Superman 2025: Gods & Monsters (Review)
Aug. 17th, 2025 11:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatMuch like The Fantastic Four film - I was on the fence about seeing this film. It had mixed reviews, and I didn't exactly love the last few Superman films I'd seen. Also, James Gunn's last cinematic effort, Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol III gave me a headache. (Although I'm thinking that may have been more of a Star Lord and Rocket issue than a Gunn issue.)
As you may or may not know, Superman 2025 is the eleventh Superman film in a long and winding series of films, dating back to 1948, with the most recent being Zack Snyder's highly controversial Man of Steel (2013). (That's not including all the television serials and animated films and serials.) Superman was originally created by two Jewish immigrants way back in 1938 - when fascism was on the rise in Europe, and Hitler was in the midst of persecuting the Jews. They created Superman as a sort of inspiring hero during those dark times, he was an immigrant to the US, an alien, who was kind and helped others no matter what. A beacon of hope.
I've seen various people in comics and in film try to do a more nihilistic take on the character of Superman or a nihilistic commentary on the character - and it never quite works for me. I understand the desire to do it - and why a lot of folks don't like the original version, but Superman at his core is a hopeful character and a kind one. What lies at the center of the Superman story, at its very core, is hope. Get away from that - you lose the story. If you veer too far away from that - you are kind of losing who the character is and why, which is what happened with the previous take on the character, and why Gunn for the most part wisely goes back to the source material and the Salkind's version. It's worth noting that Gunn cleverly references both Salkind's take on Superman and Snyder's. Snyder's science fiction take, and version of Lex is kind of melded with Salkind's.
Superman 2025 directed by James Gunn, written by James Gunn, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster - is the first film in James Gunn's Gods and Monsters arc for DC's rebooted film verse. Clocking in at just over two hours, it clicks by at a good pace, and I didn't notice the time fly by, but, there are one or two fight scenes I'd have trimmed, but I feel that way about most action films.
It's important to note that unlike all the previous films, with the exception of sequels, this does not start with Superman's origin story. It starts in the middle of story - Superman has lost a major battle, his first, the film tells us why and what later on. A lot of action happens before the film even begins. We're in the middle of it and it works, because we've all seen the origin tale multiple times, over twenty to be exact, so it's not really needed. They refer to it, we're told what it is, so in case you were hiding under the proverbial rock for the last 80 years, you know.
Unlike the Fantastic Four Film - this film is harder to discuss without substantive spoilers. I tried, I gave up.
Does Gunn stick to the core of Superman, yes, but at the same time like his predecessors, he does comment on it, and along the way comments on what it means to be human. He also, unlike Snyder, has a sense of humor. The film is littered with clever witticisms, one-liners, and self-deprecating mockery. Gunn never takes himself or his material too seriously, yet at the same time? It's clear he loves it to pieces and feels the need to honor it. Superman 2025, as a result never falls into parody.
Sample exchange:
Lois has gone to get help from the Justice Gang (working title according to everyone but Guy Gardner) in their headquarters - which appears to be an old train station.
Guy Gardner: So how do you even know about Superman anyway?
Lois: I just do.
Guy: So you know about the hypno glasses?
Hawkgirl: Now she does.
Guy: I'm not saying she does - he wears hypno glasses, Terrific how do they work, they make his face look different in your brain so you don't know who he is.
Lois: Yes, I know this, first of all - and you really shouldn't be telling me this just in case I don't know who he is.
Guy: so, you know he's Clark Kent then?
Lois: Oh my god, why does he trust everyone?
Guy: He doesn't. He just trusts us because we are also of the cloth.
Lois: Of the cloth???
In that exchange - Gunn explains how people can't tell Clark is Superman and vice versa - and it's a rather clever explanation, without being campy, and both plays homage to the character and makes fun of the comic book origins at the same time. The director/writer also gets across various characters without a lot of unnecessary visual exposition. It's quick, it's funny, and we know in a nutshell what Superman's relationship is with everyone.
