The opening scenes took me, to my extraordinary delight, back to my 1978 screening of "Superman" with Christopher Reeve. Superman falls from the sky and lands near the Fortress of Solitude in Antarctica (in some versions, it is the Arctic) and he's bleeding from having battled some supervillain known as the Hammer of Boravia. Superman delivers an earth-shattering whistle to his attentive superdog, Krypto, and after being dragged for miles, the Fortress of Solitude emerges from the ground. Keep in mind, this fortress is always underground and emerges when Superman needs to enter (and is greeted by dutiful robots). Is all this silly? Yes, indeed, and I had a wide silly grin face all through this movie.
Superman has saved many lives after intervening on the fictionalized nation of Boravia from invading the neighboring country of Jarhanpur. There is criticism from Boravia's wildly boisterous, white-haired President Vasil Ghurkos (Zlatko Burić) and from, gasp, supersmart reporter Lois Lane (a sharp Rachel Brosnahan). Meanwhile, nerdy Clark Kent (David Corenswet) is getting the skinny from Superman while Lois hopes to interview the superhero. This banter between Clark and Lois is fake because it turns out, no surprise, that Lois is having a love affair with Superman and knows his secret identity! When Lois finally gets to do an interview in her cramped Metropolis apartment (a far cry from Margot Kidder's luxurious penthouse in the Chris Reeve versions), she tries to determine his ethical and moral dilemmas after intervening in a foreign war without consulting the Department of Defense and so on. I was so glad to hear that someone would dare question a costumed hero's actions and that said hero has little to say on such a discourse other than simplistically saving people from getting killed. "Superman IV" could have used some of that.
Meanwhile, evil billionaire Lex Luthor (a most volatile Nicholas Hoult) is something of an oligarch as he is sponsoring Boravia and has ideas of real estate property in Jarhanpur (what is it about Luthor and his affinity for beach front property?) Luthor has the powerful Ultraman (also played by Corenswet) who has superpowers like Superman yet needs to be controlled by Luthor's team of technicians who, I suppose, are video-game enthusiasts and every punch and kick is administered and controlled by them. What? Can't Superman find a way to destroy this most advanced technology and all those micro drone cameras? That's for another time.
"Superman" is fantastically fun, colorfully goofy and purely comical (a scene involving Luthor gunning down a falafel vendor is Snyder-like, though). Some of the members of the Hall of Justice are shown including tech-savvy Mr. Terrific (a commanding performance by Edi Gathegi); a golden-bowl haircut version of Green Lantern (hilariously played by Nathan Fillion), and Hawkgirl (Isabella Merced) who rolls her eyes at any of the cocksure remarks made by Green Lantern. We get a mostly goofy Jimmy Olsen (Skyler Gisondo) and a squeakier-version of Miss Teschmacher (Sara Sampaio) who is selfie-driven (and for a good cause). There are too many villains I suppose and maybe too-muchness yet this James Gunn movie is less overstuffed than his "Guardians of the Galaxy" trilogy. It is nice to see a revisit to comic-book movies that are colorful and colorfully designed and can also manage current political hot takes as slightly subtle subtext. I do wished for more time spent on Lois and Superman yet I must say that since the much maligned "Captain Marvel," I have not had this much merriment at a comic-book movie. This "Superman" soars.
