Superman [2025] plus Short Takes on some various other cinematic topics

Look, Up in the Sky!  It’s a Bird … It’s a Plane … It’s Another DC Attempt To Catch Up with

the Marvel Cinematic Universe

Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke

I invite you to join me on a regular basis to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I’ll refer to as either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) if they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative.  However, due to COVID concerns I’m mostly addressing streaming options with limited visits to theaters, where I don’t think I’ve missed much anyway, but better options are on the horizon.  (Note: Anything in bold blue below [some may look near purple] is a link to something more in the review.)

My reviews’ premise: “You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”

(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the song’s name)

However, if you’d like to know more about rationale of my ratings visit this explanatory site.

                                Superman [2025] (James Gunn)

                                          rated PG-13   130 min.

Here’s the trailer:

        (Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge its size; 

        activate the same button or use “esc” keyboard key to return to normal.)

If you can abide plot spoilers read on, but this blog’s intended for those who’ve seen the film or want to save some $ (as well as recognizing those readers like me who just aren’t that tech-savvy).  To help any of you who want to learn more details yet avoid these all-important plot-reveals I’ll identify any give-away sentences/sentence-clusters with colors plus arrows: 

⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.

WHAT HAPPENS: (Go to this site if you want considerably more detail beyond what I'm providing.)  Opening graphics say Metahumans came to Earth 3 centuries ago, Superman (David Corenswet) came from Krypton 30 years ago, went public 3 years ago, 3 weeks ago saved Jarhanpur from being invaded by Boravia, but 3 minutes ago suffered his first defeat by a Metahuman, Ultraman, leaving him bloody and broken as he calls for his superdog, Krypto, to drag him to his Fortress of Solitude in Antarctica where robots nurse him to health again.  Back in Metropolis he's beaten once more by Ultraman, a henchman of archvillain/industrial billionaire Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult).  He agrees to be interviewed by semi-girlfriend, Daily Planet reporter Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan), who angers him with questions about his vigilante actions in Boravia (she knows his secret identity of reporter Clark Kent).  Luthor unleashes a giant monster on Metropolis, fought to the death by Superman and Justice Gang heroes Green Lantern (Nathan Fillion), Mister Terrific (Edi Gathegli), Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced) while Luthor invades the Fortress, captures Krypto, finds a hologram from Superman’s birth parents telling him to conquer Earth, create many babies to restore the Kryptonian civilization.  Release of this video turns people against Superman (he’d never seen it), so he turns himself in to the U.S. government who gives him to Luthor where he’s imprisoned in a strange pocket universe along with other Luthor enemies.  Ultimately, Lois and Terrific liberate the prisoners (including Krypto), with Superman returning to his foster parents to recuperate, ⇒after which he’s back to Metropolis when we learn Luthor’s in league with Boravia’s corrupt President, Vasil Ghurkos (Zlatko Burić), who’s launching another attack on Jarhanpur that’s stopped by the Justice Gang even as Superman and Terrific defeat Luthor’s Metahumans, including Ultraman who’s actually a clone of Superman.  Lois and Jimmy Olson (Skyler Gisondo) expose Luthor’s schemes so he’s arrested, Superman’s again publicly embraced.  At the end Superman returns to his rebuilt Fortress where reconstructed robots show him footage of his childhood with his adoptive parents as he knows his fate is from his chosen actions, not what he was once told to do.⇐

SO WHAT? There are just enough mentions for someone inexperienced with the decades-long saga of baby Kal-El sent away in a rocket from the dying planet of Krypton by his parents, Jor-El (Bradley Cooper) and Lara (Angela Sarafyan), so that he landed in a U.S. Midwest location, raised by Jonathan (Pruitt Taylor Vance) and Martha Kent (Neva Howell), then as an adult relocated to Metropolis where he becomes a star Daily Planet newspaper reporter working with/romantically attracted to Lois Lane to get a sense of the extensive history of this character in comic books, TV, and movies to get a glimpse of most of this within the present plot, so if you didn’t grow up reading the various Superman comics or seeing nearly all of the TV/cinematic depictions of his adventures like I did you could spend a good bit of your life catching up (even as I would need to do as my investments in those comic books fell off to almost nothing after DC blew up what they had evolved as the Multiverse back in the 1980s so they could start anew with somewhat-more-simplified storylines [over the ensuing decades I’m sure it’s all gotten overly-complicated again]), by wandering for days through this extensive site.  But, if you’re already well-invested in the saga of Superman or just want to know how well this latest movie depicts him, then I must say this rendition is not up to what I consider to be the best superhero movies of the contemporary era: The Dark Knight (Christopher Nolan, 2008), Avengers: Infinity War (Anthony and Joe Russo, 2018), and Avengers: Endgame (Russos, 2019).  For that matter, I can’t say this Superman narrative is all that effective when compared to what I consider to be the premiere versions of this Kryptonian’s story—Superman: The Movie (Richard Donner, 1978) and its sequel, Superman II (Richard Lester, 1980), with Christopher Reeve and Margo Kidder best portraying adult Clark and Lois in any version I’ve yet to see (along with Gene Hackman marvelous as Luthor), despite some reasonable approaches from other solid actors in 21^st-century retellings of this legend—which cover in detail Kal-El’s escape from Krypton, after-the-fact holograms from Jor-El (Marlon Brando), Clark’s move to Metropolis, Lois’ discovery of his secret, etc.  (Both older movies are easily/cheaply streamed: HBO Max, Amazon.)

