Speak Now Storyteller

Summary: Superman must reconcile his alien Kryptonian heritage with his human upbringing as reporter Clark Kent. As the embodiment of truth, justice and the human way he soon finds himself in a world that views these as old-fashioned.

Minor spoilers maybe but I think what I’m going to mention was shown in the trailers. This is also overdue, for some reason I couldn’t get my mind right to finish this quicker lol.

Pros:
Cast and Characters.

• David Corenswet as Clark Kent / Superman. He is a survivor from Krypton, a destroyed planet, and was raised on Earth by human parents: Jonathan and Martha Kent. Clark works as a journalist for the Daily Planet while also being Superman, an all-powerful superhero who works to save people. I assume he’s about 25-30 and been doing this for about 3 years. Which makes sense for the wiki saying he’s 25. So, he’s still rather young in his hero career. In this, he seems to be a pretty successful journalist as Clark and he’s also dating Lois Lane, and their relationship is pretty new so he’s still trying to figure out how to navigate that. Superman is who we spend the most time within the movie, even though Clark Kent is always fundamentally who he is as a person (the opposite of Batman being who Bruce truly is and Bruce being the mask). He’s kind, compassionate and tries to do what he thinks is best, which kicks off part of the massive conflict in the movie. He’s naive which sometimes is part of his charm because he wants to see the good in everyone. Even with everything that goes on he tries to maintain that hopeful nature and optimism and he’s always doing his best to help. I thought David Corenswet was very good in the role. He fits the tone of this movie. He had good chemistry with the other characters, especially Lois and Lex, which is necessary. You believe in his “I’m a big guy but trying to be gentle” nature and you believe in him. I think for Superman and Clark Kent that’s necessary. I would have liked to have seen more of his Clark Kent though.
  • KRYPTO! Love that good boy! I was excited to see him involved and he’s a lot but so cute and fun. He got a lot of laughs from my theater.
• Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane. Lois is a reporter for the Daily Planet who is a colleague of Clark. She is very intelligent and feisty, and I liked her style. She’s in a relationship with Clark but she doesn’t let that stop her from questioning his choices as Superman. She’s unsure about their relationship but when she needs to, she jumps right into it to help out. She’s also a quick learner. I’ve never seen Rachel Brosnahan in anything, but I liked her as Lois. I think it’s important that she’s quick on her feet, smart and ready to question everything and I think Rachel really gives that in the role. She had good chemistry with David. I really liked the scene in her apartment, and I wish we got to see more of that.
• Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor. Lex is the CEO of LuthorCorp who hates Superman for having the power to do everything but not in the way that Lex wants him to. He hates him for intervening and thinks Superman didn’t have to work for anything he does or is able to do. He’s obsessive, determined and relentless and crazy intelligent and wants to be recognized for his genius. Which aids to him also being extremely arrogant. When I saw that Nicholas was cast, I was excited to see him in a role like this and I think he delivers. His many speeches about how Superman sucks are so great because he clearly believes what he’s saying and refuses to see that Superman is doing any actual good. All of that is shown clearly in the acting. He was a great choice.

Supporting Characters. There are a lot of supporting characters in this movie but I’m only going to touch on one. However, shout out to Anthony Carrigan as Rex Mason, he was great. Nathan Fillion as Guy Gardner / Green Lantern, he was funny. He has a great scene near the end where he uses his powers to flip over a bunch of large machinery and he uses giant green hands. Isabela Merced as Kendra Saunders / Hawkgirl, she was fine. Sara Sampaio as Eve Teschmacher, at first you think she’s just doing silly things but then you see she’s actually quite clever. María Gabriela de Faría as The Engineer, she works for Lex and uses her abilities that come from nanotechnology built into her body and she’s interesting but also her abilities make her unsettling at times.

• Edi Gathegi as Michael Holt / Mister Terrific. I wanted to highlight him because I thought he was a standout. Mister Terrific is a superhero and inventor who uses high tech gadgets to fight crime. He is also a member of the Justice Gang alongside Hawk Girl and Green Lantern. He’s smart, sarcastic and straight to the point and he was great. He has a lot of funny moments that aren’t necessarily played up for laughs, similar to Green Lantern’s moments. His lies in his dialogue delivery and also some things he does that stem from blackness. I was pleased to see Edi Gathegi because he was done so dirty by Fox with his role in X-Men: First Class. He already seems to have a show on the horizon, which is great, so I hope we get to see more of him.
• Skyler Gisondo plays Jimmy Olsen. Jimmy is a young journalist; he doesn’t seem to be just a photographer here but he’s part of Clark and Lois’s little group. He has the sauce because all the girls think he’s cute and charming, which he is but he’s also a bit mean. He just gets to use it to his advantage every so often. I looove Skyler Gisondo and he is literally so perfect for Jimmy, and he’s so perfect for this idea of having the sauce and people being surprised that he has the sauce lol. But he’s great in the role, just like I knew he’d be.

It’s Colorful & Fun. Thank goodness this movie is bright and colorful! I was so annoyed with the DCEU movies because they just sapped all the color away. Superman’s suit is red and blue, it’s bright! It’s a bit silly and I appreciate that this movie didn’t shy away from that. I’m glad that Supes has his trunks. Now, I will say that first look picture that was dropped, I thought the suit looked horrible and I still am not sure I like the suit, but I think David Corenswet looks good in it and it feels like he and Martha might have made it together. I also liked the Justice Gang’s suits, they matched but had their own thing going on. I liked that the style was modern but also had a combination of previous time frames. Like Lois was inspired by the 70s. I liked that. I also think the movie is very fun, I had a good time.

