Superman Legacy (2025)

Despite the 2 hour runtime, this was an exhausting movie. I felt like I watched a whole season of prime time television in those two hours, but it's rich & delicious enough to make me not hate that. 

Sometimes a movie comes along that you don't agree with its title so in your personal headcanon, it's called something else.
Ghostbusters (2016) to me will always be GalGhostbusters.
If the weirdos at Sony went ahead and called it "Upgraded," I would've still called it Mitchells vs the Machines.
And now, the Superman movie of 2025 was SUPPOSED to be called "Superman Legacy" and for some reason or another (rumor mill says it was James Gunn own preference on not liking movie titles with subtitles), they changed it to JUST "Superman." ALL the disrespect to the 1978 classic in my twisted brain by saying "This is the only Superman movie worth the one name title." Of course it's not Gunn's intent, but I still feel like it. So I'ma keep calling it "Superman Legacy" because it shows how this one man's insistence on doing good and being a symbol for hope & peace can influence so many people around the world. From little kids to fellow "men of the cloth," his ideals make people strive to be better (except for Lex freakin' Luthor, but he's a lost cause), and this movie shows it wonderfully.

But enough about the title itself, how was this latest cinematic outing for the American icon? 
It's super.
Plain and simple.

There's plenty to love but it has got its own set of issues that hold it back from going Plus Ultra.
So in a word, just super. Better than average, but not true greatness yet.

By establishing the movie as belonging to a bigger universe, it gives the filmmakers the liberty to not have to bother with an origin story for not just Superman, but for a lot of things. That, however, is a double-edged sword as there are a lot of things to want to know more about this new DC universe, ranging from why Lois Lane would feel like she would be bad at relationships, how Jimmy and a girl who he thought had MUTANT TOES ever met, any of the inciting incidents to tweak Lex Luthor into such a hater, ANYTHING to boost Hawkgirl, and most importantly, did KARA know anything about the go-forth-&-conquer plan?

Aside from a bevy of plot holes that will hopefully be expanded upon with this James Gunn-helmed ship of content, it's still worth your time to watch. The characters are some of the best live-action interpretations of them seen in years, if not the first & thus, the best. The action is fantastic, with several scenes of flexing the good stuff from superhero movies. The quirky aesthetics of James Gunn sneak into an already pretty colorful movie (hey Freakazoid! Wanna see a river made of bismuth that feed into a black hole?), but is not without it's slightly horror-filled charms (coughing out nanobots never looked more horrific & something that looks like you'd need some Pepto Bismol for). But like I mentioned from my opening bit about Superman's legacy, this movie is INSPIRING. This alien's humanity and his own strong moral compass dares people to move, both in-universe and by the viewing audience; it shows how cool & rebellious it is to actually care about others. Of course, not being phenomenally cosmic powerful beings, we DO have to think of the consequences, but sometimes the time comes when the consequences have to just be a nagging voice in the back of your head. The true heart of the movie is the message of being strong together, to lift the less fortunate up so that we can all have our time in the wondrous yellow sunlight.

 And because I am a colossal nerd, I've got to compare this new kid on the block to others of its ilk. The previous most recent re-invention of this nearly 100-year old character for the modern day is My Adventures with Superman, (or as I've dubbed it "Shonen Superman" since really it's anime enough to stand toe-to-toe with the greats of yesteryear like "Dragon Ball Z" and "Naruto"), and I like how both have a Clark who has to struggle with their dual identities/legacies to live up to. The anime Superman is afraid of what he'll find out if his people were actually horrible, and Gunn's has his whole paradigm violently shifted when he finds out what the rest of his parents' parting message said. But of course, since these Supermen live their lives to the beat of their own drum, he learns it's not so much where you came from that matters, but what you do for the here & now. 
Compared to his Snyder-verse counterpart, the Lex Luthor here is also a tech billionaire considerably younger than the comics and most cartoons have shown, but still no less full of hate for the "alien stopping us from growing as a species." While one crafts convoluted plans for the blame game to work in his favor to promote his flawed philosophy, this version ACKNOWLEDGES he is envious & petty to a fault, but knows it's his greatest fuel for evil.
And we gotta give it up for the boost Mr. Terrific got from his depiction in the Arrowverse. That one just didn't know how to give us a good brain that wasn't incredibly quirky & quippy. Here? They gave him the 'tism but they didn't detract his badassness in physical fisticuffs (that beach fight is legendary now) & smart-guy like (just off by a little decimal point or two setting the universe back in place).    

So yeah, I love this movie regardless of flaws, and looking forward to what else Mr. Gunn's gonna give to us for this new cinematic universe.

Petty supervillain nonsense at its finest!