Superman (2025)
I recently went to see Superman (2025), the latest adaptation of the super-powered son of Krypton. I was pleasantly surprised by the film, because it leaned into the optimism characteristic of classic Superman.
For those who don’t watch superhero movies or care about comic book characters, the Superman as portrayed in Zack Synder’s films (like Man of Steel and Batman vs Superman) was…kind of brutal. A killer, really. I mean, he wasn’t an outright villain, but he seemed to be more-or-less fine with killing people.
James Gunn’s Superman is different. He doesn’t kill people. He actively avoids killing people. The movie depicts Superman as trying to save people. Not just people: squirrels. There’s a scene where Superman goes out of his way to save a squirrel. I think this is Gunn’s clear way of repudiating the old superman, who wouldn’t take something like that serious.
Of course, the new Superman is problematic in other ways. They lean into the idea that he is an unintelligent guy with a heart of gold. Though I found it refreshing to have a character depicted as the optimistic kid’s hero that he actually is.
At some point, superhero films started to think they were something more than kid’s films. They were deep or profound or something. I think Synder’s The Watchmen might have kicked this off. But I think it has to stop, for philosophical reasons.
Sometimes we need sincerity. G. E. Moore is a philosopher of sincerity, to me. He says that he knows that there is an external world. The general philosophical community looks at Moore and asks: where’s the proof? But while Moore is criticized for not having proof, it would appear that many of us also assume that we know there is an external world. This is what Moore was getting at. You purport to not know things that you take yourself to know.
Gunn’s Superman is a true believer. He takes himself to know that there is something good to do, something good to believe in. The cynic says that Superman is naive. But I wonder if, in one’s heart of hearts, this is what the cynic believes.