Not the best Superman movie but definitely the most accurate and with the most potential.

So... after ten painful years of nothing but pure Agony(actually lets be fair Man of Steel wasn't that bad.) The DCEU has finally finished dying its slow painful death, and we have arrived at James Gunn's take on Superman.

And boy is it a take.

This time James Gunn decided to take the Matt Reeves Batman approach and start when Superman has already been here for a bit, the beginning text explains that Meta-Humans have been around and in the public consciousness for about three hundred years.

This honestly is the best thing that could have happened to this movie and to this universe, now they have a lot of leeway to bring other characters into the fray if they so wish in the future, it seems that James at least, has learnt a thing or two from his last home of the MCU.

Today, they struggle largely because their greatest strength has now become their greatest weakness, everything in the MCU must be linear, one after the other, everything must be introduced, a multitude of Origin stories, one after the other, often leaving very little space for things to just... be...

There was some hope for that Marvel on Disney Plus but that was shot dead in the water by bob Chapek, thanks for that man.

However, this is indeed this movie's greatest strength, superman doesn't need to be introduced, he already exists.

And this lets the movie get past all the unnecessary homework and get to its main point, is Superman here to defend us? Or Threaten us? Who even is he? Why of all the places, is he here?

#Supershit am I right?

You know when I think Superman, I think an overbearing, almost delusional belief in the nature of Humans, of humanity.

Someone who will fight with his life even to save the life of a Rampaging monster.

But this is where the second good thing from this being a pre-established universe comes from.

Superman has friends, other superbeings who: help him, talk to him, bounce off of him in interactions and give us something to compare him against.

When the Kaiju attacks, he is pretty much the only one who is trying to take it away from the city safely, to a place where it can be studied and understood, because he understands that this beast could just be another scared animal, and understanding it is to the benefit of everyone, especially when it comes to figuring out its origins.

And while yes, the rest of the Justice Gang definitely has a point when it comes to the fact that killing the beast is probably safer and quicker for everyone else involved, one must also remember that in their haste to kill it, they actually did put a few people in danger, people that Superman then had to save.

And if the creature had been studied, it was very likely that they could have figured out Luthor's connection to it all way before things became as bad as they did.

But since we are talking about the other heroes lets actually talk about them, Guy Gardner in this movie gives me much hope for what "The Lanterns" will bring to the table, he is exactly as his comic book counterpart dictates him to be, and his powers and costume are shown as well as they can be, which was the biggest concern considering the Ryan Reynolds Green Lantern movie.

Hawkgirl is well cast, but over all she doesn't have very much to do, but what she does(no spoilers) leaves quite the mark and excites me for her next appearance.

But almost stealing the show from Superman is Mr. Terrific.

that man and his T-Spheres are the best thing I have ever seen and for someone who has never appeared on screen before, James Gunn deserves praise for this portrayal.

Mr. Terrific and the Engineer also seem somewhat equals to superman and both of them actually provide a very good depiction of intelligence and tech based heroes, they are not over the top intelligent like they often are portrayed, and neither are they dumbed down, they are just perfect as they should be.

And while talking about the engineer can I just say, new fear unlocked by the way she chooses to kill superman... I mean gosh, everyone who says Superman can't be killed without Kryptonite really got a kick in the nuts, and everyone with the fear of Drowning and insect swarms got their worst nightmare as the Engineer forces her nano bots into Superman's lungs and cover his face entirely, preventing him from breathing.

Dude, this is straight up Body Horror NGL.

And for the Engineer, one must remember that she is very close to Lex, so much so that she gave up her humanity for his dream.

And what is that dream?

Well.

Lex is the biggest hater there is, he is a selfish, insecure, manipulative bastard with tremendous power who will play Russian Roulette with a guy who just probably met Superman once or twice, like not even close to him in anyway, and straight up shoot him in the head in front of superman as a way to torture him.

He is someone who will take away Metamorpho's baby from him as a way of blackmail so he can make Kryptonite to contain superman, because all the rest of it on the planet is actually gone.

And he is someone who will on a whim create a pocket universe just so that he can have his personal off the books prison which lets be honest is probably filled with his ex girlfriends.

And Superman.

And this pocket dimension is made with the knowledge that it could potentially rip a hole through Earth and Reality and also potentially create a Blackhole, the one which Superman throws Ultraman into.

No, not that one.

Ultraman in the comics is an evil alternate dimension Superman who is the leader of a team known as the crime Syndicate which is a dark reflection of the Justice league.

In this movie though, Ultraman is a clone of Superman Lex made from a strand of hair he left behind and is significantly mentally challenged by design so that Lex can control him through very specific commands.

And one of those commands apparently is to dress up as the Hammer of Boravia and threaten the people of America for Superman's actions against the countries interest in Jarhanpur, a city which this dictatorship wishes to occupy.

And helping him in this occupation is none other than once again, Lex Luthor, who created this conflict knowing that Superman will intervene specifically to get permission from the Government to kill him and come out on top, so that all Metahumans can be controlled by people like him.

Man, any more evil and he might accurately portray the billionaires in our world, and thank god they didn't, or else Superman would surely face a lawsuit from JB(the smart get that reference.)

But Lex's evil and ego comes to bite him in the ass when his girlfriend who is actually secretly cheating on him with Jimmy Olsen gives him everything he needs to pin Lex to the board Via Sexy Selfies.

That is a sentence that I wrote.

But there is one aspect we haven't spoken about, and that is Krypto, appearing for the first time on the Big Screen

Yeah but there was that superpe...

FOR THE FIRST TIME ON THE BIG SCREEN.

Alongside superman.

Revealed in multiple promo images and introduced right in the beginning of the movie, Krypto stole our hearts right from the beginning of the film.

And he is very much a dog, a super one.

Who likes to chew on round things, sometimes they are balls, sometimes they are tricks Lex uses to keep him caged, sometimes the are Mr. Terrific's T-Spheres(What?) and sometimes they are the flying cameras that help Lex see and control Ultraman.

In fact, the reason Superman willingly turns himself in to the authorities is so that he can figure out where Lex took his dog after attacking the Fortress of Solitude, and not just attacking, decrypting the half corrupted message from Superman's parents that he likes to hear when healing, because it says a lot of nice and sweet things...

....In the first half...

And then asks him to have a Harem of Human women who he can father a lot of children with in the next half... sure...

I wonder what does Lois think about this?

I mean Guy makes it very clear that if this is true, then Superman is potentially the exact kind of Alien threat he was sent here by the Lantern Corps to protect Earth against.

But all of that said and done, as Clark's parents tell him, what he thought of the message tells a lot more about him than what it actually is.

And in spite of it all, he keeps fighting.

In fact the bullying and hate he was receiving online specifically actually got a little too real for me and gave me a small anxiety attack.

Not helping, but actually helping the fact is Lois Lane, who in the beginning asks Supes the hard questions, but as soon as new evidence comes forth helps Jimmy write the article that exposes Lex by flying him and the others to safety in the T-Craft(Mr. Terrific's ship).

And can I just say, I am glad they finally got Lois right, no damsel in distress, no mopey sad person, just plain old comic accurate Lois, who is kind but takes shit from no one and is an excellent reporter.

I daresay, Insomniac's Mary Jane is more of a Lois Lane than any big screen portrayal I have ever seen(as far back as I can remember) except for this one of course, they nailed it with this one.

In the end everything is great and the day is saved, in the most comic accurate way possible, but one thing remains, see Krypto, does not actually belong to superman...

And she likes to party on planets with a Red sun cause otherwise her physiology won't let her get drunk.

For those of you wondering why Madame Webb is tagged here.... if you're smart enough you'll get the Joke.