BOTTOM LINE FINAL COMMENTS: If you read all of that lengthy plot-detail link I noted far above in this posting you’ll see that various portions of this Superman have been in development for many years; nevertheless, several aspects play in distressingly-familiar recognition for current audiences, such as: (1) The invasion of Jarhanpur by Boravia, based on the goal of taking territory, feeling all too similar to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (along with Boravia’s dictator a close match to Vladimir Putin); (2) The similarities between Luthor (in appearance and attitude) and Trump henchman Stephen Miller who hates Superman both because he’s an alien and he's well-loved by the general populace (he also has a putrid monomaniacal streak like Trump, but I won’t pursue that any further as I watch Jimmy Kimmel’s return to his late-night ABC TV talk show).  Another aspect of this movie I haven’t mentioned yet is the brief appearance of Kal-El’s cousin, Kara Zor-El/Supergirl (Milly Alcock), with her own movie scheduled for next year; however, in this scene she’d drunk with him saying she must have been on a red-sun planet because Kryptonians can’t get drunk on a yellow-sun one like Earth.  OK, but if she was under a red sun she wouldn’t have her superpowers so how did she exit some other interplanetary place?  For that matter, how did Luthor get some of Superman’s DNA to create Ultraman?  Still, this is just a superhero story, so let’s not get too rational.

 This Superman opened in domestic (U.S.-Canada) theaters on July 11, 2025, still in 187 of them with $354.1 million grossed so far ($615.3 million worldwide), but the easy way to see it now is streaming, free to HBO Max subscribers ($9.99 monthly), sometimes on HBO too, or rentable from Apple TV+ for $14.99.  The CCAL’s largely in support with Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews at 83%, yet the Metacritic average score's just 68%.  Alissa Wilkinson of The New York Times is a supporter: “ ‘Superman’ is less about patriotism than humanism, about Superman’s deep belief that his job is to protect all the people of Earth. I don’t need to tell you that’s not always a popular position.”  On the other hand, Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post, despite what she likes in this movie, says: “Still, it’s impossible to ignore that, somehow, it all feels rote and regurgitated. […] The question is whether there are any new stories left under that yellow sun to tell.”  I find it enjoyable for this type of content with effective special effects, but it’s just not all that comparable to the best episodes of Marvel superhero movies.  I’ll leave you with my usual Musical Metaphor, this time Nina Simone’s version of “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” (1964 Broadway-Blues-Ballads album) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JS8LWRCS6do&list=RDJS8LWRCS6do&start_radio=1, a video with colorful animation, but if you want to see her, go here (grainy video, good audio).  Like Superman when he was being publicly rejected, she, as a Black woman in the Civil Rights era was saying: “Baby, you understand me now / If sometimes you see that I’m mad / Don’t you know, no one alive can always be an angel? / When everything goes wrong, you see some bad.”  Fortunately, both of them became much better understood over time as what they’d done so well was celebrated.

        

SHORT TAKES

                

 Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:

 

We encourage you to visit the Summary of Two Guys Reviews for our past posts* (scroll to the bottom of this Summary page to see additional info about your wacky critic, Ken Burke, along with contact info and a great retrospective song list).  Overall notations for this blog—including Internet formatting craziness beyond our control—may be found at our Two Guys in the Dark homepage.  If you’d like to Like us on Facebook (yes?) please visit our Facebook page.  We appreciate your support whenever and however you can offer it unto us!  Please also note that to Post a Comment below about our reviews you need to have either a Google account (which you can easily get at https://accounts.google.com/NewAccount if you need to sign up) or other sign-in identification from the pull-down menu below before you preview or post.  You can also leave comments at our Facebook page, although you may have to somehow register with us there in order to comment (FB procedures: frequently perplexing mysteries for us aged farts).

 

*Please ignore previous warnings about a “dead link” to our Summary page because the problem’s been manually fixed so that all postings since July 11, 2013 now have the proper functioning link.

If you’d rather contact Ken directly rather than leaving a comment here at the blog please 

use my email address of kenburke409@gmail.com—type it directly if the link doesn’t work.

