Movies Worth Seeing
Movies Worth Seeing is a comedy podcast that explores all the best trending films and blockbuster releases. A big movie buff, Michael is an unconventional reviewer of all things movies. This podcast is for anyone sick of watching crappy movies and wants only to watch the best
Movies Worth Seeing
Can James Gunn Save the DC Universe? Superman Review
Superman flies onto screens with a divisive splash as James Gunn attempts to resurrect DC's cinematic universe. Our hosts Michael, Addy, and a special guest dive into whether this fresh take soars or crashes under the weight of universe-building ambitions.
What makes Superman so challenging to adapt? The team explores why this iconic character has struggled in modern cinema, comparing Gunn's approach to previous incarnations from Zack Snyder's gritty Man of Steel to Brandon Rauth's Superman Returns. They question whether any filmmaker can recapture the magic of Christopher Reeve's classic portrayal and if Gunn was the right choice to helm DC's rebirth.
The conversation heats up around the film's juggling act of introducing too many characters while trying to tell Superman's story. "Instead of giving us 10 million different characters, why don't you just flesh out the rivalry between Lex Luthor and Superman?" one host demands. They debate the political messaging that becomes more apparent on second viewing, the on-the-nose dialogue about morality, and whether the stellar cast performances can save a script lacking nuance. With ratings ranging from a dismal 1/5 to a respectable 7.5/10, this spirited debate captures the polarizing nature of modern superhero cinema and what it means for DC's future.
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Leave me alone. Ah, akira, where's the door? Hey everyone, and welcome to another movie review from Movies Worth Seeing. I am your host, michael, joined by Addy and James Gunn's Superman.
Speaker 2:In all its wide angle glory. I know some people were going to die. Ah, the voice breaks.
Speaker 3:Dog loser you took the dog.
Speaker 2:That's a voice of authority that you want in around your corner.
Speaker 1:So we'll get into that. Did James Gunn do the impossible? Did James Gunn resurrect Superman from the ashes and create this whole new DC cinematic universe that's going to compete with whatever's left of Marvel. Why do you say it's?
Speaker 2:impossible. You use the term impossible.
Speaker 1:I don't know what it is about Superman, but it just feels like no matter what, like it just doesn't work. Well, you had Snyder try and make superman gritty and like killing people, where he snapped general zod's neck. Then there was superman returns before that, where they were like we're not gonna do a reboot just yet, we're gonna try and do a sequel with a different actor, and that didn't work not brandon ralph's fault, but there's something, I feel, where it's almost like fantastic four, where they're just they just can't do that perfect superman movie, since, like the original superman with christopher reeve, nothing has beaten superman 2. I hate this idea, though, that james gunn just comes in and it's gonna fix everything. It's like yeah, he can do everything.
Speaker 1:He can start a whole new dc universe. He can ignore all the. He can start a whole new DC universe. He can ignore all the shitty movies that have just come out and relaunch the whole cinematic universe because he's perfect. It's like Guardians of the Galaxy and the Suicide Squad are the only two movies I've seen of his where I was like yeah, that was, that was good. But I wasn't like oh my God, that was fucking amazing. He is the new Jordan Peele of movie making. Addy. I can't like oh my God, that was fucking amazing. Here's the new Jordan Peele of movie making. Addy. I can't believe you've seen this movie twice now.
Speaker 3:I walked out of the movie twice, and both of the times with a complete different perspective on it. First time I went in there brain dead and just not knowing what to expect. Wondering is James Gunn going to pull the pillars apart and just blow the stench? Smell, that was left behind from previous directors. I think he did. I don't think it's a great movie, but compared to the last ones, I do think he blew new life into this stench of a black hole that was left behind Right.
Speaker 3:You needed to swing it this way, but James Gunn, stepped into dc with the project to start the new dc universe and now he has begun that journey. So superman is the first one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but that's where the problem is, instead of him just being like I'm gonna make one decent superman movie, it became no, I have to launch this entire cinematic universe. So this film became a whole juggling of all these freaking characters, to the point where the characters we cared about had no focus or emphasis you're not going to see fucking superman to watch honor superheroes yeah, right, exactly, and I agree.
Speaker 3:However, whether it's good or not, it's subjective.
Speaker 1:I can appreciate the fact that superman doesn't have to be the hero all the time yeah, but because it's meant to be the start of the cinematic universe, I don't mind it if it's just superman, it's like you're starting it.