Is Superman a God or a Monster? Neither, both, but mainly human and struggling to be a kind person who helps others in a difficult world. He doesn't go in the directions that Salkind and Snyder go, in Salkind's 1978 film, Superman screws up by turning back time to save Lois. (Showing that he has massive powers that can literally destroy our world, also in that version - Lois is firmly in the damsel role. He's constantly saving Lois from herself.). In Snyder's 2013 film, Man of Steel, Superman devastates a city and kills people, fighting people from his own world. And is a lonely discontent, who is in a relationship with Lois Lane, who seems, in later films, to be the only one who can pull him out of violent rages. Snyder's films question the character and look at him much from the perspective of Lex Luther and Batman, as a threat or potential menace, who can save us, but also destroy us without thinking. In Snyder's take - Superman is an attractive, potential monster, barely kept in check.
Here, in Superman 2025, Superman interferes in a political crisis, attempting to save a disenfranchised country from the invasion of a richer tyrannical one. (It could be a political reference to Gaza or the Ukraine, I'm leaning towards the Ukraine - the Boravian President sounds a bit too much like Putin. Subtle, Gunn is not.). This is a rather controversial sticking point for a lot of reviewers. It happens off screen for the most part, and before the film starts, but we see a wee bit too much of the Borovian President, and it comes up again at the end of the movie. People have said that the conflict is a bit too clear cut for their liking. But it didn't bother me. It's important, because it provides the principle conflict between Superman and Lois, and to a smaller degree the Justice Gang, who disagree with his interference. It also provides Lois and the Daily Planet with the means to effectively take down Lex, who is doing a side deal with Boravia, in return for the nation state Superman is defending. Lex apparently wants to become King. ( While it's far from subtle, I didn't mind it - and there's enough going on in the film that it really doesn't stand out that much in my opinion.)
Instead retreading Snyder's ground with Batman and Wonder Woman and Aquaman, Gunn goes another route, and brings in lesser know characters from various eras of DC comics. Much of the humor comes from interactions with these characters. The Justice Gang, one of the many precursors of The Justice League, including Hawkgirl, Guy Gardner, and Mr. Terrific. The Engineer from the Authority, and General Flagg. He also brings in all the people from The Daily Planet. I felt all the characters worked.
I didn't have the issues a lot of reviewers had with Hawkgirl. She comes on, she kicks ass, she leaves, also snarks at Gardner, who frankly deserves it. There's really no time for anything else. It's not her movie, it's Superman's. Gardner works and fits the character as does Mr. Terrific, who manages to highlight the flaws in Lex's egotistical endeavors. Lex comes up with a pocket verse - to imprison folks and conduct convert experiments and meetings. Mr. Terrific points out how colossally stupid this truly is - since you can either end up with a black hole, or a serious rip in the fabric of reality. Being no stranger to sci-fi, Gunn has a lot of fun with the pocket universe, which looks alarmingly in places like Zack Snyder's Superman films and the apocalyptic verse of The Flash.
Gunn also does something surprising with Superman's Kryptonian heritage, which places him in mortal danger, turns the world against him, and ultimately reinforces the message that it's not what or where we come from that defines us, but what we choose to become, which story we choose to believe and follow, and our actions in between. The story is also bracketed with which message or story that Superman finds comforting from his parents. In the beginning of the film it's the message in Kryptonian, which loosely translated means they love him, he's their gift from the Gods, and they sent him to earth to save him. But a portion of the message is garbled. Lex manages to obtain the message, retrieve all the bits and pieces, and translate all of it - including the garbled portion. The garbled portion states that the parents intended to send Superman to Earth to conquer and rule it. This actually is in keeping with the source material, in later comics, it's revealed that Superman's parents were rulers on Krypton and saw their son as being one too. Superman, however, landed in Kansas and was raised by unassuming and kind farm folk, who just loved him. The film-makers contrast the two parents, by casting Bradley Cooper in the role of the biological father, and lesser known character actor Pruitt Taylor Vince as Jonathon Kent. It's a bold move, but it captures the distinctions between the two men well, without having to say too much. When Clark discusses his biological parents with Jonathon Kent, and worries that he's not what he thought he was - Jonathon wisely states that biology doesn't dictate who he is or will become. One is not one's parents or one's upbringing, we choose who we will become. At the end of the film, the message played by the robots taking care of Superman, and repairing him, is a reel of his upbringing in Kansas, with his adoptive human parents and his childhood, not the parents he never knew.
