Movie Review: A Weird ‘Superman’ Is Better than a Boring One

 Cast member David Corenswet attends a premiere for the film "Superman" at the TCL Chinese theater in Los Angeles, California, US, July 7, 2025. (Reuters)
Cast member David Corenswet attends a premiere for the film "Superman" at the TCL Chinese theater in Los Angeles, California, US, July 7, 2025. (Reuters)
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Movie Review: A Weird ‘Superman’ Is Better than a Boring One

 Cast member David Corenswet attends a premiere for the film "Superman" at the TCL Chinese theater in Los Angeles, California, US, July 7, 2025. (Reuters)
Cast member David Corenswet attends a premiere for the film "Superman" at the TCL Chinese theater in Los Angeles, California, US, July 7, 2025. (Reuters)

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a ... a purple and orange shape-shifting chemical compound?

Writer-director James Gunn’s “Superman” was always going to be a strange chemistry of filmmaker and material. Gunn, the mind behind “Guardians of the Galaxy” and “The Suicide Squad,” has reliably drifted toward a B-movie superhero realm populated (usually over-populated) with the lesser-known freaks, oddities and grotesquerie of back-issue comics.

But you don’t get more mainstream than Superman. And let’s face it, unless Christopher Reeve is in the suit, the rock-jawed Man of Steel can be a bit of a bore. Much of the fun and frustration of Gunn’s movie is seeing how he stretches and strains to make Superman, you know, interesting.

In the latest revamp for the archetypal superhero, Gunn does a lot to give Superman (played with an easy charm by David Corenswet) a lift. He scraps the origin story. He gives Superman a dog. And he ropes in not just expected regulars like Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan) and Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult) but some less conventional choices — none more so than that colorful jumble of elements, Metamorpho (Anthony Carrigan).

Metamorpho, a melancholy, mutilated man whose powers were born out of tragedy, is just one of many side shows in “Superman.” But he’s the most representative of what Gunn is going for. Gunn might favor a traditional-looking hero at the center, like Chris Pratt’s Star-Lord in “Guardians of the Galaxy.” And Corenswet, complete with hair curl, looks the part, too. But Gunn’s heart is with the weirdos who soldier on.

The heavy lift of “Superman” is making the case that the perfect superhuman being with “S” on his chest is strange, too. He’s a do-gooder at a time when no one does good anymore.

Not everything works in “Superman.” For those who like their Superman classically drawn, Gunn’s film will probably seem too irreverent and messy. But for anyone who found Zack Snyder’s previous administration painfully ponderous, this “Superman,” at least, has a pulse.

It would be hard to find a more drastic 180 in franchise stewardship. Where Snyder’s films were super-serious mythical clashes of colossuses, Gunn’s “Superman” is lightly earthbound, quirky and sentimental. When this Superman flies, he even keeps his arms back, like an Olympic skeleton rider.

We begin not on Krypton or Kansas but in Antarctica, near the Fortress of Solitude. The opening titles set-up the medias res beginning. Three centuries ago, metahumans first appeared on Earth. Three minutes ago, Superman lost a battle for the first time. Lying bloodied in the snow, he whistles and his faithful super dog, Krypto, comes running.

Like some of Gunn’s other novelty gags (I’m looking at you Groot), Krypto is both a highlight and overused gag throughout. Superman is in the midst of a battle by proxy with Luthor. From atop his Luthor Corp. skyscraper headquarters, Luther gives instructions to a team sitting before computer screens while, on a headset, barking out coded battle directions to drone-assisted henchmen. “13-B!” he shouts, like a Bingo caller.

Whether this is an ideal localizing of main characters in conflict is a debate that recedes a bit when, back in Metropolis, Clark Kent returns to the Daily Planet. There’s Wendell Pierce as the editor-in-chief, Perry White, and Skyler Gisondo as Jimmy Olsen. But the character of real interest here is, of course, Lois.

She and Kent are already an item in “Superman.” When alone, Lois chides him over the journalistic ethics of interviewing himself after some daring do, and questions his flying into countries without their leaders’ approval. Brosnahan slides so comfortably into the role that I wonder if “Superman” ought to have been “Lois,” instead. Her scenes with Corenswet are the best in the film, and the movie loses its snap when she’s not around.

That’s unfortunately for a substantial amount of time. Luthor traps Superman in a pocket universe (enter Metamorpho, among others) and the eccentric members of the Justice Gang — Nathan Fillion’s Green Lantern, Edi Gathegi’s Mister Terrific and Isabela Merced’s Hawkgirl — are called upon to lend a hand. They come begrudgingly. But if there’s anyone else that comes close to stealing the movie, it’s Gathegi, who meets increasingly absurd cataclysm with wry deadpan.