Speaker 1:So superman has to be this nucleus where we have to have him fleshed out. So I kind of felt like it could just be Superman, just so we can fully get to understand his character, his relationship to these people, without going into the whole origin story again. I felt, with the pacing, okay, we're going to play catch up with. Where's Lex Luthor at. Who are the Justice Gang? How long have they been around? Do they like each other? Do they work together? Like you get thrown in the deep end and you just have to try and catch up and the movie struggles to help you catch up to understanding all these characters and how they work in this world.
Speaker 2:New cinematic universe this is where I kind of have to play devil's advocate. In a two-hour time span there's just some plot convenience sort of things, or just like certain plot devices has to occur to give that narrative thrust. And it's like one of those things where you have to bite the bullet and just like accept it for what it is, without diving into the nitty-gritty of where did this kaiju come from? It's like like, how did the Justice Gang get founded? It's stuff that like they have to be relegated to some TV show or a future movie.
Speaker 1:But that goes back to the argument I was saying before Instead of giving us 10 million different characters that you're throwing at us all at once, why don't you just flesh out the rivalry between Lex Luthor and Superman? Where did it come from?
Speaker 2:I agree so that focus it, just focus, it mean more when he defeats lex just go back to the fact that, like other superheroes do exist, they don't steal too much like screen time away from it, and the only character that's closest to stealing the spotlight would have been mr terrific, who was like aura farming. If you do it too much, you start to take attention away from the protagonist when it should be about that one singular character shit man.
Speaker 2:I'm mr terrific, I know how to do this man there was one moment where, I swear, I thought he was gonna say you fucking white people, fuck man, you fucking white people again just teetering on just like aura farming a bit too much that you start to take the cool factor away from the person that's supposed to be the protagonist. I kind of felt the opposite.
Speaker 1:I felt like the movie's trying to force it down my throat. He's really cool and I did not feel he was cool.
Speaker 2:Sometimes it's a bit try hard.
Speaker 1:I was taking a step back and being like, so what the fuck is his power? He's really smart and he's got flying balls that just attack everyone. I was like that's not cool.
Speaker 3:He's a boogeyman. You didn't see him dance the big brass balls, your big brass balls. The first time I went to see this movie right, I went in there with a complete mind, completely oblivious. Then I started reading up a little bit on the film. Now I'm going to watch it again and I read so much of that like, oh, this movie is woke. I was like, was it woke? I don't really remember it being woke and now watching the second time, holy fuck, how fucking woke is this film.
Speaker 1:It's funny because at the premiere, this news journalist, this woke news journalist, was like how do you feel about what James Gunn said about this being about illegal immigration and Superman's an illegal immigrant just trying to make ends meet or whatever? And Nathan Fillion was just like it's just a movie, man, it's just a movie, guys. It's just a movie.
Speaker 3:And that's how I went into it. It's just a movie, but then I can't unsee it the second time. I love Native Philly and Native Philly had nothing to do with it. What's the most woke aspect of this? Oh yeah, give some examples. Yes, I can give you two. The white supremacy, harobi are all white people. If you saw the army, then they have the brown people. Yeah, the arab, middle eastern looking people that are being oppressed and they have nothing and they have to pull up a stick to bind together with a piece of cloth with an s on it, because they chant for superman and chant because superman is going to end racism the second example.
Speaker 3:It's, it's. It's exactly what the reporter was asking. They had a feeling about james gunn making it about illegal immigration and then the whole speech that superman gives at the end towards lex luther. Why, why? Why james gunn? Why I didn't?
Speaker 1:see it that much. It was more so that the dialogue was so fucking on the nose of of this idea of, oh, superman's got more morals even though he's an alien. Versus lex luther. It's like I get that, I see that, I feel that, but then when you have the character literally saying those words to the audience, it's like do you get it? Everyone, do you get it? Lex luther is the real evil one and the alien isn't.
Speaker 2:See the irony do you get it? Let's take this as an opportunity to segue into like the line deliveries, the acting of um, what's his name? David cornsweat. Comic book movies occupy a sort of weird space of like cognitive dissonance in my head, where it's sort of like distance enough that I can consciously understand that the line deliveries can be so ridiculous that I can make that separation and divorce myself of like the more logical side of my brain. As a viewer. I was in the mindset more so, of say, animated DC movies and TV shows like Justice League Unlimited and stuff You're going to wash your hands.
Speaker 2:No, no, because I'm evil where the dialogues can be super on the nose and like unambiguous as to its moral grandstanding. My issue is that this is a live action adaptation. You have to be a bit smarter about the way that you write dialogues and stuff without it being so preachy. Working together, we saved the planet.
Speaker 1:We would be a force that could truly work for the ideals of peace and justice? Do you have any idea?