This rather works in regards to both theme and character, it also works with the world-building. And honors the source material from later years.
Overall, women are far better utilized in this film than prior ones - which says a lot about Gunn as a director and writer. His other films also utilized women rather well - both the Guardian flicks and Suicide Squad.
Lois for the first time - is shown as apt investigative reporter, and manages to save Superman. She's not the damsel or the tool that Lex uses to take him down - no, that's his dog and well a man who helped him. Lex clearly has no clue Lois exists, which is a clever move by Gunn. Superman is a bit brighter in this film than he was in previous entries - in how he expertly keeps his relationship with Lois under the radar. Even Lex's seemingly idiotic girlfriend, manages to outsmart him, by taking sexy selfies in front of critical and top secret information and sending them to Jimmy Olsen. (I rather liked the joke - how in the hell does Jimmy pick up these girls? And Olsen as being a rather decent reporter in his own right, and well aware of the Lois/Superman relationship worked for me as well. Gunn gave him just enough room that we knew who Jimmy was, what his relationship to Lois and Clark/Superman was, and how he benefited the story.) In addition to Lois and Eve, we have The Engineer, the ridiculous reporter Cat (who is the only character I didn't understand the point of and could have done without, unless of course it was to give Lois a friend?), and Hawkgirl. The Engineer - I found a touch annoying, but she is a force to be reckoned with. She's after Superman because she fears what he represents. Hawkgirl, worked better for me than Cat or the Engineer and felt a touch more developed, she's not human, she is tolerating Guy, and seems perpetually bored.
Gunn also uses the same actors a lot - Pruitt, Cooper, Scean Gunn - all make cameos. There are a lot of characters is this film but that's true of most of Gunn's movies and for the most part, it worked for me. I didn't find it nearly as busy or cluttered as feared, and I rather loved having most of them along. (I'd have dumped Cat and possibly Perry White, who comes in a the end in a kind of cameo.) There are a lot of cameos or brief bits - Peace Maker pops up, as does Perry White played by The Wire's Wendall Pierce.
The story does lend itself to sequels or provides enough room for them. And Gunn manages to successfully broaden the universe a bit. Supergirl shows up at the end, uncredited, to retrieve her dog - apparently Krypton is her dog, not Superman's, which explains a lot. She goes to various red son planets to party, because she can't get drunk on a planet with a yellow son. Gunn cleverly drops a lot of information in the film, in a series of witty one-liners. That's just another example.
Yes, there are two after the credits closers - neither tell us very much, one is a joke, the other is a nice credits ender. It's not worth going through all the credits for the second one.
Final bits to note:
The music. James Gunn utilizes music in his films better than most.
David Fleming remasters John Williams classic score, and Gunn utilizes Salkind's original 3D colorful credits, and adds in his own punk rock and classic rock hits. Instead going with the far darker and somewhat grim score of the Hans Zimmer in the Snyder films, Gunn goes back to the uplifting melodious score of the original, just slightly subdued, and without the romantic chords. And adds to it a mix of established songs, and songs created for the film. Standouts include:
Punkrocker by the Teddy Bears and Iggy Pop, which is Lois's theme song. There's an exchange between Lois and Clark, about how she's a punkrocker, and he's not, and he starts listing off bands that she considers more pop than punk rock. It's a clever exchange and gets across a lot about the characters.
Another song is written by James Gunn and is sung by the fictional band the Mighty Crabjoys, which is created for the film by Gunn. (Now that's detailed world building.) The Mighty Crabjoys Theme Song.
