I finally watched it, and it’s as disappointing as I feared.
James Gunn's Superman is a masterclass in how to strip every ounce of wonder from an origin story without actually telling one.
We open in a world that already knows Superman. There's no discovery, no awe, no "who is this guy?" moment. The mystery is gone before frame one. And if that wasn't enough, Lois and Kent are already dating. No tension, no buildup, no will-they-won't-they.
Then we get Superman starting the film by being defeated. Not establishing his power. Not earning our belief in him. Getting beaten down. What an inspiring introduction to your hero.
But the most insulting twist? Painting Jor-El and Lara as bad people. His actual parents. The ones who sacrificed everything to save him. Gunn turned them into villains for cheap subversion. Their whole legacy was love for their son and their world, and Gunn twisted that into something sinister just for a shock a guess. That's not storytelling, that's character assassination.
And the political messaging around the word "alien" is painfully on the nose. Superman himself apparently denounces the term and declares he's "as human as anyone else." He's literally from Krypton. He's not human. That's the whole point. Forcing him to reject his own identity to make a clumsy political statement isn't progressive, it's absurd. It flattens the character into a mouthpiece.
This isn't Superman.
