Superman under the Gunn

Well, it wasn't as bad as I was afraid it would be.

But it wasn't nearly as good as it deserved to be.

Superman/Clark Kent  

David Corenswet

who is a REALLY BIG MAN, by the way--like, oddly, noticeably BIG, in a way no other Superman actor has ever been--

is quite fine as Superman.  He carries it off, remaining believable despite Gunn's, well, Gunnisms (more on those later).  He never swears (although there ARE several "goshes"), saves squirrels and (freaky bad CGI) babies, and really cares about people.  Aesthetically, I rather like that his costume is not skin-tight; after all, he's got on a working outfit for putting out fires, he's not an aerobics instructor.  

Et al. 

The movie is full of supporting characters who do next to nothing, such as Ron Troupe, Steve Lombard, Cat Grant, even Martha Kent.  But I mark that as a plus.  Anybody's real life has lot of "supporting characters" in it, who are not all always essential element to every "plot" you are experiencing.  I appreciate Gunn's inclusion of them just like that of the DCU's signature brands (Zesti Cola, Big Belly Burger, etc.).

Jimmy Olsen

The actor still seems a little off-model to me.  But he is more on-model than almost every OTHER live-action Jimmy Olsen.

I mean, we all know what Jimmy Olsen is SUPPOSED to look like.

But the character is used well in the film.  He's not a damsel in distress, but he's quirky, pro-active, gets his story in a characteristically weird way, and is, for no reason anyone in universe understands, attractive to the ladies.

Lois Lane

I don't know how this actress is but, well, not to be unkind, but she just doesn't seem IMPRESSIVE enough to be Lois Lane.  Although she is certainly more on model than that Amy Adams (?) person.  She simply doesn't seem sufficiently substantial to Superman's love interest (or even Clark's frankly).  I'm no fan of Margo Kidder, but at least her Lois Lane was someone to be reckoned with.

Lex 'Bingo Caller" Luthor (Nicholas Hoult)

Look. Nicholas Hoult seems very nice. And pretty. But he was in WAY over his head in this role. You know what more frightening than Hoult's Lex Luthor?  Gene Hackman saying, "Almost nobody", while not even ON SCREEN. Or "by causing the deaths of millions of innocent people".  

I am STILL unnerved by the inhuman coldness of that line, fifty years later.

Hackman's Luthor may have been goofy but... that was part of the point.  That didn't make him any less dangerous. Kind of goofy but still very dangerous is ALSO Superman's brand, remember.  

Kevin Spacey could say "kryptonite" in the goofiest way imaginable, but I never doubted that he was exactly as brilliant as he claimed, dangerously as heck, and irremediably evil. And that's just Spacey, not even Spacey's Luthor.  

Even Jesse Eisenberg

poor, terminally weird Jesse Eisenberg

seemed achingly smart (as all his characters do, I believe).

Hoult did the one thing you can't do as Luthor; he made me doubt Luthor's intelligence. Badly. 

This man shouting 'brains over brawn!' as he threatens to burst the seems of his clothing with every movement and is literally taking over a foreign country with massive firepower is ...
well, I will be kind and call it "comic book irony".

Eve Teschmacher

At first, I didn't like her. Then eventually I realized what they were doing with her and that everything I thought was wrong about her was.... my mistake.  Also on the villain's side of things, I have to confess that Gunn's geek bait of Sydney Happersen and Otis Berg ... yeah, fine. He made me smile with those.

Hawkgirl

And the award for Least Impressive Hawkgirl of All Time goes to... whoever that actress was. Really, I can't even be bothered to look it up.

4

Quick, at this point what could be more trite than Alan Tudyk as an alien or a robot (AGAIN)?  Answer: Alan Tudyk as an Alien Robot.  This is the same kind of casting from the Geek Toolbox that gives us geek favorite Nathan Filion, looking every bit of 75 years old as Guy Gardner.

Mister Terrific

Fine; Mister Terrific WAS exactly as bad-ass as he should be.  But why he should occasionally sound like a cast member of "Good Times' simply because he is black is beyond me and not really in character.

Metamorpho

Metamorpho looked terrible (and not in the way he is supposed to). Naturally, Andrew Carrigan was flawless in the part, because he always is.  But the character uses his powers in EXACTLY the way he CAN'T, according to every single story the character has appeared in since his inception.  It's just another piece of evidence that Gunn doesn't really care about what the characters are, but only about what function they can serve in the story he wants to tell.

