After his success with his Guardians of The Galaxy film it must have seemed a no brainer for Warners to sign up Guardians writer/director James Gunn. Their DC superhero franchise was in terminal decline and Gunn seemed like a safe pair of hands.

With great excitement Warners announced that the virtually unknown David Corenswet would wear the famous cape belonging to Superman and since then we’ve had extended teaser clips, mostly involving a certain dog, and numerous trailers, all of which have added to the pre-release hype.

I’ve been lucky enough to have seen Superman twice, the first time I thought that under Gunn the DC franchise was in safe hands. Filled with plenty of action, new characters and something that that’s been missing from most of the DC films, a sense of humour. Sadly, a second viewing only shows up that Gunns film is pretty much all smoke and mirrors, CGI smoke and mirrors that is. The plot is wafer thin, you’re bombarded with CGI fights for a large part of the running time and Corenswet is one of the weakest actors to have donned the famous red cape. He looks the part but lacks the charisma and onscreen chemistry that Christopher Reeves and Henry Cavill brought to the role. It’s never a good sign when a CGI dog steals just abought every scene it’s in.

Gunn’s Superman pretty much does away with any origin story instead trusting that the audience will know enough about Superman to jump straight into the action.

We first meet Superman after he has just been beaten in battle, for the first time, by a giant robot. This comes after he has interfered in a war between two fictional countries called Boravia/Jarhanpur. An intervention that leads to global suspicion as to the real reason for Superman’s presence on earth.

Seeing a chance to bring Superman down, his evil bald nemesis Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult, he’s no Gene Hackman but at least he’s better than Jesse Eisenberg), sets some genetically enhanced soldiers on Superman. Luthor eventually sends him to sort of prison in some alternative universe. Trapped and losing his powers due to Luthor’s use of kryptonite it’s then left to Lois Lane (Rachel Brosnahan) and the Justice Gang, made up of Green Lantern (Nathan Fillion) and Mr Terriifc (Edi Gathegi) and Hawkgirl (Isabela Merced) to try and save the day.

With its comedic sidekicks and over use of one liners you can’t help but get the feeling, when viewing Superman, that Gunn has leaned heavily on Suicide Squad (2021) which he also wrote and directed.

Superman is by no means a bad film. It’s just one that doesn’t stand up to too much scrutiny. As a couple of hours entertainment, it just about hits the spot. Just don’t go expecting anything deep and meaningful and you won’t be disappointed.