Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Lisa Laman | Film | August 27, 2025
A strange sense of apathy permeated a lot of summer 2025 blockbusters. Granted, each summer moviegoing season brings plenty of sequels and tentpoles operating under only a desire to make moolah. Yet recent projects like Jurassic World Rebirth, How to Train Your Dragon, and Ballerina lacked the dynamic showmanship that defines the best summer blockbusters. They mechanically rehashed the familiar to yawn-worthy results. Even Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning saw the usually reliable Mission: Impossible franchise succumbing to excessive lore and an inexplicable downbeat tone. This isn’t why people come to see Ethan Hunt’s adventures!
Amidst this crop of summer blockbusters coasting on the past, though, was Superman. Despite belonging to a franchise that’s been going on since 1978, this James Gunn directorial effort radiated freshness and entertaining idiosyncrasies. How on Earth did the umpteenth Superman reboot handily become the best of this summer’s big-budget blockbusters? By enthrallingly zagging where so many summer 2025 blockbusters zigged. Comparing this title to things like Rebirth or F1: The Movie, it’s no wonder Superman was summer 2025’s blockbuster champion.
Getting Right to the Good Stuff
For some reason, David Koepp’s Jurassic World Rebirth script takes forever to get to dinosaur mayhem (beyond a prologue establishing the Distortus-Rex circa. 2008). Too much of the early screentime is dedicated instead to just generic human beings on boats somberly murmuring about how they lost loved ones in car bombs or will miss their daughters when they soon go to college.
All-time great intimate filmmakers like Laura Citarella and Ryusuke Hamaguchi would be shaking their heads in tremendous disappointment at the tediousness of these scenes. Rather than bringing audiences closer to these characters, Rebirth’s plodding first act reinforces how there are no humans here anywhere near as fun as Ian Malcom or Ellie Grant. Plus, did anyone come to Rebirth to be bored to tears by sad people?
Ballerina similarly took forever to get going with all the punching people paid to see while The Final Reckoning’s first half is all callbacks, no thrills. In sharp contrast, Gunn’s Superman script hits the ground running by immediately opening on Superman (David Corenswet) down and out in the middle of a fight. There is no origin story for this Kryptonian, ditto for his arch-nemesis Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult). Gunn instead gets right into the fun stuff people would want out of a Superman movie, like Krypto, the Fortress of Solitude, or the titular superhero fighting a robot. Who needs endless backstory-centric scenes on a boat when you can watch a super-powered doggie cause mischief?
A Sense of Showmanship Even in the Quietest Scenes
Perhaps all those Rebirth scenes of people on boats talking about their pasts wouldn’t have been such a snore if they’d had Superman’s panache for showmanship even in the quietest moments. Most notably, a low-key sequence of Superman and Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan) talking in an apartment before the former character gives himself up to the Pentagon begins with a background gag of the Justice Gang superheroes fighting a mystical Imp in the distance. As folks like Mister Terrific and Hawkgirl beat up the Imp, the creature releases streaks of brightly colored light that dance across the faces of Superman and Lane in tight close-up shots.
What could’ve been a stagnant conversation sequence instead reverberates with vibrant hues and a beautiful visual capper of spewing colors (stemming from the defeated imp) cascading across the Metropolis sky as Superman and Lois Lane embrace. This kind of showmanship also informs great, larger-scale cheer-worthy sequences later on in Superman’s runtime. One of the most memorable examples of this is a terrifically edited scene where the country of Jarhanpur is invaded. Here, a small local child hoists a flag with Superman’s symbol on it, an indication he’s not giving up hope even in immense distress.
Set to John Murphy’s “Raising the Flag” composition (which heavily utilizes the original John Williams Superman theme), this scene is a profoundly moving and spine-chilling accomplishment. Its momentousness stems from its theatricality, which is just the sort of quality missing from so many summer 2025 blockbusters.
