The cult of Gunn, the failure of sincerity, and a Man of Steel who mostly just shows up
An ex of mine once said something about Lana Del Rey that I haven’t been able to shake: “She seems like someone who’s never written a second draft.” I think about that a lot these days. Especially during Superman, James Gunn’s bright, busy, crowd-pleasing new take on the Man of Steel, which somehow manages to feel both overworked and underthought. A sugar rush of comic book references, toyetic fight scenes, and canned sincerity, told with the breathless enthusiasm of a 7-year-old describing the best dream they ever had.
And if you’ve already decided James Gunn is your guy — your weird uncle of cinema who makes dog-loving, needle-dropping, action figure dioramas out of myth—then this is probably all you need. Because Superman isn’t just a movie, it’s a proof of concept. A vibe. A pivot point for the DC Universe. And to question it at all feels, in certain corners of the internet, like rooting against hope itself.
Compare that to someone like Ryan Coogler, who’s had equal face time promoting his superhero stories. When Coogler talks, it’s about lenses and lighting setups, about collaborating with his team, about the craft of filmmaking. When Gunn talks, it’s mostly vague platitudes about storytelling, passive-aggressive gossip about Marvel, and reminders that he’s the face of the brand now. He casts himself in the credits for Creature Commandos. He shows up in DC Comics. He’s building a cult of personality, not an artist’s following. The movie isn’t just about Superman — it’s about proving that Gunn deserves the keys to the whole toy chest.
But let’s say, hypothetically, you’re someone who believes the future of superhero storytelling should involve strong character work, moral weight, and the occasional second draft. In that case, this Superman might leave you squinting through the sunbeam lens flares, wondering: is this really the best we can do?
A Lighter Tone, A Heavier Hand
To be fair, there’s a welcome brightness to this version of Superman. Gone is the Ayn Rand cosplay of the Snyder era. Metropolis, when we get to see it, feels like a city you might actually want to save. The cast is stacked with solid performers. Rachel Brosnahan’s Lois Lane does her best to inject some wit and edge into the proceedings. And the decision to sidestep the usual origin-story slog is wise.
But for a film that’s supposed to be about hope, community, and virtue, the tone is surprisingly cynical — even mean. Gunn has always walked the line between sincerity and snark, but here it’s less of a balance and more of a nervous tic. Every heartfelt beat is punctuated by a groan-worthy quip. Every potentially profound idea (Superman as a refugee! As a symbol of restraint! As a source of global tension!) is flattened by the film’s refusal to sit still. Or sit with anything at all.
There’s no room for characters to change, reflect, or relate. Only to react to the next fight, the next reveal, the next mid-tier joke. There’s a moment where Superman watches a phone video to learn crucial information, and it lands with the shrug of first-draft thinking — a scene that feels less like storytelling and more like a meme. Gunn’s tone is so steeped in online culture and ironic detachment that even sincere moments come across as commentary on media itself.
The Smarter, Stranger, Better Bits
Not everything in Superman is incoherent or glib. There are flashes of what the movie could’ve been, moments where the casting, design, or sheer weirdness threaten to rise above the noise.
Edi Gathegi, in particular, stands out as Mr. Terrific. He’s magnetic, grounded, and actually feels like someone with a functioning internal life — a genius trying to solve world-ending problems while babysitting a group of costumed liabilities. It helps that Gathegi has a gift for making expository dialogue feel natural. Where others stumble over lines about dimensional rifts or alien tech, he delivers them with just enough weight to be believable. Maybe it’s more believable that a genius would be constantly annoyed by the idiots around them. Or maybe Gathegi is just that good.
In contrast, Nathan Fillion’s Guy Gardner leans hard into the cartoon energy, and it mostly works. He’s a toxic bro in space cop drag, and Fillion sells the bravado and bluster with charming self-awareness. But compared to Gathegi’s cool presence and the utter non-characterization of Hawkgirl (played by Isabel Merced, who somehow still looks fantastic in one of the goofier hero costumes), it’s clear not all Justice Gang members are created equal. Hawkgirl screams, flies, and swings her mace, but you’d be hard pressed to name a single personality trait beyond “sarcastic.” Maybe they’re saving it for the spin-off.
Still, in a film so overloaded with plot, it’s telling that these three — a scientist, a blowhard, and a bird woman — make a stronger impression than Superman himself.
Not From Around Here
Gunn’s film tries, in its own fumbling way, to create a world of moral clarity. Superman doesn’t kill, we’re told. He’s the best of us. But the movie around him doesn’t seem to share those values. A civilian is brutally executed to prove a point, and it’s shown as just another punchline. Dictators are dropped from the sky. Soldiers are vaporized mid-quip. A mentally stunted clone of Clark is used for slapstick and spectacle.
Even when the film seems to understand that Lois Lane is supposed to be a whole person, it confuses “agency” with “attitude.” She drinks sugary coffee and says punk rock things. She’s tough and dismissive until she’s not. It’s like someone asked ChatGPT to generate “cool journalist girlfriend” and then gave up halfway through training it.
The other women fare worse.
Take Eve Teschmacher (Sara Sampaio), a character who is simultaneously objectified, ridiculed, and discarded — not by the narrative, but within it. Lex Luthor abuses her verbally and physically, throwing things at her and calling her names like he’s auditioning to play Shaggy in a version of Scooby-Doo where Daphne gets called a whore. She exists solely to be the butt of the joke — a “ridiculous woman” whose selfies are either accidentally or intentionally instrumental in Luthor’s downfall, but the movie can’t even be bothered to clarify which. Her actions have world-changing consequences, yet she’s treated like comic relief in a sitcom subplot about a crazy ex.
