Just got home from it… Tonally, Gunn absolutely nails it. The main characters are perfectly done, the B-list characters like Mister Terriffic and Metamorpho are perfectly done.

There are issues with some of the C-list / background characters.

Hawkgirl didn’t really have much to do and I don’t think Gunn knew what to do with her, which is a shame. Giving her a hawk shriek instead of actual dialog was… a choice. She needed more speaking lines.

Similarly, the background characters at the Planet, Cat Grant, Steve Lombard, were just kind of “there”. Nobody, not even Perry White, has a “Hey, where’s Clark?” moment. I think Gunn was just working from a checklist of who to include.

Ma Kent… I don’t know where she’s from, but it aint Kansas… Loved the Kents interactions with Clark, but… OK, I’m biased, I married a woman from Kansas, I’ve been to both Oklahoma and Kansas… I don’t know what that accent is.

All of those are minor quibbles. It was a great way to do Superman.

Now: Spoilers:

spoiler

Easter egg reference to Mister Mxyzptlk. Lois and Clark are having a serious conversation while outside the window Guy Gardner, Hawkgirl and Mister Terriffic are fighting a giant glowing eyeball. “Oh, it’s just an extra-dimensional imp, they got this.”

Setting up Supergirl - Krypyo is her dog, Supes is just pet-sitting while she runs off to a red-sun planet so she can get plastered. The opening of Woman of Tomorrow.

With Mister Terrific and Metamorpho in the same movie, we’ve now had 1/2 of “The Terriffics”, all we need now are Plastic Man and Phantom Girl(!)

  • tuckerm@feddit.onlineEnglish
    2·
    4 days ago

    Your review describes my feelings as well. Great movie; comic book fans should definitely go see it.

    It has that “James Gunn movie” vibe to it, although not as funny as Guardians of the Galaxy or The Suicide Squad. I agree that it felt like the inclusion of some background characters was rushed – e.g. we didn’t really get a chance to care about the other people at The Daily Planet.

    There was an article in Aftermath about how James Gunn has had a lot of success by making big movies out of smaller characters, and he seems to want to keep doing that (https://aftermath.site/james-gunn-suicide-squad-dc-comics which is 404’ing right now, I’ll come back to it later and see if their links have changed link working now). Maybe that was part of the problem here. I don’t really think it detracted much from the movie, though. Also, I don’t want to dwell too much on the half-assed Cat Grant, since Superman himself was absolutely perfect.

    It has the same very fast-paced editing style as Guardians of the Galaxy 3, which I thought was kind of jarring, but apparently I was alone in that since everyone else really liked GotG 3.