Theatricality was certainly missing from Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning’s lengthy early sequences of people in drab warehouses discussing Mission: Impossible III lore. F1: The Movie, meanwhile, had terrific racecar set pieces. However, anytime the camera focused just on the humans, all the energy left the room. Superman finds potential for grandeur even in people raising flags or talking in apartments. Other summer blockbusters like F1: The Movie and Rebirth, meanwhile, just treated their non-action sequences like obligatory filler.
Even Superman’s Great Villain Filled a Summer 2025 Void
One of the most baffling decisions Ballerina made was making Gabriel Byrne the main villain. I love Byrne, Miller’s Crossing is a cinematic banger. But as the principal antagonist to an assassin played by Ana de Armas, he’s just not very intimidating. There’s no tension on whether or not she could take him down if they were alone in a room together.
Interestingly, Nichoals Hoult’s Lex Luthor is similarly obviously no physical match for Superman. That’s no problem, though, because he’s so entertaining to watch. Byrne in Ballerina was a barely sketched bore. The scheming board member played by Tobias Menzies in F1: The Movie is just the Temu version of Josh Lucas from Ford v. Ferrari. As for Rupert Friend’s nasty foe in Jurassic World Rebirth, he was endlessly derivative of past Jurassic Park sequel adversaries (particularly Rafe Spall in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom). Gargantuan summertime popcorn cinema offers artists such an expansive canvas to play with. Why litter such a canvas with forgettable baddies?
Hoult’s Luthor, meanwhile, embraced the maximalist wickedness only summer blockbusters can often effectively house. In the vein of Geoffrey Rush’s Barbossa, Peter Cushing’s Grand Moff Tarkin, or Ronald Lacey’s Arnold Toht, this Superman foe is 110% bad news without an inch of redemption in sight. Hoult infuses the character with gloriously pronounced manifestations of maliciousness, such as his declaration that “envy consumes my every waking moment!” or slyly insulting Krypto when Superman confronts him over the kidnapped pooch.
If you’re making a rollicking summer blockbuster, go all in. Don’t be afraid to have fun with your villain. Summer 2025 blockbusters like Ballerina were often on cruise control with their baddies. Heck, Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning seemed downright confused on what to do with pre-established baddie Gabriel (Esai Morales). Thankfully, Superman refuted that with a delightfully over-the-top Lex Luthor for the ages.
Superman Was Just Plain Fun…and Moving!
Above all else, Superman was a rare summer 2025 blockbuster that radiated creative precision. Ballerina and The Final Reckoning hit theaters after tortured productions full of delays and creative uncertainty. Jurassic World Rebirth was just mimicking what worked in past installments. Even the overall solid Fantastic Four: First Steps had clumsy editing, suggesting this feature’s post-production challenges.
Superman, meanwhile, boasted confidence. This was a movie not only flaunting its silliest aspects (like Anthony Carrigan’s Metamorpho), but also very clear in what kind of tone it was aiming for. The result was something that delivered lots of old-school fun (it’s a genuine compliment to say it often feels like a big-budget Spy Kids movie), but also palpable heart. There wasn’t much room for pathos in F1: The Movie’s ode to Baby Boomer white boys knowing everything. The Final Reckoning and Ballerina, meanwhile, often got too caught up in pre-existing lore to focus on poignancy.
That wasn’t the case with Superman, which dared to be emotionally vulnerable. Even its mid-credit scene didn’t tease further DC movies but rather showed Krypto cuddling with Superman on the moon. That intimate tenderness was frustratingly lacking in a lot of summer 2025 blockbusters. So many of these titles had the noise and spectacle of blockbusters down pat, but not their showmanship or humanity.
Superman excelling on those fronts would’ve been impressive in any summer moviegoing season. In summer 2025, though, this superhero title’s virtues were even easier to appreciate when compared to junk like Jurassic World Rebirth. In other words, there was no apathy in this cinematic punk rocker’s performance.