The fate of the world, naturally, again turns iffy. There’s a rift in the universe, not to mention some vaguely defined trouble in Boravia and Jarhanpur. In such scenes, Gunn's juggling act is especially uneasy and you can feel the movie lurching from one thing to another. Usually, that's Krypto's cue to fly back into the movie and run amok.

Gunn, who now presides over DC Studios with producer Peter Safran, is better with internal strife than he is international politics. Superman is often called “the Kryptonian” or “the alien" by humans, and Gunn leans into his outsider status. Not for the first time, Superman’s opponents try to paint him as an untrustworthy foreigner. With a modicum of timeliness, “Superman” is an immigrant story.

Mileage will inevitably vary when it comes to Gunn’s idiosyncratic touch. He can be outlandish and sweet, often at once. In a conversation between metahumans, he will insert a donut into the scene for no real reason, and cut from a body falling through the air to an Alka-Seltzer tablet dropping into a glass. Some might call such moments glib, a not-unfair label for Gunn. But I’d say they make this pleasantly imperfect “Superman” something quite rare in the assembly line-style of superhero moviemaking today: human.



Michelle Yeoh Brings Chinese Blockbuster ‘Ne Zha 2’ to Life in English Dub

Michelle Yeoh appears at the 76th British Academy Film Awards, BAFTA's, in London, on Feb. 19, 2023. (AP)
Michelle Yeoh appears at the 76th British Academy Film Awards, BAFTA's, in London, on Feb. 19, 2023. (AP)
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Michelle Yeoh Brings Chinese Blockbuster ‘Ne Zha 2’ to Life in English Dub

Michelle Yeoh appears at the 76th British Academy Film Awards, BAFTA's, in London, on Feb. 19, 2023. (AP)
Michelle Yeoh appears at the 76th British Academy Film Awards, BAFTA's, in London, on Feb. 19, 2023. (AP)

When Michelle Yeoh first saw “Ne Zha 2” in Hong Kong, she walked away dreaming about a dubbed version.

The Chinese blockbuster, which this year became the highest-grossing animated film of all time with over $2.2 billion in ticket sales, had seemed to her like an ideal movie for a global, all-ages audience. But even she, who had the benefit of knowing Mandarin, was having trouble keeping up with the subtitles and all the spectacular things happening on screen. How would a kid stand a chance?

The Oscar winner, who is fluent in English, Malay and Cantonese, wasn’t alone in thinking a dub was a good idea. The film studio A24 was already making plans to broaden the audience with an English-language version in collaboration with CMC Pictures. Not too long after, Yeoh got a call asking if she wanted to voice Ne Zha’s mother, Lady Yin. Her response?

“Hell yes,” she told The Associated Press in a recent interview. The English-language dub opens in over 2,500 North American theaters on Aug. 22.

The film tells the story of a rebellious little child, Ne Zha, born as the reincarnation of a demon to mortal parents, who is out to prove his fate is not predetermined. In the first film, he sacrifices himself. In the second, he’s put to the test to try to save his friend and his village. Don't worry if you haven't seen the first either — the sequel tells the audience everything they need to know.

And while this character might be new to American audiences, the mythology is well known in China. Yeoh grew up watching various TV and movie versions, but had never seen it done so vividly.

The making of “Ne Zha 2” took five years and required the work of some 4,000 people from 138 Chinese animation companies. The finished film, which runs an epic 143 minutes, includes 2,400 animation shots and 1,900 special effects shots.

“I think the director and his amazing team, they pushed all the boundaries,” Yeoh said. “They created this magical world that I hadn’t seen to this level of superb animation before. The intricacies are mind-blowing.”

Yeoh also put her stamp of approval on the translation, which she admits is a tricky art.

“With translation, a lot of the times the nuances are lost, right? Because also you have to sync and find the right number of words to say the same thing. And with the Chinese language, especially with the folklores and things like that, the way they say it is very poetic as well. So it is not easy,” she said. “I think they struck a very good balance of not making it too classical, but also more contemporary.”

North American audiences already showed interest in “Ne Zha 2" earlier this year, when the subtitled version earned over $20 million. Some Chinese communities in the US even rented theaters to screen the film. Now, Yeoh believes that the English version will help it resonate globally.

“It’s such a universal language of family, of love, of the underdog, of someone who’s ostracized, misunderstood just because you’re born different,” Yeoh said. “It immerses you into our culture. And it’s such a beautiful way to cross that bridge.”