There's also: 5 Years Time by Noah and the Whale and Bring Me Sunshine by Sophie Madeline.
The special effects: clunky in places, excellent in others. The dog as far as I can tell is a mixture of CGJ and special effects. And brought to brilliant life. Not so much the various alien creatures that seem a tad clunky and fake? Metamorpho was a bit silly looking, as was Metamorpho's kid. Although the character was interesting. The pocket verse seemed to be an unintentional commentary on the Snyderverse? I didn't mind, and I may well be the only person who noticed. I did however like the robots better than expected, voiced by Alan Tydke (who is making a living voicing and portraying robots, droids, and aliens). Tydke is giving Mark Hamil a run for his money in vocal acting department. Also this film has both Nathan Fillion and Tydke in it, even though they never meet. The others are voiced by Grace Chan and Michael Rooker (who is another Gunn actor, used repeatedly in his films). The pocket verse had funky CGI, which may or may not have worked better on the big screen.
All that aside? I loved the movie. It kept to the core values of the source material, and the original intent of the writers. The filmmakers told their story with just the right amount of humor, and humility. And it put a smile on my face. Lifted my spirits. And gave me hope.
After watching it, I had an overwhelming urge to break into a jig and cheer, instead I just posted online that I loved it to little bitty pieces. I enjoyed it so much, that I've watched it twice now. And will most likely down load the soundtrack to listen to - tomorrow at work.
It also taught me a valuable lesson - be careful with reviews or read them with discretion. Many of the reviews I read turned me off of the film - leading me to believe, erroneously so, that it was too busy, head-ache inducing, with a low-brow and crude sense of humor. This couldn't be further from the truth. I don't know what film they saw? But it wasn't the same film I saw - and I've watched it twice now.
Reviewers, myself included, are human and tend to critique the film through their own lens. We often tell a story with an agenda in mind, either hidden or overt, and that includes reviews. I've learned, the hard way, not to determine what to watch, read or listen to based solely on someone else's view of it. More often than not, I have to see it for myself. We never see the same films as others do, because we see them filtered through our own mind and baggage. And more often than not, we only see what we want to see.
As you may or may not know, Superman 2025 is the eleventh Superman film in a long and winding series of films, dating back to 1948, with the most recent being Zack Snyder's highly controversial Man of Steel (2013). (That's not including all the television serials and animated films and serials.) Superman was originally created by two Jewish immigrants way back in 1938 - when fascism was on the rise in Europe, and Hitler was in the midst of persecuting the Jews. They created Superman as a sort of inspiring hero during those dark times, he was an immigrant to the US, an alien, who was kind and helped others no matter what. A beacon of hope.
I've seen various people in comics and in film try to do a more nihilistic take on the character of Superman or a nihilistic commentary on the character - and it never quite works for me. I understand the desire to do it - and why a lot of folks don't like the original version, but Superman at his core is a hopeful character and a kind one. What lies at the center of the Superman story, at its very core, is hope. Get away from that - you lose the story. If you veer too far away from that - you are kind of losing who the character is and why, which is what happened with the previous take on the character, and why Gunn for the most part wisely goes back to the source material and the Salkind's version. It's worth noting that Gunn cleverly references both Salkind's take on Superman and Snyder's. Snyder's science fiction take, and version of Lex is kind of melded with Salkind's.
Superman 2025 directed by James Gunn, written by James Gunn, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster - is the first film in James Gunn's Gods and Monsters arc for DC's rebooted film verse. Clocking in at just over two hours, it clicks by at a good pace, and I didn't notice the time fly by, but, there are one or two fight scenes I'd have trimmed, but I feel that way about most action films.
It's important to note that unlike all the previous films, with the exception of sequels, this does not start with Superman's origin story. It starts in the middle of story - Superman has lost a major battle, his first, the film tells us why and what later on. A lot of action happens before the film even begins. We're in the middle of it and it works, because we've all seen the origin tale multiple times, over twenty to be exact, so it's not really needed. They refer to it, we're told what it is, so in case you were hiding under the proverbial rock for the last 80 years, you know.
