If you grew up watching the Superman: The Animated Series on weekday afternoons with a bowl of cereal, or you were a big fan of the Smallville series with the unwavering belief that truth and justice weren’t just concepts, they were cool, then Superman (2025) is probably the live-action movie you’ve been waiting for.
Let’s just get this out of the way right now. David Corenswet is Superman. Full stop. If you were one of the many skeptics clutching your Blu-ray copy of Man of Steel like it was a religious artifact and groaning that Corenswet was “too soft” or “too Hallmark” or “not Snyder enough” then I hope you’re prepared to change your mind. Because this guy just pulled off one of the most sincere and powerful versions of Superman I’ve seen.
Right from the start, Superman (yes, just Superman, no subtitle or confusing colon) makes a smart decision. It skips the origin story entirely. No exploding Krypton. No rocket landing in a Kansas cornfield. No baby lifting a tractor while Pa Kent gasps in awe. We have seen it. We know it. We get it. Instead, Gunn’s film opens with quick captioned backstory and launches us straight into a world where Superman has already been on the job for three years. And he just got his ass handed to him by a superpowered supervillian named Ultraman.
Naturally, the puppet master behind this chaos is Lex Luthor, played by a bald and tightly wound Nicholas Hoult. He is calculating, manipulative, and angry at the world in a way that feels both familiar and slightly unhinged. Hoult does a solid job with the character, but there were moments where I caught myself wondering what an older and more menacing actor might have done with the role. Hoult’s Lex feels like the kind of young condescending founder you see on a panel at SXSW Interactive talking about the dangers of having too much hope. Still, it works well enough.
Rachel Brosnahan soars as Lois Lane. She brings the right blend of sharpness, wit, and emotional gravity that makes Lois feel essential again. She is not a tagalong. She is not a helpless damsel in distress. She’s a fearless modern reporter who asks real questions, even when it makes Superman squirm in a press interview. There is a particular scene from the trailer where she puts Clark on the spot about interfering in a foreign war. And it hits hard. Romance aside, she never forgets she has a job to do. She even pilots a spaceship later in the movie. It’s a bit bonkers and kinda silly, but it’s fun and exactly the kind of stuff I saw all the time in the animated series. So calm down, nerds.
Read the complete original review at Austin Food Magazine.
Originally published July 8, 2025.
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