DMR #1: Superman 2025
fucking hell, I'm starting a review section on my blog. it's the end times, gamers
please let it be known that DMR stands for 'dubious media reviews'. So we're not just limited to movies here; if you're REALLY unlucky, maybe one day soon you'll get a review of Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh - which is a very fascinating novel, so I'm told.
Anyway, for the benefit of anyone who's stumbled in here by accident, and also reiterating it for the friends who may be unfortunately reading this: I don't watch movies. I live under a rock. I am not gonna be able to say intelligent shit about the director, or the writing, or comparisons to other films (unless of course I steal those takes from whoever I was watching it with) (foreshadowing for later in this post OooOOooo-).
But I think I'm gonna have a good time. I like talking shit.
...Here goes nothing!
Superman 2025 is a very fun movie, and also a little confusing. I spent most of the runtime trying to comprehend what the hell its point was trying to be, until in the very last scene I realised: It's just being itself and having a good time.
I enthusiastically support this, so I'm gonna give the thing a casual 7/10, and then retroactively justify that choice in the rest of this post. The internet seems to mostly agree with me though, so maybe I know more about movies than I thought.
We'll see if I still stand by my rating by the end of this, anyway.
Oh also, you should probably be aware of spoilers and stuff. I'll try and keep it light.
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Section the First: Trivia
Superman 2025 is... basically a reboot of the guy once again, not related to any of the previous Superman media, which we shall briefly touch on later. It's not an origin story, exactly - we skip ahead to adulthood, where he's already established as Metropolis's Big Hero, and everyone loves him.
But then he decides to follow his heart and prevent war from breaking out between Israel and Palestine- sorry, I mean between 'Boravia' and 'Jarhanpur'1, and also some other contrived shit happens, and suddenly his place as big beloved superhero is very much in jeopardy.
I think this is a cool opening. Origin stories are more fun when you don't already mostly know them through cultural osmosis - Spiderman: Homecoming had the right idea and I support everyone copying it. (this is a deliberately biased take dont worry).
Also, the parallels throughout the movie regarding that conflict do just continue to be agonisingly and morbidly funny. In a way, it also provides a curious catharsis - Superman is not going to save the Gaza strip, but it was nice to pretend for 129 minutes.
James Gunn [the Director] has directed several other movies I like, and also a bunch that I am told are good although I haven't seen them, so I'm not really surprised that I liked this one - although Guardians of the Galaxy did have a slightly more coherent plot for sure. Slightly.
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Part the Second: Vibes
Superman 2025 is a chaotic as heck film. You can find plenty of other reviews talking about it being a badly-paced mess and a mashup of CGI over the top of every moment that would have otherwise been a brilliant cinematographic shot.
I think it's really easy to villainise it for that. I don't even think you'd be wrong to do so. But also you'd be missing the point. This is a movie someone clearly made to have fun, and in that goal it succeeded.
All of the characters and their interactions were relatively predictable and low-stakes - Superman is having a crisis of morality (for reasons), his not-girlfriend is... also having a different, funnier crisis of morality I think, and the villain is, uh. Well his motivations were switched up and double-bluffed so many times throughout the movie that I still don't really understand what he was trying to accomplish. Dude was either really conflicted, or way too committed to random parts of his bit.
But for all that, I did enjoy the interactions. Sometimes stuff doesn't have to be complicated, and you can still write predictability well.
I particularly enjoyed the side character who was desperately trying to avoid the attentions of every attractive woman in the movie (who for some reason all want him carnally), and if there's a better way to humorously write a gay and/or asexual-coded character than that, I haven't met it yet.
I've often critiqued media that feels like it exists to just sell merchandise - every set gets littered with new gadgets and toys and cool power-ups, just so they can sell the Super-Duper-Monkey-Mega-Mansion-That-Also-Turns-Into-A-SpaceShip-and-Has-Lasers-and-Stuff for $112.50 just before christmas. Or something.
Superman 2025 felt a little like that - the SuperIceCastle, the SuperBots, the giant Stitch-dino-thing (which did NOT deserve its fate, he was just a little guy), and of course the incredibly dumb-cute flying car orb thing. It's all so merchandiseable. I bet [____] would go nuts for a Lego set of the SuperIceCastle, y'know?.
But it didn't feel like it was trying to sell stuff. It felt like they were just adding whatever they felt like that was fun and cool, and it didn't exactly have to make sense. And yeah, I actually respect that. More media shouldn’t care about trying to make sense.
