Superman Review: The Dog Was the Star of the Show

Okay, disclaimer: I liked Superman. But I also love corny action movies. You hated Ultron? I’ve watched it four times. So maybe I’m a bit biased. But then again—maybe the point is, after all, to not take ourselves too seriously.

There are enough think pieces, fan theories, and box office autopsies out there already to tell you what Superman “means” for the DC Universe. The discourse will argue whether it “saves” the brand, if it’s better than Snyder, whether David Corenswet was the right choice, if Lex Luthor was camp or cringe, and whether superhero fatigue has reached terminal velocity.

I’m not here to litigate that.

I’m just here to talk about how, despite its narrative clutter and tonal dissonance, Superman surprised me. Not in the way a twist ending does—but in the quiet, personal way a film sometimes can. It made me laugh. It made me feel something. It even made me—unexpectedly—think about the movie on my way home. And in a movie built on multiversal chaos and geopolitical allegory, I wasn’t expecting that.

What I also wasn’t expecting was Krypto, Superman’s loyal, scrappy, cape-wearing superdog, to be the emotional glue of the entire film. But we’ll get to that in a bit.

The Sincerity of James Gunn

Gunn’s Superman is many things: a political parable, a meta-commentary on surveillance culture, a romance, a team-up flick, a war drama, and somewhere buried beneath all that—a character study. Whether all those things belong in the same film is a different matter entirely. But if you know Gunn’s work, you know this is how he tells stories: with excess, with feeling, with flaws. It’s the emotional chaos that interests him.

Gunn has never been a filmmaker interested in elegance. He’s not a stylist like Zack Snyder, nor does he approach storytelling with Nolan’s cerebral precision. His strength has always been tonal contrast—joy and violence, irreverence and heartbreak, spectacle and soul.

There’s one particular line that lingered with me. It’s when Superman is arguing with Lois about whether Boravia should be allowed to invade Jahanpur or not, and about who decides and who doesn’t, Superman says that it doesn’t matter whether a country is bad or good or unstable, no other country has the right to invade it. It’s a line that, in lesser hands, would’ve come off as didactic. But here, it’s disarmingly sincere. It’s not about the line itself; it’s about who says it. This Superman is not the aloof god Snyder gave us. He’s not just a symbol. He’s a person.

Gunn doesn’t just use Superman as a symbol of absolute virtue. He’s repositioned him as someone actively choosing virtue, in a world that’s constantly testing it. This is a Superman who intervenes in a foreign war and faces global backlash for it. Who is both loved and feared. Who wants to help but isn’t always sure how. And this dissonance—that someone so powerful can still feel unsure—is what makes him compelling.

And in that sense, this is the most Gunn film Gunn has made. It’s messy, sentimental, a little juvenile, but deeply human.

Superman’s failures and crushing blows are on full display in the beginning itself. The story opens not with triumph, but defeat. We’re told—via a jarringly casual title card—that Superman has just lost his first battle. There’s no dramatic slow-motion. No mythologizing. Just failure.

Gunn isn’t interested in origin myths. He’s interested in aftermath and the consequences. In what happens when power doesn’t guarantee control, and when being right doesn’t always make you loved.

The Plot Problem

Here’s where things get messier.

The film opens with a dense info-dump: Superman has already revealed himself to the world, Lois already knows his identity, the Justice Gang already exists, and he’s just lost his first major battle (offscreen). That “in media res” approach has its advantages—it skips the origin story we’ve seen a hundred times—but it also asks a lot of the audience. You’re expected to care about the world’s reaction to Superman without fully understanding what he’s done to earn it.

There’s a geopolitical subplot, thinly veiled in metaphor: Boravia (Russia) invades Jarhanpur (Ukraine), Superman intervenes, and the world’s governments recoil. Lex Luthor, now a manic, tech-savvy populist played with eerie intensity by Nicholas Hoult, sees this as his moment to reframe Superman as a global threat. He builds a team of metahumans, weaponises social media, and causes rifts in the space-time continuum with anti-proton rivers flowing everywhere and a pocket universe where he imprisons people. It’s chaos.

There’s also a flashback to Krypton. A ragtag team of heroes called the Justice Gang. And yes, there’s even a surprise Bradley Cooper cameo that I’m still processing.

This should work. There’s rich thematic ground here: surveillance, nationalism, public trust, the militarisation of morality. But the film doesn’t dwell on any of it for long. It rushes to get to the next thing—another joke, another needle drop, another confrontation.

The pacing flattens the stakes. The more the film tries to do, the less any one part resonates. By the third act, when interdimensional rifts begin opening in the sky and reality begins to splinter, it’s hard to stay emotionally invested.

It’s not that these ideas aren’t good. It’s that they haven’t been earned.

Krypto: The Dog That Saved the Day (and the Movie)

Let’s talk about the dog.

In a movie with interdimensional rifts, metahuman armies, and a green-lit Justice Gang, it is the superdog who grounds the story. Not since Mad Max: Road Warrior has a dog had this much presence in a blockbuster.

Krypto isn’t just comic relief—though he’s that too. He’s a symbol of Gunn’s best instincts: irreverent, loyal, emotionally charged. He represents everything the film is trying to say about Superman himself. He doesn’t complicate things. He doesn’t posture. He just shows up. And maybe that’s why he works.

In a film that often can’t decide whether it wants to be an epic or a sitcom, a satire or a sermon, Krypto reminds you what matters: connection. Loyalty. Heart.

Corenswet, Brosnahan, and the Heart of It All

Corenswet’s Superman doesn’t command the screen in the traditional sense. He’s not regal like Cavill or witty like Christopher Reeve. But he’s present. He’s boyish, emotionally open, and visibly unsure of his place in the world. His pain is quiet. His hope and optimism are louder.

This Superman bleeds. Not physically (though, yes, he does get beaten to a pulp more than once), but emotionally. He feels. That’s the difference.

Rachel Brosnahan, meanwhile, is a revelation. Her Lois Lane isn’t reinventing the role—but she inhabits it with intelligence, humour, and fire. She makes journalism feel vital again. In a film that sometimes loses track of itself, she keeps it tethered. The chemistry between Clark and Lois feels earned, lived-in. There’s one scene—Lois interviewing Superman, both of them trying to out-moral the other—that’s electric.

If Corenswet is the heart of the film, Brosnahan is the spine. And Krypto is, well, the emotional support animal.

So, Is It a Good Movie?

That depends on your definition. If you want a tight, coherent superhero film that knows exactly what it is—this isn’t it.

But if you’re open to something messier, more emotional, sometimes frustrating but often moving—Superman offers a different kind of satisfaction. It’s not the best superhero movie of the decade. It might not even be the best DC movie of the decade. But it has a beating heart. And a very good dog.

And sometimes, that’s enough for a great summer movie.