REVIEW: ‘Superman (2025)’ Is Wonderful And Flawed, Just Like He Is

In 2021, Superman’s official logo changed to “Peace, justice, and a better tomorrow.” It was an intentional departure from his old motto that ended with “the American way,” declaring firmly and clearly that Superman is beholden to no nation, no President, and no flag. Superman is for the people. All of the people. Superman (2025). written and directed by James Gunn, is built proudly on this new tradition.

And for its commitment to a Superman (David Corenswet) who cares deeply about the well-being of every living soul, Superman (2025) is rewarded with having the best iteration of the character put to screen. Unlike every Superman movie before it, this one doesn’t bifurcate the hero from Clark Kent. They are one, beautiful, flawed person.

There are no ongoing antics about Clark having to pretend to be a meek and bumbling person when he wears his glasses. And Superman doesn’t have to pretend he doesn’t understand what it’s like to have parents and care for a dog and, most importantly, make mistakes. The movie dispenses with all notions that Clark is living a double life very early on in one of the boldest, flawed, but effective scenes in a modern comic book movie.

David Corenswet’s Clark and Superman are one character in Superman (2025).

Clark and Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan) have not only been seeing each other for several months by the time the movie starts, but she is also completely and openly aware that he is Superman. It’s a secret to the rest of the world, mostly as a way to protect his parents back home in Kansas. But in this early scene, the two strong-willed lovers have a heated argument by way of him giving Lois an interview in her apartment.

It goes on for a seriously long time. Far longer than most movies would dare let a scene like this. It’s dialogue-heavy. It’s dumping a ton of overly complicated plot onto the audience while the camera wizzes back and forth in single takes as if it were any of the movie’s other action scenes.

But between the crudely written exposition dumps, a powerful portrait of Clark’s moral makeup is being constructed. The chemistry between Lois and Clark is somewhat wanting throughout the movie, but in this moment, everything that makes Corenswet’s Superman so good is laid bare.

The conflict is too complicated and too close to current events.

He puts so much passion into his deeply flawed argument. He speaks for Clark and his hero-self as one person, but from two sides of his desires: to protect innocent people from harm and to love Lois. During this quarrel, Superman is still reeling from the first battle he has ever lost, as the flawed en media res opening to the movie spells out on the screen. He intervened in an international armed conflict to save innocent lives, but in so doing, caught the ire of the United States’ government.

This is one of the movie’s weakest points. Not only is the conflict too close to current events and hard to explain in a sentence, but it puts Superman in an uncomfortable position. He has to either accept that his actions are going to be seen as inherently at the behest of or against the will of the United States, because that is where he hails from. All Clark ever wants to do is protect people. It’s what he believes he was sent to Earth by his Kryptonian parents to do. He has powers, and he believes it’s his responsibility to use them for good.

But the movie is obsessed with this question over whether any of the superpowered “metahumans” in this world have a right to supersede the will of their governments and act on their own, just because they have the power to. It’s not an uninteresting question, but the movie offers no satisfying answers. Instead, it offers an increasingly aggravating antagonist to bang the question over the audience’s head over and over again.

This is the best version of Superman and one of the worst versions of Lex Luthor.

While the film may have the best version of the Man of Steel put to screen, it also has one of the worst versions of Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult). This is in no way Hoult’s fault. He plays the character excellently, given the way he’s written. He’s a megalomaniac of the highest order with cartoonishly annoying henchmen and an underdeveloped team of artificially enhanced metahumans he uses to do his evil bidding.

Luthor’s biggest motivation has always been pure hatred for Superman. His fear of his being an alien with seemingly unlimited power makes perfect sense as a motivation. But because the movie drops right into the middle of an ongoing scheme to destroy Superman through a series of convoluted political maneuvers, Luthor is stuck constantly giving boring monologues and just yelling a lot.

The tension between doing the right thing and its consequences is intense. Corenswet depicts it masterfully. But ultimately, if Superman and his friends in the corporately-sponsored “Justice Gang,” Green Lantern (Nathan Fillion), Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced), and Mr. Terrific (Edi Gathegi) are the ultimate and sole arbiters of justice, then Luthor is ultimately right. And that is not a fun note to end the movie on. Yes, it’s a compelling question, but it feels overwhelming for the start of a new cinematic universe, and it feels at odds with Clark’s entire argument to Lois.

Clark very clearly believes in protecting people at all costs. And the movie clearly believes that it’s impossible to be safe if safety hinges on benevolent people with superpowers. People need to protect people, not governments or metahumans. So why end the movie on a giant question mark on this subject?

James Gunn is poised to attempt to build a franchise in universe debut’s wake.

Most of Superman (2025) stays away from the typical franchise mess of seeding too many future plots at the expense of the ongoing narrative. There’s one hamfisted moment towards the end that exists only to set up the next movie, and there are obviously huge amounts of lore built into the world of this movie that can be expanded upon in the future.

But making it the final question whether it should be the role of metahumans or of the government to protect people seems to imply that this is a major question that the DC universe of movies may grapple with. And that’s concerning, because if this movie can’t provide a satisfying answer, it seems unlikely that future movies will either. If James Gunn and Warner Bros. struggle to build a franchise on the back of this movie, it will not be the fault of Superman (2025) unto itself.

The film does have some components that are quite special. But its main antagonist is so over the top and incoherent that it’s distracting. The dialogue, whenever it involves Luthor and his evil plot or Jimmy Olson (Skyler Gisondo), is very bad. But when it pertains to Superman, or to Lois and Clark, there are some borderline magical moments.

It’s unfortunate that the movie can’t manage to come together as a clean whole, the way Superman and Clark are able to. The action sequences are cool, with the right mix of exciting and comic book-goofy. But often, they’re also too cute, with an overly dynamic camera and a few too many moments where the sun blocks out the character in frame with its brilliance. The classic John Williams score always hits just right when it starts to play, though. Ultimately, Superman (2025) is wonderful and flawed, just like the Man of Steel himself.

Superman (2025) is in theaters everywhere on July 11, 2025.