           

OUR POSTINGS PROBABLY LOOK BEST ON THE MOST CURRENT VERSIONS OF MAC OS AND THE SAFARI WEB BROWSER (although Google Chrome usually is decent also); OTHERWISE, BE FOREWARNED THE LAYOUT MAY SEEM MESSY AT TIMES.

            

Finally, for the data-oriented among you, Google stats say over the past month the total unique hits at this site were 11,316.  (As always, we thank all of you for your ongoing support with hopes you’ll continue to be regular readers.)  Below is a snapshot of where those responses have come from within the previous week (appreciation for the unspecified “Others” also visiting Two Guys’ site):

The Map That Leads to You plus Short Takes on some other cinematic topics

Strangers on a Train … But Not for Long

Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke

I invite you to join me on a regular basis to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I’ll refer to as either the CCAL (Collective Critics At Large) if they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative.  However, due to COVID concerns I’m mostly addressing streaming options with limited visits to theaters, where I don’t think I’ve missed much anyway, but better options are on the horizon.  (Note: Anything in bold blue below [some may look near purple] is a link to something more in the review.)

My reviews’ premise: “You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”

(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the song’s name)

However, if you'd like to know more about rationale of my ratings you can visit this explanatory site.

          The Map That Leads to You (Lasse Hallström)

                                  rated PG-13   96 min.

Here’s the trailer:

        (Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge its size; 

        activate the same button or use “esc” keyboard key to return to normal.)

If you can abide plot spoilers read on, but this blog’s intended for those who’ve seen the film or want to save some $ (as well as recognizing those readers like me who just aren’t that tech-savvy).  To help any of you who want to learn more details yet avoid these all-important plot-reveals I’ll identify any give-away sentences/sentence-clusters with colors plus arrows: 

⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.

WHAT HAPPENS: Heather Mulgrew (Madelyn Cline), before taking a NYC banking job just out of college, goes off on a whirlwind 2-week European vacation with BBFs Amy (Madison Thompson) and Connie (Sofia Wylie).  On the train to Barcelona, Spain she meets New Zealander Jack (KJ Apa), they see they’re both reading Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises (1926), then he climbs up to the overhead storage to sleep.  Also on the train Amy meets Victor (Joseph Evans) who invites them to a nightclub, so Jack shows up too to meet Heather again, where they connect.  Next day Amy’s distressed; Victor took all her belongings, including passport and phone so the group (including Raef [Orlando Norman] with Connie) track him down for a quick retrieval.  Each woman goes on her merry way, with Heather convinced by Jack to delay her departure as he’ll come with her, but he gets calls from a clinic about test results so he suddenly leaves her distraught at the airport.  Upon returning to the U.S. she tries to contact him; however, there’s no reply, even as her father tries to console her about the sudden breakup.  ⇒Later, Heather and Amy return to Barcelona for Connie’s wedding to Raef, where the groom gives her a letter from Jack that he has cancer and didn’t want her to have to go through the suffering with him.  Nevertheless, based on Jack’s great-grandfather’s journal where he detailed his post-WW II travels, she goes to a dance festival in Santa Pau, Spain, where, of course, she reconnects with Jack, clearly determined to be with him even as we have no info on whether he’s finally going to be with her in NYC.  (Maybe there’s more on this closure in the novel the movie is adapted from by J.P. Monninger [2017]—we do at least get a statement about the “map” in the title, which refers to great-granddad’s journal which mysteriously brought these lovers together—nor will you get it in this summation of the novel's end, but if you don’t mind some ambiguity in your romance tales you can make up in your own mind what happens next for these 2 lovers, yet as you might choose to continue your trek down Spoilers Lane, here’s a Summary of 12 Notable Differences between book and movie.  Finally, if you want more movie plot details than I’ve given you here, you might want to consult this site for its Spoiler reveals.)⇐

SO WHAT? I suppose if you wanted an even-quicker version of this movie than its already-concise run-time you could further edit the trailer and put the images to Paul McCartney’s "Silly Love Songs" (on the 1976 Wings at the Speed of Sound album) because all it is is just the meet-cute of Heather and Jack, their instant romance, and how his situation will impact their future (although that remains ambiguous, so the emphasis almost-throughout is on the same type of “I love you” refrain repeated endlessly in this song.)  Or, if you want a variation on that theme I can also give you another McCartney tune on a couple of Beatles albums (U.K. Help!, U.S. Rubber Soul, both 1965), "I've Just Seen a Face" where the lines “I’ve just seen a face / I can’t forget the time or place / Where we just met / She’s just the girl for me / And I want all the world to see – we’ve met” also do a useful job of summing up most all in this movie, so if you want something more substantial (although the scenery in Spain and a bit of Rome is likely worth your time in and of itself) you should look elsewhere from The Map …; yet, if you’re yearning for some sweet alternative to the ongoing horrors occurring in the U.S. and around so much of the rest of the world (along with all of the vicious blaming by so many on any sides of these conflicts), then this wistful story might just be the brief relief that can help you face another of these ongoing dark days (although the OCCU certainly doesn’t agree, with more details on that in this review’s next section just below).  Maybe I’m easily satisfied with this slim movie because it quickly reminds me of how I met my marvelous wife, Nina, by chance (both of us separately trying to scalp tickets for the Paul Simon Graceland tour concert) well over 38 years ago, which also led to instant romance in our ongoing journey through life, where just like Heather and Jack we don’t know what comes next even as we’re ready to find out together.