Unlike the Fantastic Four Film - this film is harder to discuss without substantive spoilers. I tried, I gave up.
Does Gunn stick to the core of Superman, yes, but at the same time like his predecessors, he does comment on it, and along the way comments on what it means to be human. He also, unlike Snyder, has a sense of humor. The film is littered with clever witticisms, one-liners, and self-deprecating mockery. Gunn never takes himself or his material too seriously, yet at the same time? It's clear he loves it to pieces and feels the need to honor it. Superman 2025, as a result never falls into parody.
Sample exchange:
Lois has gone to get help from the Justice Gang (working title according to everyone but Guy Gardner) in their headquarters - which appears to be an old train station.
Guy Gardner: So how do you even know about Superman anyway?
Lois: I just do.
Guy: So you know about the hypno glasses?
Hawkgirl: Now she does.
Guy: I'm not saying she does - he wears hypno glasses, Terrific how do they work, they make his face look different in your brain so you don't know who he is.
Lois: Yes, I know this, first of all - and you really shouldn't be telling me this just in case I don't know who he is.
Guy: so, you know he's Clark Kent then?
Lois: Oh my god, why does he trust everyone?
Guy: He doesn't. He just trusts us because we are also of the cloth.
Lois: Of the cloth???
In that exchange - Gunn explains how people can't tell Clark is Superman and vice versa - and it's a rather clever explanation, without being campy, and both plays homage to the character and makes fun of the comic book origins at the same time. The director/writer also gets across various characters without a lot of unnecessary visual exposition. It's quick, it's funny, and we know in a nutshell what Superman's relationship is with everyone.
Is Superman a God or a Monster? Neither, both, but mainly human and struggling to be a kind person who helps others in a difficult world. He doesn't go in the directions that Salkind and Snyder go, in Salkind's 1978 film, Superman screws up by turning back time to save Lois. (Showing that he has massive powers that can literally destroy our world, also in that version - Lois is firmly in the damsel role. He's constantly saving Lois from herself.). In Snyder's 2013 film, Man of Steel, Superman devastates a city and kills people, fighting people from his own world. And is a lonely discontent, who is in a relationship with Lois Lane, who seems, in later films, to be the only one who can pull him out of violent rages. Snyder's films question the character and look at him much from the perspective of Lex Luther and Batman, as a threat or potential menace, who can save us, but also destroy us without thinking. In Snyder's take - Superman is an attractive, potential monster, barely kept in check.
Here, in Superman 2025, Superman interferes in a political crisis, attempting to save a disenfranchised country from the invasion of a richer tyrannical one. (It could be a political reference to Gaza or the Ukraine, I'm leaning towards the Ukraine - the Boravian President sounds a bit too much like Putin. Subtle, Gunn is not.). This is a rather controversial sticking point for a lot of reviewers. It happens off screen for the most part, and before the film starts, but we see a wee bit too much of the Borovian President, and it comes up again at the end of the movie. People have said that the conflict is a bit too clear cut for their liking. But it didn't bother me. It's important, because it provides the principle conflict between Superman and Lois, and to a smaller degree the Justice Gang, who disagree with his interference. It also provides Lois and the Daily Planet with the means to effectively take down Lex, who is doing a side deal with Boravia, in return for the nation state Superman is defending. Lex apparently wants to become King. ( While it's far from subtle, I didn't mind it - and there's enough going on in the film that it really doesn't stand out that much in my opinion.)
Instead retreading Snyder's ground with Batman and Wonder Woman and Aquaman, Gunn goes another route, and brings in lesser know characters from various eras of DC comics. Much of the humor comes from interactions with these characters. The Justice Gang, one of the many precursors of The Justice League, including Hawkgirl, Guy Gardner, and Mr. Terrific. The Engineer from the Authority, and General Flagg. He also brings in all the people from The Daily Planet. I felt all the characters worked.