Plot Twist

Believe it or not, I actually approve of the plot involving Jor-El and Lara. But I also remember that John Byrne did it first.

Q.E.D. Byrne is NOT a subtle writer; but he is MUCH MUCH subtler than James Gunn.

Plot Problems

I'm only going to list one:

Lex is desperate to make Superman look bad, eh?  But he never uses HIS OWN SUPERMAN CLONE to frame Superman?  Stupid.

Atrocious Gunnism

Oh, they were legion, I'm afraid.  Here's a few.

• Fight scenes with diegetic pop music scores.  I would have preferred simply watching Mr. Terrific kick ass, thank you.
• Supergirl as a drunken frat girl for comic relief.
• Krypto as comic relief. "What?! Krypto's out of control! That's hilarious!" No, it's not. The ONLY Krypto joke that comes close to landing is the dog's perfectly natural reaction to a T-Sphere.
• The Kents as comic relief.  Just because the Kents are "simple farm folk" doesn't mean they would use bad grammar.  
• The sadly GotG-style "Justice Gang" as comic relief. By the way, the idea that such a group would have a corporate sponsor WITHOUT yet having an agreed upon name and image is embarrassingly unrealistic.  
• Was the Justice Gang fighting a giant evil beach ball in the background of a very serious conversation supposed to be funny?  It wasn't.  But that's just about what I would expect from Gunn.
• "So is 'Gary'." Is that supposed to be funny? Not only do I not find Gunn funny, I frequently can't even recognize his attempts at humor as such.  
• Oh, no, are plunky sidekicks are about to fall off the edge of the building! Oh, whoops, it's okay!
• "I'm doing ... important stuff."  Yeah; no. Superman is not a Marvel character, Gunn.
• Clark Kent, a professional reporter for a great metropolitan newspaper, completely blind-sided and nonplussed by Lois's straightforward report questions during their 'interview'?  Leading to their faux relatable-couple badinage?  Ugh. Gunn really can only write one style of character, it seems.

Many people will simply be happy to get a non-grimdark version of Superman and, yes, that's in the plus column.  I simply hope that it is the message that resounds from this film, rather than Gunn's goofy, Marvel-style take on things.

Non-smooth Move

Ugh.

My confidence in James Gunn's ability to handle properly the DCU on the big screen has always been low. It certainly doesn't help that near every word or image I hear from him seems to lower it further. 

But

Get a haircut, yippy.

making Krypton shaggy instead of smooth-coated (because his OWN doggy is shaggy) is the worst sign yet that Gunn cares more about "James Gunn's DCU" than he does about "THE DCU".

Krypto is a VERY simple character. 

His DESIGN is simple, I mean.

He has a longish 'hound-like' muzzle and flap ears, a smooth white coat and, when possible, a Superman cape. His personality is "I'm a dog", so pretty much the only way you can screw it up is by "drawing' him wrong, which Gunn has , Yes, it's a bold move to put Krypto on the big screen. But if you going to gratuitously screw up the depiction of one of comics' simplest characters, then I don't trust you with more complex ones.  This is one Shaggy Dog Story where I don't think the punchline will be worth it.

Maybe the plot of the film is from "The Super-Dog That Replaced Krypto".
But I doubt it.

Gunn Shy

Okay, I will happily admit that I am nothing short of DELIGHTED that Anthony Carrigan has been cast as Metamorpho in the new James Gunn- helmed cinematic DC universe.

Obviously, I was hoping for KALE, but one must be reasonable.
Besides casting THAT perfect could cause the multiverse to implode.

This is the THIRD DCU character Carrigan will have played (he was The Mist on Flash and Mr. Zsazs on "Gotham") and I'm sure he'll be awesome because Carrigan is always awesome.

And the fact that he looks like my late partner, Ted, does not influence my opinion at all.

But EXCEPT FOR THAT...

I have next to zero faith in James Gunn.

Why, you wonder? 

1. I have seen other James Gunn movies. Before you'd ever heard of him. Because I'm a film hipster. Specifically, I am a HORROR hipster, the world that James Gunn comes from.  Dude is TROMA. And if you don't know what THAT means, well, then you AREN"T a horror hipster.  