Speaker 2:how corny that sounds. But I'm gonna contradict myself in saying that I think superman's dialogues were intentionally written so and delivered so. People were gonna die and his voice is breaking and stuff. People were going to die he's not thinking in terms of the geopolitical ramifications. He he's just doing it so good to a fault to highlight his naivete as a complete contrast to Lex Luthor.
Speaker 3:Well, yeah. So in this movie you have right and wrong. There is no middle ground and super on the nose about that, and super on the nose on it and it's like you're either wrong or you're either good. It was very cookie cutter.
Speaker 1:It was very, but did he really? And I felt like there was going to be this nuance there. Okay, and then it was completely stripped away, to just go for the simple good guy good, bad guy, bad. Like you mean to tell me Lex Luthor has this whole fucking dimension he creates to imprison Superman.
Speaker 2:And any naysayers and dissenters.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's purely because he envies him.
Speaker 2:That was continuing like now that you've brought up uh, is it nicholas hall? Given that he had to work with what he got? Okay, so let's talk about, let's figure out the performance.
Speaker 3:Let's bring it up the fact that, okay, the movie had a lot of shit, a lot of political bullshit, a lot of stuff that wasn't in the right place. The writing was horrible and the whole nuance of it was out of place, but the one thing that saved the movie is an absolute stellar cast. A few dumb shit, but the cast is not to blame for that and Nicholas Hoult is one of them. I'm sure he fleshed it out as an actor. He would have fleshed it out and came up with reasoning for it himself, but it wasn't part of the story and something was just off. But that's just because the whole like being envious makes no sense. What's the extra skill to place lois light? She was amazing. She was great. Again, I can't fault anybody for their acting skills. She was good, she was really good. I just think the character arc from the story perspective just made no sense there are some other aspects we haven't talked about.
Speaker 2:what's, what's all these like super wide angle, super wide angle fricking Does that work for you guys.
Speaker 3:It looked like chicken wings. It was fucking weird.
Speaker 2:You know the punches and the kicks. I derived entertainment from those. Like you know he's popping his own shoulder and it's like the visceral punches and the sound design. Good, the flying, what and the blazes, why? Why are they doing it? They did that with adam warlock in like guardians of galaxy 3. Perfect point of comparison is the way that this movie does the flying versus man of steel with like the right, like the swelling han zimmer score, and I was comparing this to the kind of like tv show cw style of lighting and cinematography.
Speaker 1:Just go for like the flat kind of, can I say, sitcom look well, not maybe not really, but it does bring up a good point that I cannot, for the life of me, remember any shots from this nothing stands out no standout moment, whereas at least I can remember man of steel, even though that movie is 12 years old and I've probably watched it twice.
Speaker 1:I remember the shots of like him jumping and the swelling of the Hans Zimmer music, like the buildup, the emotional buildup, of him taking on the mantle of becoming Superman, and I believe it was shot on film.
Speaker 1:It had a much more iconic look. This did not feel like it was properly setting up a cinematic universe. It doesn't feel like it's going to be that return to form for superhero movies. It's all the same bullshit. It's all the same cliches and tropes that we've come accustomed to and that we're sick of, and it hasn't found any ways to breathe new life into this genre. It just hits the same notes well, but in a way where by the end of it, I was like it's a movie oh, so your your final score as a result?
Speaker 1:yeah, so my final score as a result is like two and a half out of five. It's like it's bright and it's colorful, but there's like there's nothing to latch on to. And out of all the superman movies, it's definitely not the ones I'm gonna go back to.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, it's definitely better than superman 4 quest for peace hilariously bad like that that's on the room level of bad what would you give it better than the halfway points? I was, yeah, I would say maybe like a seven and a half out of ten, which is just like above the halfway. But I I would say maybe like a 7.5 out of 10, which is just like above the halfway, but I'm not saying it's like 8. I liked it. It's not like the greats of the greats. It's a victim of being the first of a shared cinematic universe sort of movie where it's trying to do too much. Yeah, 7.5. Like, I don't dislike it. I had a good time, you know, whilst knowing all of the issues that we raised. What about you?
Speaker 3:Eddie. All right, so I'm going to break it down into five subjects, which I'm going to come up with now. So we have story none. We have cinematography and music none. We have cast one Part of the bigger picture none. And what was the last one? The?
Speaker 2:fun aspect None Zero. That gives you a grand total of one out of five stars.
Speaker 3:That's like Guy Gardner's construct when he's fighting against the not-Israel army. Yeah, not-Israel army. One out of five. Honestly, I'll give it a 1.5 because there were some funny moments and I love the cast and they made it fun for me to watch. You're telling a fucking entertainment story for a demographic that is not really intended. There's not the one that is focused on politicals.
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