I didn't have the issues a lot of reviewers had with Hawkgirl. She comes on, she kicks ass, she leaves, also snarks at Gardner, who frankly deserves it. There's really no time for anything else. It's not her movie, it's Superman's. Gardner works and fits the character as does Mr. Terrific, who manages to highlight the flaws in Lex's egotistical endeavors. Lex comes up with a pocket verse - to imprison folks and conduct convert experiments and meetings. Mr. Terrific points out how colossally stupid this truly is - since you can either end up with a black hole, or a serious rip in the fabric of reality. Being no stranger to sci-fi, Gunn has a lot of fun with the pocket universe, which looks alarmingly in places like Zack Snyder's Superman films and the apocalyptic verse of The Flash.
Gunn also does something surprising with Superman's Kryptonian heritage, which places him in mortal danger, turns the world against him, and ultimately reinforces the message that it's not what or where we come from that defines us, but what we choose to become, which story we choose to believe and follow, and our actions in between. The story is also bracketed with which message or story that Superman finds comforting from his parents. In the beginning of the film it's the message in Kryptonian, which loosely translated means they love him, he's their gift from the Gods, and they sent him to earth to save him. But a portion of the message is garbled. Lex manages to obtain the message, retrieve all the bits and pieces, and translate all of it - including the garbled portion. The garbled portion states that the parents intended to send Superman to Earth to conquer and rule it. This actually is in keeping with the source material, in later comics, it's revealed that Superman's parents were rulers on Krypton and saw their son as being one too. Superman, however, landed in Kansas and was raised by unassuming and kind farm folk, who just loved him. The film-makers contrast the two parents, by casting Bradley Cooper in the role of the biological father, and lesser known character actor Pruitt Taylor Vince as Jonathon Kent. It's a bold move, but it captures the distinctions between the two men well, without having to say too much. When Clark discusses his biological parents with Jonathon Kent, and worries that he's not what he thought he was - Jonathon wisely states that biology doesn't dictate who he is or will become. One is not one's parents or one's upbringing, we choose who we will become. At the end of the film, the message played by the robots taking care of Superman, and repairing him, is a reel of his upbringing in Kansas, with his adoptive human parents and his childhood, not the parents he never knew.
This rather works in regards to both theme and character, it also works with the world-building. And honors the source material from later years.
Overall, women are far better utilized in this film than prior ones - which says a lot about Gunn as a director and writer. His other films also utilized women rather well - both the Guardian flicks and Suicide Squad.
Lois for the first time - is shown as apt investigative reporter, and manages to save Superman. She's not the damsel or the tool that Lex uses to take him down - no, that's his dog and well a man who helped him. Lex clearly has no clue Lois exists, which is a clever move by Gunn. Superman is a bit brighter in this film than he was in previous entries - in how he expertly keeps his relationship with Lois under the radar. Even Lex's seemingly idiotic girlfriend, manages to outsmart him, by taking sexy selfies in front of critical and top secret information and sending them to Jimmy Olsen. (I rather liked the joke - how in the hell does Jimmy pick up these girls? And Olsen as being a rather decent reporter in his own right, and well aware of the Lois/Superman relationship worked for me as well. Gunn gave him just enough room that we knew who Jimmy was, what his relationship to Lois and Clark/Superman was, and how he benefited the story.) In addition to Lois and Eve, we have The Engineer, the ridiculous reporter Cat (who is the only character I didn't understand the point of and could have done without, unless of course it was to give Lois a friend?), and Hawkgirl. The Engineer - I found a touch annoying, but she is a force to be reckoned with. She's after Superman because she fears what he represents. Hawkgirl, worked better for me than Cat or the Engineer and felt a touch more developed, she's not human, she is tolerating Guy, and seems perpetually bored.