James Gunn. James Wan (Saw; Insidious, etc.). David Sandberg (king of the $10 horror short).  It's no accident that owners of superhero IPs have turned to same directors who revitalized horror (another easily ridiculed and previously unrespected genre that now dominates the box office).

I'm certainly not going to assert that James Gunn is not talented. He certainly is.  He's Troma!  But James Gunn is.... not classy.  

I can't articulate why I think this.
It's just an instinct I have about it.

And not in the "I COULD be classy but I am choosing not to be"way of the intentional avant-garde.  No, I don't think James Gunn CAN be classy.  Call me old-fashioned, but I think someone who can't be classy shouldn't be in charge of the DCU's intellectual properties.

 I can't articulate why I think this.
It's just an instinct I have about it.

2. James Gunn trusts Tom King. 

“He’s been one of the guys in the room with us, along with four or five other others. I love his take on these characters. He just turns them slightly to be something very unique.”

It makes me wonder who the others four or five were.

Similarly trustworthy advisors, I'm sure.
P.S. Carrigan would be an AWESOME Tharok.

Troma should mean crazy, but not crazy STUPID. I can't imagine a worst choice for a person to advise on What To Do With/How To Handle DC characters, sort of reanimating Cullen Bunn (I mean, he's dead to me, at least).

Or asking Bob Haney to return from the planet Shakari
And HE could at least help with Metamorpho.  Just keep him away from Batman Stuff.

3. He's hired Nathan Filion to play Guy Gardner. Look, I know a lot of people have a soft spot for this actor, and I'm sure he's a wonderful fellow.  But (A) Nathan Filion, at 52 years old, is at least 15 years too old to play Guy Gardner and (B) even I, who barely know who Filion is, know that he's OBVIOUSLY a "Hal Jordan" not a "Guy Gardner".  How easy it would have been to find someone unlikeable who we were already primed to dislike. I'm sure Cullen Bunn's available.

I can't articulate why I think this.
It's just an instinct I have about it.

Gunn didn't hire Nathan Filion because he was right for the part (as Carrigan is for Metamorpho). He hired him because he likes him and has worked with him before.  I get what a Boy's Club Hollywood is but... yeah, you just proved to me that cronyism matters more to you than doing what's right for the character.  And if you have ME concerned that someone isn't doing right by GUY GARDNER... you cannot be trusted with the DCU.  

Gunn Takes Aim at Superman

Ugh. Apparently, scriptwriter/director/producer James Gunn wasn't content with taking Marvel characters, known for taking themselves too seriously, and re-making them as goofy clowns.  

In fairness, it does seem exactly like something Chris Pratt himself would do.

That's fine, perhaps.  For Marvel.

But now he's zeroed in on DC characters, known for holding themselves to a higher moral standard, and turning that on its head.  Yes, James Gunn is making a move about the tritest trope in comics: an Evil Superman.

It's been done. Ad nauseum. And with HATS.

Oh, sure, they aren't CALLING him Superman; we all know how THAT would go over in the courts.

Do NOT tug on Superman's copyright.  Just ask Billy Batson.

But all the signs are there in the trailer for BrightBurn.  A barren farm couple wishes for a child and one arrives from the skies in a rocket, which they hide in the barn.  As it grows, this alien child develops super-strength, super-speed, the ability to fly, heat vision, an affinity for red capes and... EVILNESS.

Super-sewing develops later in adolescence, it seems.

It's already being touted as 'a radical new genre': the superhero movie as HORROR.  Because Chronicle doesn't count, I guess. Or any of the other 1000 films/shows where someone gets superpowers and uses them for evil.  No, I guess it only counts when you can clearly recognize the superhero being ripped off and when it's the good-est superhero of all: Superman.

An Evil Superman! Such a modern radical cutting edge concept! Without the vision of James Gunn, who could have thought it before? Except perhaps... ever generation of Superman writers, ever, in every medium.

Simply wearing that much eye-shadow counts as federal crime.

"Coffee.Black. NOW."

He was originally from OUR earth, in case you forgot.

Look. I really like horror movies. And maybe this will be good one.  But was it really necessary to ride Superman's cape to make it?  If you insist on doing that, the LAST thing you have to right to do is make any claim of originality in that idea.