Then there’s Jimmy Olsen (played, perfectly, by Skyler Gisondo), who openly despises her, to the point where he considers putting the fate of the world at risk rather than having to (checks notes) be in the same room as a beautiful woman who likes him. It’s hard to imagine a more regressive gag in a movie made this century, and yet it plays out as if everyone finds this hilarious.
Cat Grant (Mikaela Hoover) shows up just long enough to display the kind of cleavage that would violate most workplace dress codes. She barely has any lines. Her function seems to be… scenery. A punchline without a setup. Just some boobs to liven up the newsroom.
Even the Engineer (María Gabriela de Faría)—easily the most compelling woman onscreen next to Lois, thanks to Faría’s twitchy, wounded performance—is defined solely by the fact that she mutilated and mechanized her body in service of Lex. Her backstory isn’t explored. Her motivations are a shrug. She’s there to be cool and dangerous and ultimately expendable.
And then there’s the most chilling detail of all: we learn that many of the people Lex Luthor has imprisoned, in secret pocket dimension black sites, with no trial or recourse, are his exes. Women who dared to reject him. That’s it. Their crime was not loving a narcissistic billionaire back. And the film doesn’t just show this, it lingers. The guards smile as they lock up “another one.” The sequence is played like a twisted in-joke, a moment of comedic comeuppance for women the audience is encouraged to see as shrill, emotional, or disposable. It’s not just that the villain is misogynistic, it’s that the movie assumes its audience might be kinda into it.
Now, you could argue: of course it’s ugly, Lex is the villain. But that’s not the point. The issue isn’t that bad guys do bad things. It’s that the film seems to share their view. The camera leers and mocks. The script piles on. And the audience is encouraged to laugh at these women—not laugh with them, not root for them—but laugh at them.
All of this might be excusable if it were just a stray joke, a single scene. But three trees make a row, and at this point, it’s a forest. Look back as far as Guardians Vol. 2, where the ongoing joke is that Mantis is hideous. Or the episode of Creature Commandos that opens with gratuitous violence toward sex workers — a sequence that lingers so long, it starts to feel less like condemnation and more like indulgence. They’re eventually avenged, but only after the audience has sat through what feels like Gunn reveling in their humiliation. The tone isn’t critique, it’s spectacle. There’s a pattern here. A dog whistle for the boys. Pulling the girl’s hair and saying she has cooties, but dressed up in adult superhero cosplay.
And maybe I’m overthinking it, but it’s hard not to see a parallel between Lex Luthor’s fanatical guards gleefully locking up his exes, and Gunn’s online fanbase: defensive, unquestioning, eager to punish perceived disloyalty. What’s the difference between fictional henchmen keeping women in cages and real ones policing criticism online? If this is a cult of personality, then it’s doing what cults do best: defending the leader at all costs, punishing dissent, and pretending that cruelty is just part of the fun.
If Superman is supposed to represent the best of us, the movie that bears his name should treat its women a hell of a lot better.
Comic Book Logic, Without the Heart
A lot of reviews have praised Superman for feeling “like reading a comic book.” And sure, it’s colorful, kinetic, and crammed with cameos. But it also feels like reading a filler issue from the Bronze Age: a one-off conflict in a fictionalized foreign country, a guest star who gets two lines, and a plot that resolves with a punch. The emotional stakes are imaginary. The geopolitical stakes are insultingly vague.
If Superman is supposed to inspire us — to make us want to be better — this version doesn’t quite get there. He’s not dark or brooding, thank god, but he’s also not particularly good at his job. He causes chaos, gets his ass handed to him multiple times, and learns no lessons. People cheer when he saves them, but there’s no sense that he’s changed the world around him. He just… shows up. And punches the right people. But you start to wonder, why is there always something to punch? Superman’s presence seems to attract catastrophe. Alien invaders, kaiju, interdimensional threats — they follow him like bad weather. Would Metropolis be safer without him? Is the chaos part of the job, or just the cost of having someone that powerful around? It’s a question the film never asks, because it assumes we’ll always be grateful for the rescue, even if he brought the storm.
And any time the movie dares to approach something real, something moving, it undercuts itself with a joke, often a bad one. When Metamorpho (played with dignity and warmth by Anthony Carrigan) creates a literal sun using his body to revive Superman, it’s a rare moment of visual and thematic resonance. But Gunn can’t resist cutting to a group of prisoners yelling that he’s going to get them in trouble. What could have been mythic becomes a sitcom.
Later, we get a genuinely touching moment between Clark and Pa Kent (the always welcome Pruitt Taylor Vince), who comforts his son by reminding him that it doesn’t matter what his Kryptonian parents wanted, he’s his own man. It’s a quiet, grounded bit of identity work… until Ma Kent walks in and undercuts it all with a joke about them getting soft. This is a movie that seems physically incapable of letting sincerity breathe.
Truth, Justice, and the Gunn Way
A cult of Gunn is forming, not just as a filmmaker, but as a savior of broken IP. He’s clever. He’s got taste. He knows his references and loves his characters. His fans go to bat for him, no matter the material. And this movie, more than anything, feels built on that goodwill. Before it even opened, it was discussed as a return to form, a new beginning, and a crucial moment in IP cinema. But if this same movie had arrived without that halo, if it had been directed by someone else, with a name you didn’t already trust, would it be getting this much love?
It’s not a disaster. It’s just mid. Mid with a good cast, mid with a lot of color, mid with a few moments of promise. But it’s also deeply uninterested in the parts of Superman that matter: the moral seriousness, the thoughtful optimism, the belief that we could actually be better.
This Superman isn’t inspiring. He’s just there. Sometimes that’s enough. But for a character built to stand for more, it feels like settling.
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