Gunn also uses the same actors a lot - Pruitt, Cooper, Scean Gunn - all make cameos. There are a lot of characters is this film but that's true of most of Gunn's movies and for the most part, it worked for me. I didn't find it nearly as busy or cluttered as feared, and I rather loved having most of them along. (I'd have dumped Cat and possibly Perry White, who comes in a the end in a kind of cameo.) There are a lot of cameos or brief bits - Peace Maker pops up, as does Perry White played by The Wire's Wendall Pierce.
The story does lend itself to sequels or provides enough room for them. And Gunn manages to successfully broaden the universe a bit. Supergirl shows up at the end, uncredited, to retrieve her dog - apparently Krypton is her dog, not Superman's, which explains a lot. She goes to various red son planets to party, because she can't get drunk on a planet with a yellow son. Gunn cleverly drops a lot of information in the film, in a series of witty one-liners. That's just another example.
Yes, there are two after the credits closers - neither tell us very much, one is a joke, the other is a nice credits ender. It's not worth going through all the credits for the second one.
Final bits to note:
The music. James Gunn utilizes music in his films better than most.
David Fleming remasters John Williams classic score, and Gunn utilizes Salkind's original 3D colorful credits, and adds in his own punk rock and classic rock hits. Instead going with the far darker and somewhat grim score of the Hans Zimmer in the Snyder films, Gunn goes back to the uplifting melodious score of the original, just slightly subdued, and without the romantic chords. And adds to it a mix of established songs, and songs created for the film. Standouts include:
Punkrocker by the Teddy Bears and Iggy Pop, which is Lois's theme song. There's an exchange between Lois and Clark, about how she's a punkrocker, and he's not, and he starts listing off bands that she considers more pop than punk rock. It's a clever exchange and gets across a lot about the characters.
Another song is written by James Gunn and is sung by the fictional band the Mighty Crabjoys, which is created for the film by Gunn. (Now that's detailed world building.) The Mighty Crabjoys Theme Song.
There's also: 5 Years Time by Noah and the Whale and Bring Me Sunshine by Sophie Madeline.
The special effects: clunky in places, excellent in others. The dog as far as I can tell is a mixture of CGJ and special effects. And brought to brilliant life. Not so much the various alien creatures that seem a tad clunky and fake? Metamorpho was a bit silly looking, as was Metamorpho's kid. Although the character was interesting. The pocket verse seemed to be an unintentional commentary on the Snyderverse? I didn't mind, and I may well be the only person who noticed. I did however like the robots better than expected, voiced by Alan Tydke (who is making a living voicing and portraying robots, droids, and aliens). Tydke is giving Mark Hamil a run for his money in vocal acting department. Also this film has both Nathan Fillion and Tydke in it, even though they never meet. The others are voiced by Grace Chan and Michael Rooker (who is another Gunn actor, used repeatedly in his films). The pocket verse had funky CGI, which may or may not have worked better on the big screen.
All that aside? I loved the movie. It kept to the core values of the source material, and the original intent of the writers. The filmmakers told their story with just the right amount of humor, and humility. And it put a smile on my face. Lifted my spirits. And gave me hope.
After watching it, I had an overwhelming urge to break into a jig and cheer, instead I just posted online that I loved it to little bitty pieces. I enjoyed it so much, that I've watched it twice now. And will most likely down load the soundtrack to listen to - tomorrow at work.
It also taught me a valuable lesson - be careful with reviews or read them with discretion. Many of the reviews I read turned me off of the film - leading me to believe, erroneously so, that it was too busy, head-ache inducing, with a low-brow and crude sense of humor. This couldn't be further from the truth. I don't know what film they saw? But it wasn't the same film I saw - and I've watched it twice now.
Reviewers, myself included, are human and tend to critique the film through their own lens. We often tell a story with an agenda in mind, either hidden or overt, and that includes reviews. I've learned, the hard way, not to determine what to watch, read or listen to based solely on someone else's view of it. More often than not, I have to see it for myself. We never see the same films as others do, because we see them filtered through our own mind and baggage. And more often than not, we only see what we want to see.
no subject
Date: 2025-08-21 12:40 am (UTC)