Humanity. Something that I think is important with superheroes is their relation to the people they’re saving. I think the movie does a pretty good job showcasing humanity in all forms. It was nice to have that one guy help Supes out of that crater he’d fallen in. It was nice to see him amongst the people after they fought that giant monster thing. The kids were surrounding him, and I think he even picked one up. He didn’t feel like he was out of their reach. I liked how even some of Lex’s people were like “you’re going too far bro”. While it was frustrating, the people turning on him too, it would happen that way for some, so I liked that it was included. Not to mention, the country that he saved from being invaded and how they dealt with their conflict… I appreciated that humanity was included, and it wasn’t just a God fighting other Gods or whatever.

Action Sequences. The action sequences were fun. Supes fighting the Hammer at the beginning was fun, and it was also fun to see how in most of his fights that were in the city, he really tried to minimize damage. The kaiju fight was fun, and it was the introduction of the Justice Gang and seeing how they fight with their tech and abilities. Mister Terrific has a great action scene on the beach but I like how it’s filmed because it’s from a different POV and not necessarily following him the entire time. I thought that was cool. One of my complaints about Supes in general is that he never really knows how to fight, he just punches and uses his other abilities. I guess he doesn’t really need to know how to fight but I think he should know how to grapple at least especially to have it to fall back on in case he loses his powers or in the presence of Kryptonite. The sequence in the pocket dimension was also very fun to watch. Really, the movie being bright really allowed for a lot of cool color use.

Cons:

It’s not an origin story. I don’t particularly have a problem with this exactly because I really didn’t mind it with Tom Holland’s Spider-Man, and I think in some ways it works here, but at the same time it doesn’t. We’re dropped 3 years into his career but also, he’s with Lois Lane. I think it’s okay that we didn’t see him growing up in Smallville, but I think it would have been beneficial to see him grow into his superhero role. It would have been extremely beneficial to see Clark Kent in his early days at the Daily Planet. There’s not enough Clark Kent in this movie. I would have liked to see Lois being in a love triangle with the same man and having to figure it out. It felt like being dropped into S3 of a story when it came to Clois’ relationship and the sequel to a movie we’ll never see. My friend made a good point, it’s important to appeal to experienced fans but you also want to create new fans and while I’m sure this movie will make those fans, it would have been nice to have a movie this bright (and hopeful) be an origin if not for Superman, for Clois.

• In addition, to continue with Clois, Lois makes a comment about how she knew this wouldn’t work and some other comments and I was like “well why?” We didn’t see anything that establishes them having issues as a couple. The little argument they had was good, but we never saw anything prior to showcase their relationship was strained or anything to have any reference for that. THEN as the movie goes on, there’s nothing to support her saying that either. She spends the entire movie riding for him… I just think Lois could have not known who he was yet, and they could have reworked part of their relationship and then have them actually get together in a later movie.

The Overall Story. I think the plot is weak. Lex has a fantastic monologue explaining why he’s doing what he’s doing but I think everything around it was weak, and I think the movie didn’t need the plot with the two countries. I understand why they were included and it’s not even subtle lol. The movie had a more interesting plot with the people turning on him. I think one of the most interesting aspects of superheroes is how they connect to the regular people and this movie unfortunately missed out on that when I think it was primed for it. Plus, it was funny to see how hard they were trying to show Superman saving everyone or trying to minimalize damage when Cavill’s Superman would have destroyed Metropolis in that very first fight in the film lol.

The Justice Gang. Overall, they’re fine but the problem I have with them is how they’re involved in the story. Hawk Girl unfortunately got the short end of the stick in that we don’t know anything about her, or her personality compared to Mr. Terrific and Green Lantern. She does give off the annoyed little sister vibe, but it’s not enough compared to the other two. Take her out of the movie and it doesn’t change anything. With the gang overall, I would have liked to have seen them incorporated differently. I would have liked to have seen Superman interact with them more even though it doesn’t seem like he’s actually part of their group but more like someone who comes in and helps and vice versa lol. Hopefully if we see more of them, they’re able to be fleshed out more. There’s just a lot of people in this movie that some get left behind. This includes Clark Kent to an extent.

• In addition to this, I didn’t want to make its own plot, but Ultraman and The Engineer were interesting, but I didn’t like what they ended up doing with Ultraman. I think they could have done something else because the reveal ended up making me go “Oh!” then “oh…” lol.

Overall, I think Superman is a fun movie. It’s well acted, and you get a clear sense of who these characters are. I like the bright style and vibe of the movie. I think it would draw in new viewers who may not be super familiar with Superman as a character. I appreciated the character chemistry across the board. I love how humanity is heavily included in the film both the good and the bad. David Corenswet is very good as Superman (and Clark Kent). Nicholas Hoult was a standout with his Lex Luthor, very commanding and unhinged presence. Edi Gathegi was another standout as Mister Terrific, very easily a fan favorite. On the flip side, I do think the overall story is weak and there were more interesting aspects that could have stood on their own. Some side characters get too sidelined that either their reveals don’t work (for me), or their personalities aren’t really showcased. There’s a lot going on in this movie, a lot of ideas and characters that it does get a little lost overall. I also have mixed feelings on it not being an origin story. I think it starting late in his career, as well as his romance with Lois, we miss out on some key character development and Clark Kent appearances.

Rating: 3.8 out of 5 stars.

In the end, I am interested to see what comes next in this new universe. I recommend Superman!

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