, Pamela Stephenson, Gavan O'Herlihy, Paul Kaethler, and Margot Kidder

Superman III is a 1983 American superhero film and comic-fantasy from director Richard Lester.  The film is the third in the “Superman” film series, which began with 1978's Superman (also known as Superman: The Movie).  The character, Superman, first appeared in the comic book, Action Comics #1 (on-sale date of April 18, 1938) and was created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster, who also created other characters and situations related to Superman.  In Superman III, Superman becomes the target of a greedy entrepreneur and a computer genius when they realize that he will obstruct their plans for wealth and world domination.

Superman III opens at an unemployment office in Metropolis.  August “Gus” Gorman (Richard Pryor) has discovered that his employment checks have run out, but by chance he discovers information about a school where he can learn to be a computer programmer.  Soon, Gus is working for the conglomerate, Webscoe Industries, where he uses his amazing computer skills to secretly embezzle over $85,000 from the company payroll.

However, Gus' activities do draw the attention of Webscoe's boss, Ross Webster (Robert Vaughn), and his sister and partner, Vera Webster (Annie Ross).  Ross is obsessed with the idea of using technology in order to gain financial domination over the world.  With the help of Annie and his tawdry mistress, Lorelei Ambrosia (Pamela Stephenson), Ross blackmails Gus into using his fantastic computer skills to begin a series of evil tech schemes.

Meanwhile, over at “The Daily Planet,” Metropolis' top newspaper, Clark Kent/Superman (Christopher Reeve) is preparing to return to his hometown of Smallville for his high school reunion, the Class of 1965.  He wants to use the reunion as the subject of a feature article, so he takes Daily Planet photographer, Jimmy Olsen (Marc McClure), with him.  At the reunion, Clark reconnects with his childhood friend, Lana Lang (Annette O'Toole), much to the chagrin of Clark's former high school bully, Brad Wilson (Gavan O'Herlihy).

While Clark enjoys his time with Lana and also bonds with her young son, Ricky (Paul Kaethler), Ross and Gus have launched their diabolical plans.  Even the Daily Planet's star reporter, Lois Lane (Margot Kidder), ends up being a victim of their moves.  When Ross discovers that Superman be an obstruction to his schemes, he forces Gus to find a way to destroy Superman, and those methods of destruction may come very close defeating the Man of Steel.

Superman III was not nearly the box office success that its predecessors, Superman: The Movie and Superman II (1980) were.  Some fans and critics blamed the film's shortcomings on having Richard Pryor as a cast member.  Some people may remember that Paramount Pictures was considering adding Eddie Murphy as a star of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.  Many of the science fiction and comic book fans that I knew at the time insisted that because Richard Pryor “ruined” Superman III, a science fiction film could not have a “Black comedian” in it or it would be similarly ruined.  They predicted doom and gloom for the fourth Star Trek feature film, but Murphy eventually passed on it to star in The Golden Child (1986).  These early fans that I met were racist and stupid, and, at the time, I thought their opinions about “Blacks” in genre films were racist and stupid.  I am glad that my association with them was short-lived.

Anyway, Pryor, one of the most influential American stand-up comedians of all-time, was known for his raunchy, adult-oriented act during the 1970s.  Into the 1980s, however, he became a more cuddly figure, appearing in a number of mainstream and even family-friendly films.  Although I was surprised that Pryor was cast in Superman III, I thought he was one of the few good things about the film when I first saw it in a theater back in 1983.  I still think that.

Superman III is mediocre because the screenplay by David Newman and Leslie Newman, or at least what made it to screen, is awkward and sometimes illogical.  Superman III's director, Richard Lester, was a very capable director during his active career; I am still a fan of his 1973 film, The Three Musketeers.  Lester is controversial a figure in the annals of Superman cinema because of the production of Superman II, which I don't feel like getting into right this moment.  Speaking strictly of Superman III, Lester and the Newmans did get one thing right.

When Superman III focuses on the jovial and genial nature of the film's characters, it is quite lovable.  Clark, Lois, Lana, Ricky, Gus, Jimmy, the Daily Planet editor Perry White (Jackie Cooper), and even the film's ostensible villains:  Brad, Ross, Vera, and Lorelei all come across as endearing.  I enjoyed getting to know them as eccentric characters and character types.  When the focus moves to Superman III's conflict/plot, the film turns simply ridiculous.

Almost a day after watching the entirety of Superman III for the first time in 32 years, I'm still thinking about it.  And yes, I like Richard Pryor in this film as much as I like Christopher Reeve, the star of four Superman films from 1978 to 1987, returning to play his signature role.  I don't mind the comic nature of Superman III, especially as some modern superhero movies are too damn dark.  However, it has too many ideas, and too many of them are handled in the most nonsensical manner.  Still, I can't help but kind of like Superman III because it is full of nice people.

B-

★★½ out of 4 stars

The text is copyright © 2025 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved.  Contact this blog or site for reprint and syndication rights and fees.

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