Super Dog!

I was looking forward to seeing James Gunn's Superman (2025). The buzz was good, there's a dog in it (Krypto), and some other Justice ... Thingy members. 

It starts in the middle of things: Supes (David Corenswet) has been clobbered into the Arctic ice by a foe from over the horizon. He has recently stopped one comic opera dictatorship from invading a poorer neighbor, and the super-villain is aligned with the dictatorship. So he's pretty low. However, faithful dog Krypto shows up - to play with him. It takes a while, but he does get Krypto to drag him to the Fortress of Solitude, where his robots (voiced by Alan Tudyk, Michael Rooker, and Pom Clementieff) revive him with yellow sunlight. They also play his parents, Jor-el (Bradley Cooper) and Lara Lor-van's final message to him - up to where it is damaged.b

Back in Metropolis, Supes is again clobbered, and we get to see part of why. Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) is controlling the fight from a nearby skyscraper. His tactics are based on years of studying Superman. But he calls his henchman off - this is just softening Superman up. By the way, Hoult is a great villain. He's been killing it lately. 

We get to see Corenswet as Clark Kent hanging out with coworkers, and fake-feuding with Lois. Because this Lois (Rachel Brosnahan) knows who Clark Kent is. At her apartment, she goads him into giving her an interview, and it gets under his skin. This is a cute scene, letting Corenswet get a little deeper into Superman's concern with Right and people's lives - and getting frustrated that everyone doesn't see it.

When Lex sends a tiny but quickly expanding kaiju to Metropolis as a distraction, Superman doesn't have to fight it alone. The Guy Gardner Green Lantern (Nathan Fillion), bowlcut ad all, along with Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced) and Mr. Terrific (Edi Gathegi) show up to help out. Fillion, a bit of a jerk, announces them as the Justice Gang, a name Merced denies. 

During this distraction, Lex's team invade the Fortress of Solitude, and steal the damaged message from Supe's parents. He is able todecode the damaged section, and discovers that the Kryptonians were urging their son Kal-El to conquer the puny Earthlings and bend them to his will. Releasing this causes everyone to turn on Superman, and for him to even start doubting himself. So he hands himself over to the government, who hand him over to Luthor. Who puts him in a pocket dimension prison, along with his ex-girlfriends. And he keeps him there with kryptonite.

Aside from being a well-made piece of modern action film, this movie has two things going for it. One is Corenswet's sweet, kind, ethical Superman - a man who says that trust in others is punk rock. The other is the goofy subversion of superheroes, like the obnoxious Guy Gardner. Ma and Pa Kent are decent, but basically toothless hicks. Jimmy Olsen is his old-style dweeby self, but also irresistable to women, including Luthor's bimbo girlfriend. And the biggest joke of all, Krypto - an annoying. poorly trained dog, who turns out to be Supergirl's. And she neglects him to go to party planets. 

I wonder if this is sustainable. The funny, deconstructed superhero movie seems to be ascendant now, with Gunn's The Suicide Squad or Thunderbolts* as examples. But keeping that tome with a hero who is sincere, kind, and just not that goofy might be tough. And even if Gunn (now in charge of the DC-verse) pulls it off, is this what we want? Are we never to have a serious, or scary, or awe-inspiring superhero movie again?

Who knows? who knows if the superhero movie will survive, or even movies at all. I guess I'll take them as they come.