BOTTOM LINE FINAL COMMENTS: The Map That Leads to You can be found via streaming where it’s free to Amazon Prime Video subscribers ($11.98 if you want to try it for a month), which I suggest you explore although the OCCU is collectively far from agreeing as the Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews are at a lowly 38% while the Metacritic average score is higher for a change but just at 48% (the former’s based on 37 reviews, the latter on 11, so you might check back some time to see if anything’s changed).  Not everyone is negative, though, as with Mae Abdulbaki of ScreenRant: “Director Lasse Hallström capably leads us on the couple’s journey, lovingly employing a good montage or two to shape the story and allow for the passage of time. Screenwriters Les Bohem and Vera Herbert’s dialogue is serviceable; nothing is over-the-top, but it can also come off as quite muted. […] It’s much better than some of the other romance films streaming has to offer, and with beautiful locations and a good cast, the Prime Video movie is worth a viewing.”  Still, the vast majority are more like Chris Azzopardi in The New York Times: “[It] continues the long tradition of easily forgotten romantic dramas propped up by unforgettable vacation backdrops. If you revere the quieter sparks in films like ‘Before Sunrise,’ the film’s ocean views may hold your gaze even in this CW-style imitation, which has more sheen than soul. […] The best love stories ask that question and earn their wisdom. This one hands it out on pretty postcards.”  (Oddly enough, while this was given a mere 40 score by the MC staff, it got a positive response from the RT deciders, so it may be difficult to know for sure how these critical-collective numbers actually verify anything.)  I suppose if Richard Linklater had chosen to shoot this story, with different characters than he’s used before, it might come out as something like Before Mid-Afternoon.  Well, what else can I say?  I did like the movie (as did Nina), so I’ll just close with a Musical Metaphor that, like the McCartney songs, easily sums up the plot, the Everly Brothers “Let It Be Me” (on compilation albums such as 1960’s The Fabulous Style of the Everly Brothers) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZYpa7u28WU&list=RDAZYpa7u28WU&start_radio=1: “Each time we meet, love / I find complete love / Without your sweet love / What would life be?” What indeed, for those of us lucky enough to have found our “eternal person.”  (My phrase!)

        

SHORT TAKES

                 

Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:

 

We encourage you to visit the Summary of Two Guys Reviews for our past posts* (scroll to the bottom of this Summary page to see additional info about your wacky critic, Ken Burke, along with contact info and a great retrospective song list).  Overall notations for this blog—including Internet formatting craziness beyond our control—may be found at our Two Guys in the Dark homepage.  If you’d like to Like us on Facebook (yes?) please visit our Facebook page.  We appreciate your support whenever and however you can offer it unto us!  Please also note that to Post a Comment below about our reviews you need to have either a Google account (which you can easily get at https://accounts.google.com/NewAccount if you need to sign up) or other sign-in identification from the pull-down menu below before you preview or post.  You can also leave comments at our Facebook page, although you may have to somehow register with us there in order to comment (FB procedures: frequently perplexing mysteries for us aged farts).

 

*Please ignore previous warnings about a “dead link” to our Summary page because the problem’s been manually fixed so that all postings since July 11, 2013 now have the proper functioning link.

 

If you’d rather contact Ken directly rather than leaving a comment here at the blog please 

use my email address of kenburke409@gmail.com—type it directly if the link doesn’t work.

           

OUR POSTINGS PROBABLY LOOK BEST ON THE MOST CURRENT VERSIONS OF MAC OS AND THE SAFARI WEB BROWSER (although Google Chrome usually is decent also); OTHERWISE, BE FOREWARNED THE LAYOUT MAY SEEM MESSY AT TIMES.

           

Finally, for the data-oriented among you, Google stats say over the past month the total unique hits at this site were 11,316.  (As always, we thank all of you for your ongoing support with hopes you’ll continue to be regular readers.)  Below is a snapshot of where those responses have come from within the previous week (appreciation for the unspecified “Others” also visiting Two Guys’ site):