Superman : You’ll Believe (Review)
In 1978, Richard Donner, Gene Hackman, Margot Kidder and Christopher Reeve defined the characters and world of DC Comics’s Superman for generations to come in the hero’s first blockbuster film.
47 years later, James Gunn, Nicolas Hoult, Rachel Brosnahan and David Corenswet define the world of Metropolis anew as the first entry in a hopeful new world. It would be easy to ground this review in comparison to Donner’s vision for the character, but I bring it up to say that this is the first adaptation of Superman since the Reeve era to stand alongside it.
Our story, and our new DC Universe, starts in motion. The opening scrawl has an obsession with threes, counting down from three centuries since metahumans started emerging to three weeks since Superman stopped a war to three seconds since he lost his first fight, bleeding out on the Antarctic ice.
The film wastes no time in setting things up : you know Superman, you know about his crystalline fortress and his follically-challenged foe Lex Luthor already. All that matters right now is that Superman has been humbled in combat and needs help before they catch up to him. Superman needs help. And so he asks for it.
Being dragged back to the Fortress by his unruly superdog Krypto and patched up by his fleet of super-robots, the film’s message is already clear : you can’t do it alone. A far cry from the Christ-like solemn saviour that Zach Snyder painted him as in the 2010s, James Gunn’s Superman knows better than to take on the whole world on his own.
When the first production images leaked, I was a little worried. We got our first look at Ultraman, one of Luthor’s living weapons in his fight against Superman, glad all in black and grey. I was worried that the film was going to remain stuck in the grim and gritty milieu of the Snyderverse, at least aesthetically. I was completely wrong : Luthor’s black-clad team stands in contrast to the bold and diverse palette of the forces of good. Superman’s blues are bright, his reds vibrant and his smile is pearly white. David Corenswet feels like he was made for this role.
Much like in his other comic-inspired films, Gunn packs in as many characters as he can. On top of the usual Daily Planet crew, the Justice Gang are on hand to help, and sometimes hinder, Superman throughout the film. Metamorpho the Element Man comes in halfway through too, a character I’d have never expected to see on the big screen. So often when watching a superhero film, you wonder why some of the 200 other heroes in America don’t show up to help out when an interdimensional imp causes trouble and here there’s nothing to question.
Mr Terrific, played by Edi Gathegi, is the standout of the supporting cast. The straight man of the Justice Gang and a technological genius on the level of Lex Luthor, he doesn’t need to hope henchmen have a change of heart to get through firewalls. The scene of him taking down an entire camp of Luthor’s people with his T-Spheres (floating cameras/lasers/whatever you need) is one of the film’s best sequences, set to peppy music as Gunn is wont to do. Compared to his Arrowverse iteration, this Terrific is a confident and valuable ally to Superman, even if he can have a short fuse when it comes to Krypto or fellow hero Green Lantern (the Guy Gardner one).
Speaking of geniuses, I was initially unsure about Nicolas Hoult’s casting, being used to seeing him in meeker roles like Renfield in…Renfield or Nux in Mad Max Fury Road. Luthor is a bold and brash character, eager to represent what he thinks of as the best of humanity, but I was forgetting his insecurity and vanity, which Hoult brings out perfectly alongside all of Luthor’s posturing. The boastful billionaire tech CEO version of Luthor that came to define the character after Hackman’s time in the bald cap is brought to life with Hoult’s performance. His Luthor isn’t to be underestimated.
Although this interpretation of Luthor has been around for decades, it only grows more relevant today. He’s who people that think they’re Iron Man really are : self-important, dangerous children. Including Luthor was an easy way to connect the film to current events but it goes further, predicating the plot on a one-sided conflict between American ally Boravia (ruled by a Putinesque dictator) and the Palestine-coded Jarhanpur. To the surprise of a saddeningly high amount of people online, Superman isn’t on the side of the genociders on this one. This is a 21st century Superman through and through.
I've been avoiding it until now but it’s time to give a spoiler warning and talk about the message.
After tracking down Superman’s Fortress, Luthor and his team break in and hack the computer containing Jor-El and Lara’s message to their son. At the start of the film we’re told it’s corrupted, with only the first half there to soothe and inspire Superman between battles. What Luthor and his ally Engineer uncover is exactly what they needed to defame Superman : a second half of the message where they urge their son to rule over his new planet and build a harem to keep the Kryptonian bloodline going.
It’s all a little too convenient. Even with multiple private confirmations that the full message is real, I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. Kryptonese (yes, that's the canon name) is hardly a living language on Earth and everyone’s source for the message was Luthor. If Green Lantern could have used his ring to translate it, I’d have believed it sooner. Nonetheless, James Gunn has doubled down in interviews that it is in fact the true message. The film’s ending definitely supports that, replacing it with childhood videos of Clark and his parents.
This still raises questions. If the symbol on his chest represents his biological family and their conquering wishes, wouldn’t he phase it out? From a Doylist perspective, Superman can’t just rebrand, but I know I wouldn’t carry on the name of those with ill intent, even if they conceived me. And wouldn’t Supergirl have mentioned some inkling of her aunt and uncle’s leanings, assuming Krypton itself wouldn’t endorse the message?
But dwelling on this is missing the point of the film : all the good Superman’s done after taking inspiration from his parents in Smallville and from the message originally isn’t negated by what Jor-El and Lara really wanted for him. You’re allowed to draw strength and meaning from what you need to in order to do good in this world. Clark Kent is the man he is thanks to John and Martha Kent and thanks to his own dedication to helping every living thing, down to a single squirrel.
And Superman inspires in turn. The film truly understands the power of Superman as a symbol of hope unto himself. Where 1978 filmgoers were thinking about the Cold War and the global arms race, we in 2025 are witnessing the rolling back of everything good in this world for the benefit of a privileged few. We are divided more than ever, relying on billionaire-owned platforms to spread information outside of our ever-shrinking bubbles. We may not have Lex Luthor’s monkeys on keyboards clogging the internet, but we have plenty of ill actors looking to leverage public opinion for profit.
So what do we do? Do we sit around waiting for a hero like Superman or do we be our own heroes like Lois Lane? Some interpretations of the character make humanity seem as helpless as Jor-El and Lara think of us as, but that’s not the case at all. As the Jahanpurians risk their lives and stand up to the Boravian forces, they do so under the flag of Superman. On the very first page of his first appearance, he’s called “Superman : The Champion of the Oppressed!”. He inspires people around him to stand up for what’s right and that bleeds through to the real world. When I got home from seeing the film, I got started on my 2700 word article about the Itch delistings and what we can do about it together.
Look, up in the sky. It’s a beautiful day.
Believe. Not that a man can fly, but that a person can make a difference. Believe in those around you, believe in your own power and believe in the hope that it’s worth fighting for another day and a better world.
Superman is an action film directed by James Gunn based on characters created by Joe Shuster, Jerry Siegel and all those that came after them. It is distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures and is in cinemas now. All images used property of Warner Bros.
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