From Krypton to cancel culture: Superman returns with a heart, a dog and a few identity issues
Director and screenwriter James Gunn said he set out to make the benevolent world-saver 'a little less powerful' in what is a tenth silver-screen version of the original 1930s DC Comics character.
The 1978 classic starring Christopher Reeve remains the reference point, but other outings include the little-loved 2013 Man of Steel by Zack Snyder, 2016's Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and 2017's Justice League.
Gunn's Superman, played by square-jawed David Corenswet in his biggest role to date, appears at times naive and awkward, and has to contend with criticism on social media and angry talk shows.
'I wanted Superman to be vulnerable,' Gunn told Rolling Stone magazine last month.
'A lot of people are like, 'I like Batman better (than Superman) because he can actually be beat, and I get that,' he explained. 'So we have a Superman that can be beat.'
Critical reaction to the Warner Bros. Discovery production has so far been broadly positive, even though Hollywood studios are facing rising criticism over their reliance on reheated classics and comic book characters.
Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes gave it a high 83 per cent rating based on the views of 230 critics.
'Charming' or 'pointless?
The New York Times said Gunn's 'charming take on the Superman myth succeeds — it even won over a particular superhero-weary critic'.
'It's a sincere but also goofy movie, with a few well-timed twists on the mythology and a couple of added characters,' it added.
These include Superman's dog Krypto and fellow meta-humans Green Lantern, Mister Terrific and Hawkgirl, who appear alongside beloved original characters such as journalist Lois Lane, played by Rachel Brosnahan from House of Cards.
'Gunn's bright and bouncy film conceives of the hero as just one of Earth's many gifted do-gooders,' read a generally positive review in The Atlantic magazine.
The BBC was less keen, however, with its critic saying Gunn's 'wacky take on Superman's mythos soon comes to feel exhaustingly self-indulgent'.
The Guardian newspaper was withering, saying it amounted to Superman having 'an uninteresting crisis of confidence in Gunn's cluttered, pointless franchise restarter'.
The main plot sees Superman torn between his alien Kryptonian identity and his bond with humanity as he strives to protect the people of Earth.
He finds himself under fire when he intervenes in a foreign conflict in which a dictator is waging war on a defenceless nation for its wealth, a possible allusion to Russian President Vladimir Putin's 2022 invasion of Ukraine. — AFP
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