As previously mentioned, Superman 2025 is a pretty big departure from the previous attempt at Superman back in 2013, which I hear was a decent movie but also unfortunately afflicted by the 2010's-era curse of "everything has to be EDGY as FUCK". I haven't watched it, so unfortunately I can't make much more of a take than that.
This movie confused the heck out of me though. Within minutes, it establishes itself as a comedy. The opening is absurdly expositioned through lines of on-screen text, Star Wars-style but without the grainy space backdrop and the gradual departure into the distance. Instead, the backdrop is an icy field of snow. Into which Superman abruptly plummets face-first.
Shortly after this we meet his robots, which he has for some reason. Their short snippets of dialogue make it very clear that they exist as the comedic relief, insomuch as Superman himself doesn't fill that role. Every second scene has some main character being used as the punching bag of an audience-only joke, and I'm pretty sure Superman uses the word "Golly!" within the first 5 minutes.
Later, a guy gets shot in the head, Superman gets horrifically tortured, we see genocide threatened on-screen, and... a few other similarly morbid things. Go figure.
Is it a comedy? I think it is, but if so, why the random moments of grim-dark gut-punch? I'm not sure, but... y'know, it actually worked. The movie managed to keep itself just real enough that I was genuinely invested, while also making me cackle at least a couple times almost every scene.
I do think the director was just fucking around and having a good time, and you have to go into this movie accepting of that fact. Pacing, cinematography, character relationships, plot - everything else is secondary to Having Fun, and I think that's totally reasonable.
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Part the Final: The Best Part
IT HAS A DOG.
Krypto is the secret star of this movie. He is Superman's Supercousin's Superdog, and without him the movie could not have been what it is. He is a GOOD BOY.
YOU HEAR ME? HE'S A GOOD BOY. HE DIDN'T DESERVE WHAT HAPPENED-2
I genuinely think this dumb dog was one of the best parts of the movie. He appears shortly into the first scene, establishes himself as a rowdy little motherfucker, and then drags Superman to safety. There are no less than about 3 different points throughout the rest of the film where he is responsible for saving the cast from something, and I think this is absolutely how it should be. It is arguably shown that Krypto would beat Superman in a fight, if Krypto should ever decide he wanted to do that. Luckily, the dumb mutt seems to love basically everybody.
Except Lex Luthor, but the man is a twit so that's fair enough.
We're also briefly introduced to the aformentioned Superman's Supercousin (of some renown) in the closing scene of the movie, and the actual owner of Krypto the Superdog. This both perfectly explains why the dog is such a rowdy little bitch, and sets up the hook for a sequel that I'm QUITE excited about, especially if it has more Krypto in it.
I'm a little sad that Krypto seemed to be almost entirely CGI-based, but I'm willing to forgive that in the context of the movie. He spends most of his time flying after all, and I wouldn't actually endorse keeping a real dog in a wire harness for that many hours. Also, he's apparently based on James Gunn's real dog, so I know that there's a REAL GOOD BOY out there somewhere.
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Part The Conclusion: The Conclusion
I am genuinely quite excited for the sequel to Superman 2025, which I believe is scheduled for next year some time??
At one point during the runtime of this film, Superman picks up his girlfriend and effortlessly places her on a kitchen bench while kissing her (because of course he does), and I recall saying "God, dating Superman would be incredible... if only he wasn't, y'know, a man."
At which point I was informed about the Supergirl sequel that's incoming. So yeah. Lesbians, rejoice. Etc.
I'd also like to credit my cozy movie-watching friend at this point, who didn't so much recommend we watch this as she did declare that we were going to while she was swapping out switches on a keyboard. It was a good decision, and I had a great time.
All things considered, I think I do stand by my 7/10 rating. The three lost points are mostly due to the extreme in-your-faceness of some of the metaphors, the sometimes-gimmicky CGI, and the occasional moments of Ick that just come with a western-oriented superhero movie.
That said, the movie finishes with a very wonderfully cliche speech from Superman about the nature of humanity and striving to be a good person. While I was rolling my eyes for the first half, by the end I came to actually appreciate how it was a return to the core values of the original Superman comics, and didn't try too hard to be pretentious, or edgy, or make some huge philosophical point.
It was about how Superman is just a guy doing his best, and that's all any of us can do. Even if we fuck up and hurt people. Especially when we fuck up and hurt people. You keep going, and you try and do better, and you hope people will give you grace and assume the best of you, and you try and do the same for them.
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Thanks for being here for this dumbass review! I hope my writing has amused you at the very least. I reckon this was a good movie to start with, given that I don't really know what I'm doing when it comes to film - I'm also just fucking around and having a good time with this.
So, maybe I do another one soon :3
Toodles!